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Description
Lets continue the Terminator series with the entry that alters the timeline, and John Conner's fate.

In 2029, Human Resistance leader John Connor launches a final offensive against Skynet, an artificial general intelligence system. Just before the resistance triumphs and destroys Skynet's system core, Skynet activates a time machine and sends a T-800 Model 101 Terminator back to May 12, 1984, to kill John's mother Sarah. John's right-hand man, Kyle Reese, volunteers to travel back in time to protect her. As Kyle floats in the machine's magnetic field, he sees John being attacked by another Resistance soldier. This alters the timeline and causes Kyle to experience childhood memories from an alternate version of himself. When it arrives in Los Angeles 1984, Skynet's T-800 is disabled by Sarah and another T-800 Terminator, which was reprogrammed by an unknown party and sent to 1973 to protect Sarah when she was nine years old, after her parents were killed by a T-1000. When Kyle arrives in 1984, he learns that the timeline has been altered. Kyle is intercepted by the T-1000, disguised as a policeman. Sarah and the Terminator rescue Kyle and lure the T-1000 to their base, where they destroy it with acid. Sarah and the Terminator have constructed a makeshift time machine similar to Skynet's, using Skynet's T-800's chip to activate it, and Sarah plans to stop Skynet by traveling to 1997, the year it becomes self-aware. However, Kyle is convinced that the future has changed because of a message he received in his childhood vision, and he persuades Sarah to travel instead to 2017 to stop Skynet. In 2017, Kyle and Sarah materialize in the middle of a busy San Francisco highway and are apprehended by city police. While they are treated for injuries, Sarah and Kyle learn that Skynet is now "Genisys", a soon-to-be-unveiled global operating system which is embraced by the public. Now the group has to prevent Genisys from being activated, and stop the war.

Pros:
1. Sarah, Kyle, and Pops(the T-800) are decent protagonists.
2. There are a few decent action scenes.
3. The music by Lorne Balfe is well composed.
4. The designs of the T-800, T-1000, and T-3000 are well crafted.
5. The special effects are well done.
6. There are a few funny moments from Arnold.
7. The recreation of the opening bits from the first film are very well made.
8. O'Brien is an alright minor character.

Cons:
1. The writing is a complete mess, and greatly derails the story arc of the series, has lots of plot-holes, and focuses and establishing sequels rather than it's own story. Not to mention it's also a rehash of the first two films.
2. Turning John into a villainous Terminator was already pretty questionable, and having it spoiled in the trailers made it worse. On top of that, he's a pretty bland villain.
3. With the exception of Arnold and J.K. Simmons, everyone else's acting is mediocre.
4. Some of the action is underwhelming.
5. Pointless use of the T-1000.
6. There are several boring moments.

Overall:
Despite it being entertaining for the most part, this is hands down the worst entry in the series.

