10 Movies You Wish Were Made Differently

By the time the fourth Terminator movie was in production, fans had long been clamouring for a film which fully explored the future war between the human resistance and Skynet, and Terminator Salvation seemed primed to finally deliver that movie.

Yet even with Christian Bale cast as John Connor, Salvation turned out a frustratingly bland post-apocalyptic sci-fi action flick which barely felt like an actual Terminator movie.

Both stylistically and tonally, the film is just completely beige and unremarkable: the visuals are aggressively washed-out and bear little resemblance to the more colourful, neon-soaked mayhem of the future battles depicted in the first two Terminator movies.

But perhaps Salvation's real issue is that it's just so humourless. Nobody's saying that a movie focused on a near-extinct human race needs to be a laugh riot, but the first two movies included just enough gallows humour to offset the intensity of their chase film narratives.

Conversely, Salvation was self-serious to the point of misery, lacking almost all situational levity and possibly even making fans miss the goofy stylings of the contentious third film.

And finally, the perfunctory inclusion of a CGI Arnold Schwarzenegger in the third act left a sour taste with many.

Had the future war itself been better executed, most fans probably would've been fine with the T-800 being retired, and the series could've finally freed itself of its self-imposed obligation to include Arnie in every single movie.

Instead, Salvation landed with a thud, yet was just the first of three bungled attempts to kick-start a new Terminator trilogy.