How Do You Get a Busy Governor to Appear in a Terminator Movie?

Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger of California is the first terminator robot in the Terminator movie series. If there's no scowling face of Arnold, then a terminator movie doesn't really cut it. It would be like making an Elvis movie with only Elvis impersonators to see. Director McG of Terminator: Salvation knew this, so he had to think of a way to get Governor Schwarzenneger into the picture even when the governor himself said he's too busy with governorship to make a cameo appearance.

So what does McG do? Celebrity news had it that he got another bodybuilder with a body that kind of looks kind of like that of Schwarzenneger's in the 1980s His name is Roland Kickinger and he's also Austrian. The Movie Catcher blog had his face pasted on Arnold's as Conan the Barbarian (left) and the effect is amazing - a less glum barbarian! There's also news about a body cast of Arnold's used to recreate his old winning form digitally.

So in Terminator: Salvation, it's either McG places a computer-generated image of Arnold's face over Kickinger's body or he uses a body-cast recreation. Yes, the picture on top shows the results of this merger of human and computer-technology and it's amazing since it appears in a movie about cyborgs!

You can judge for yourself how realistic Arnold's face is in the movie (above and top left). It's supposed to look like how he appeard way back when he was cast in the first Terminator, although his hair appears to look up-to-date. Remember the scenes in the first movie where the terminator operates on his own eye? That was a mechanical special effect using a dummy (left). Now, it's in CG along with the use of another bodybuilder's body - Kickinger's.



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Some Secrets in Making a Terminator Movie Robot Look Real Revealed

Terminator: Salvation director, McG had a few things to say about how he makes the post-apocalyptic world of the possible future realistic. In the official blog of the Terminator: Salvation movie, Visual Effects supervisor Charles Gibson revealed that McG combined science-fiction, horror, and action seamlessly in the movie using such techniques as brisk camerawork. For his part, Gibson said the challenge was to "bury the effects into the photography."

Gibson's words may be a bit vague but it may be his way of saying that the special effects (whether computer-generated or mechanical) are supposed to be unnoticed in the presentation. That aside, there's also the need to make things believable such that the elements in the movie, whether flesh-covered robot or flying killer machines, are seen as plausible. The video above gives some hints as to how a Terminator movie robot is made to look real.

The original design of the terminators was from Stan Winston, who passed away in June 15, 2008. He made a cameo appearance in Terminator: Salvation as a resistance fighter who encounters a hydrobot, one of his creations.

Do you wish to be a Terminator? Then get this voice-changing Terminator: Salvation helmet and Terminator mechanical-action vibrating arm! They're chrome-plated and chockful of terminator technology action! Just click on the pictures to order.


Dare do you own terminator special make up effects on yourself!


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Terminator: Salvation Trailer Hidden Subliminal Cues Revealed

Much of the visuals of the Terminator movie series are meant to be realistic. After all, they are really a reflection of what we fear could happen to the world - or what is happening right now - no matter how distant the events are from our homes, where we feel safe and secure.

Television, and the news we watch in it, are our only connection to dire events like the wars and suffering that are part of the life of other people, who may be at the other side of the world. Such happenings are, for the most part, beyond us but the news makes it real for us.

Interestingly, the trailer of Terminator: Salvation seems to attempt to give this sensation of realism or relates the visuals of destruction and violence against humans and nature real through a subliminal message using a word, flashed for a fraction of a second in between teaser scenes interspersed with static effects. Viewers will not see it, but the theory is that the mind still sees and interprets it - giving a sense of reality to make-believe scenes - if you can believe that stuff.

Here are the stills where you can discern the hidden word. Can you read it?





































This last one is an enigma. What do you see in the static snow?










Watch the teaser here

In memory of Stan Winston
Terminator: Salvation is made in remembrance of special effects wizard, Stan Winston, who passed away this June while doing work for the movie. Winston was the one who designed the original Terminator "skeleton" of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Read the remarks of director McG about Winston in his post in the Terminator: Salvation blog,



















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