Rating:
4/10 (Bad)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. Although Terminator Salvation was intended to begin a new trilogy, the production of a fifth film was put on hold because of legal issues with franchise owner the Halcyon Company (which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2009). To avoid bankruptcy, Halcyon later decided to sell the rights to the franchise and valued the property at $70 million. On February 8, 2010, the franchise was auctioned for $29.5 million to Pacificor, a hedge fund which was the largest creditor in Halcyon's bankruptcy proceedings. The deal erased Halcyon's debts to Pacificor and guaranteed Halcyon $5 million for each additional Terminator sequel produced, to pay other outstanding debts. Pacificor sold the franchise again in May 2010.
2. In August of that year, Hannover House announced plans to develop a 3D animated film titled Terminator 3000. Pacificor responded with a cease and desist letter, declining a $20–30 million offer from Hannover for the rights to produce the film. In February 2011, Universal Studios considered investing in a fifth Terminator film with Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to the title role, Fast & Furious director Justin Lin at the helm and Chris Morgan as the screenwriter. In late April 2011, a proposed Terminator package, dropping Morgan and adding producer Robert W. Cort, was presented to Universal Studios, Sony, Lionsgate and CBS Films. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had a 30-day right of first refusal to finance and distribute Terminator 5 since 2006.
3. It was eventually picked up by Megan Ellison and her production company, Annapurna Pictures, in May 2011 after they purchased at auction the rights to make at least two more Terminator films. The deal was finalized on December 4, 2012; the final price was reportedly less than the auction pledge because new copyright laws had raised concerns that the rights would revert to Terminator creator James Cameron in 2019. Ellison's brother David and others from his Skydance Productions agreed to co-produce the film. After acquiring the rights to the franchise, Megan Ellison asked Cameron for input on the new film. Cameron met several times with David Ellison, where they discussed Schwarzenegger's role and how to remain true to the T-800 character. Director Justin Lin had to leave the project because of his involvement in Fast & Furious 6. Two screenwriters, Laeta Kalogridis of Shutter Island and Patrick Lussier of Drive Angry, were commissioned to write the screenplay in January 2013. Kalogridis and Lussier turned down the project three times, but Cameron persuaded them to accept it.
4. Paramount Pictures (which has a financing and distribution deal with Skydance) was confirmed as the distributor in June 2013, when they and the producers announced a release date of June 26, 2015. Rian Johnson, Denis Villeneuve and Ang Lee were approached to take over direction from Lin, but Thor: The Dark World director Alan Taylor was selected in September 2013. In January 2014, Megan Ellison announced that Annapurna was no longer financing the film; Skydance and Paramount would provide funding, and Ellison would be credited as an executive producer.
5. The film's producers, David Ellison and Dana Goldberg, worked with writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier to devise the story. Kalogridis and Lussier were invited to write the script while they worked on another project with Ellison and Goldberg. They agreed to write a Terminator film when Cameron, a friend of Kalogridis who worked with her in Avatar, gave it his blessing. The starting point of the script was to retain Schwarzenegger as a central character, unlike the Star Trek reboot with Leonard Nimoy as an older Spock in a minor role. They had to write in the actor (now 67 years old), and followed a suggestion by Cameron that the Terminator's living-tissue exterior was vulnerable to aging and their idea of Skynet sending a Terminator after an infant Sarah Connor. Kalogridis and Lussier extended this to the core characters of Kyle, Sarah, and John Connor, despite each being from a different time period. Although the writers reportedly enjoyed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, they opted to escape its suggestion that Judgment Day is inevitable because of a causal loop in favor of all Terminator timelines existing simultaneously in a multiverse. To map out the timelines and plot, Kalogridis and Lussier had five whiteboards "covering every wall in the office". They eventually reached a central plot thread in which the Skynet of one universe, defeated in several timelines, sent the T-5000 to the Genisys timeline hoping to defeat the humans by "having the best weapon that humans have": John Connor. The first draft of the screenplay, to attract a director, was delivered in July 2013. Few changes were made to the script from that point onward. One expansive scene that was removed from the final script would have explained what Sarah Connor's life was like with Pops.
6. The film is inspired by the first two Terminator films from Cameron while largely ignoring the two subsequent films that came before Genisys. David Ellison described the film and its intended film trilogy as standalone projects based on Cameron's original Terminator films. Ellison said the film is neither a sequel or a prequel to previous Terminator films, saying "For us this is Terminator 1, this is not Terminator 5". A Skydance executive said, "It's not a traditional remake, nor is it a continuation or a sequel, nor is it exactly a reboot. In a sense, it's a reimagining".
7. The film features seven different time periods, with 1984 and 2017 being the primary setting for the story. Taylor said the film's storyline would be more complex in comparison to the original two films because of its time-travel aspect. He also described the original Terminator film as a love story and the second as a father/son story, and said that Genisys would be a combination of the two ideas, including a focus on the aspect of a dysfunctional family. David Ellison said the film was inspired by the idea of technological singularity, stating that in reality, humans are addicted to technology "to the point where it's easy to imagine a world where Skynet has infiltrated every single aspect of your life, and you didn't fight it - you invited it in."
8. Principal photography began on April 21, 2014 in New Orleans. The film shot under the code name Vista, a possible reference to the Terminator's "hasta la vista" line in Terminator 2. The first unit shot the film over a total of 90 days, in high definition. An early sequence from The Terminator is recreated in Terminator Genisys, in which Kyle Reese and a T-800 arrive in 1984 from the future. Because the original film was owned by a different company, the filmmakers did not have the rights to use its opening sequence in Terminator Genisys and instead had to recreate the scenes. In addition, Taylor explained that the original footage would not look right with the rest of the film due to its grain quality. The sequence was shot within the first two weeks of filming. The T-800's arrival in 1984 takes place at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a location that was recreated as a set in New Orleans.
9. To authentically recreate one of the scenes, costume designer Susan Matheson had Nike produce new pairs of discontinued Nike Vandal sneakers for Courtney to wear. Matheson had initially searched for a pair of the sneakers, but the ones that she came across did not look new enough for the scene. Matheson eventually spoke to Paramount, which convinced Nike to produce 25 pairs of Vandal sneakers for the film. For certain scenes, the production tried to match the cinematography of the first two Terminator films. Scenes set in 1984 favored blue, green, and black tones to match the look of The Terminator, and those set during the future war against the machines were modeled after similar scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. For the future soldiers, arm and shoulder pieces were made of rubber car mats which had been cut up and aged to simulate makeshift armor that the soldiers had salvaged. Legacy Effects, successor to Stan Winston Studio, created the Terminator robotic and make-up effects, led by John Rosengrant (who worked on the previous four Terminator films). Jeff Dawn, lead make-up artist for the first three installments, did not return.
10. To prepare for his role, Jason Clarke observed Edward Furlong's performance as John Connor in Terminator 2. For a scene in which John Connor delivers a motivational speech to his troops, Jason Clarke referred to passages from Hamlet, Henry V, and a Steve Jobs speech. Courtney watched the previous Terminator films for context and inspiration, but did not seek to replicate the performances of actors who portrayed Kyle Reese in those films.
11. Filming in New Orleans included NASA'S Michoud Assembly Facility, where a set was constructed to portray part of the Cyderdyne facility's interior, as well as its time machine. Michoud was the only location in Louisiana tall enough to contain the set. Filming took place there during July 2014. The Oracle Corporation headquarters in Redwood City served as the exterior of Cyberdyne; Oracle was founded by the Ellisons' father, Larry. Filming at the Oracle headquarters, including interior scenes, took place at the end of July 2014.
12. In early August 2014, filming took place at the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Scenes involving cable cars and stunt automobiles were shot on San Francisco's California Street from the night of August 4 to the early hours of August 5, 2014. Because of the late-night filming, the production team had to receive approval from residents and business owners in the area; nearly 99 percent of them approved the shoot. Filming would also take place on Mission Street, in which extras flee from a threat which would be added in later through computer-generated technology. The scenes would depict chaotic city scenes. Subtle action scenes were also scheduled to continue at the Golden Gate Bridge. One scene features a school bus that is flipped through the air while driving on the Golden Gate Bridge. A 500-foot-long replica of the bridge was built in New Orleans for the shot involving the bus flip, something that was done without visual effects. Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was called in to fabricate and build the Police AS350 and Coast Guard A109 helicopter mock-ups for the production.
13. On August 6, 2014, it was announced that filming had concluded, and that the official title would be Terminator Genisys rather than Terminator Genesis. Ellison later said about the film's Genisys title, "It didn't work. The actual thought process behind it was, we were kind of playing on words a la Google. And it's in reference to genesis, which is in reference to the singularity and the man-machine hybrid that John Connor ends up beginning. Also, if you pronounce it a different way it signals a new beginning. So it was kind of a play on words and it did not come across that way." At one point during post-production, the mid-credits scene was included at the end of the film, before the credits. Taylor decided to make it a mid-credits scene after getting reactions from test audiences.
14. Visual-effects supervisor Janek Sirrs oversaw approximately 1,200 visual-effects shots generated at Double Negative, Moving Picture Company (MPC), Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lola VFX, One of Us and Method Studios. Double Negative was the lead company, with 900 shots which included the T-1000, T-5000, and T-3000 Terminators, the helicopter and bus-chase scenes and the Cyberdyne explosion. The complexity of the T-3000, which had to be shown as a living mass of nanomites with the ability to transform in successive layers, required as much as 20 hours to render a single frame. The mechanical cells aimed to resemble the material on stealth aircraft, with a result described as "more matte than metal" and resembling a slightly-iridescent ceramic carbon. Since the T-3000 was a man transformed into a robot, the design aimed for a human shape streamlined for better combat efficiency. The T-1000 was built from fluid simulations, their environments filmed with high-resolution cameras to ensure proper reflection. Its acid destruction was realistically depicted after studies of acids burning aluminum ingots and other metal. Double Negative's artists shot many reference plates of San Francisco, including scans of the Golden Gate Bridge, to ensure that the city was recreated properly in the bus and helicopter chases.
15. MPC's most elaborate effect was the digital recreation of the original Terminator, which required 12 months for 35 shots (completed 30 minutes before the final print was submitted to the studio). Performance capture was used only for facial animation, since Schwarzenegger was scanned reading his lines. The studio's artists studied archive footage of the actor, focusing mainly on The Terminator and Pumping Iron, and were given a 1984 plaster cast of him. On set, the fight between both Terminators had Schwarzenegger and Brett Azar (a bodybuilder chosen for his resemblance to the actor in 1984) and, in more dangerous scenes, Azar and a stunt double—requiring effects artists to replace the face of Pops. MPC also handled the future battle, with set extensions and Skynet robots and vehicles based on models by Legacy Effects. ILM did the opening scene – in which San Francisco is wiped out on Judgment Day, inspired by the Los Angeles nuclear destruction in Terminator 2 – and the Terminator vision. For the IMAX 3D release, the film was remastered with IMAX DMR technology to create 3D effects and a high-resolution film print.

Description
Lets continue the Terminator series with the entry that alters the timeline, and John Conner's fate.

In 2029, Human Resistance leader John Connor launches a final offensive against Skynet, an artificial general intelligence system. Just before the resistance triumphs and destroys Skynet's system core, Skynet activates a time machine and sends a T-800 Model 101 Terminator back to May 12, 1984, to kill John's mother Sarah. John's right-hand man, Kyle Reese, volunteers to travel back in time to protect her. As Kyle floats in the machine's magnetic field, he sees John being attacked by another Resistance soldier. This alters the timeline and causes Kyle to experience childhood memories from an alternate version of himself. When it arrives in Los Angeles 1984, Skynet's T-800 is disabled by Sarah and another T-800 Terminator, which was reprogrammed by an unknown party and sent to 1973 to protect Sarah when she was nine years old, after her parents were killed by a T-1000. When Kyle arrives in 1984, he learns that the timeline has been altered. Kyle is intercepted by the T-1000, disguised as a policeman. Sarah and the Terminator rescue Kyle and lure the T-1000 to their base, where they destroy it with acid. Sarah and the Terminator have constructed a makeshift time machine similar to Skynet's, using Skynet's T-800's chip to activate it, and Sarah plans to stop Skynet by traveling to 1997, the year it becomes self-aware. However, Kyle is convinced that the future has changed because of a message he received in his childhood vision, and he persuades Sarah to travel instead to 2017 to stop Skynet. In 2017, Kyle and Sarah materialize in the middle of a busy San Francisco highway and are apprehended by city police. While they are treated for injuries, Sarah and Kyle learn that Skynet is now "Genisys", a soon-to-be-unveiled global operating system which is embraced by the public. Now the group has to prevent Genisys from being activated, and stop the war.

Pros:
1. Sarah, Kyle, and Pops(the T-800) are decent protagonists.
2. There are a few decent action scenes.
3. The music by Lorne Balfe is well composed.
4. The designs of the T-800, T-1000, and T-3000 are well crafted.
5. The special effects are well done.
6. There are a few funny moments from Arnold.
7. The recreation of the opening bits from the first film are very well made.
8. O'Brien is an alright minor character.

Cons:
1. The writing is a complete mess, and greatly derails the story arc of the series, has lots of plot-holes, and focuses and establishing sequels rather than it's own story. Not to mention it's also a rehash of the first two films.
2. Turning John into a villainous Terminator was already pretty questionable, and having it spoiled in the trailers made it worse. On top of that, he's a pretty bland villain.
3. With the exception of Arnold and J.K. Simmons, everyone else's acting is mediocre.
4. Some of the action is underwhelming.
5. Pointless use of the T-1000.
6. There are several boring moments.

Overall:
Despite it being entertaining for the most part, this is hands down the worst entry in the series.

Rating:
4/10 (Bad)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. Although Terminator Salvation was intended to begin a new trilogy, the production of a fifth film was put on hold because of legal issues with franchise owner the Halcyon Company (which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2009). To avoid bankruptcy, Halcyon later decided to sell the rights to the franchise and valued the property at $70 million. On February 8, 2010, the franchise was auctioned for $29.5 million to Pacificor, a hedge fund which was the largest creditor in Halcyon's bankruptcy proceedings. The deal erased Halcyon's debts to Pacificor and guaranteed Halcyon $5 million for each additional Terminator sequel produced, to pay other outstanding debts. Pacificor sold the franchise again in May 2010.
2. In August of that year, Hannover House announced plans to develop a 3D animated film titled Terminator 3000. Pacificor responded with a cease and desist letter, declining a $20–30 million offer from Hannover for the rights to produce the film. In February 2011, Universal Studios considered investing in a fifth Terminator film with Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to the title role, Fast & Furious director Justin Lin at the helm and Chris Morgan as the screenwriter. In late April 2011, a proposed Terminator package, dropping Morgan and adding producer Robert W. Cort, was presented to Universal Studios, Sony, Lionsgate and CBS Films. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had a 30-day right of first refusal to finance and distribute Terminator 5 since 2006.
3. It was eventually picked up by Megan Ellison and her production company, Annapurna Pictures, in May 2011 after they purchased at auction the rights to make at least two more Terminator films. The deal was finalized on December 4, 2012; the final price was reportedly less than the auction pledge because new copyright laws had raised concerns that the rights would revert to Terminator creator James Cameron in 2019. Ellison's brother David and others from his Skydance Productions agreed to co-produce the film. After acquiring the rights to the franchise, Megan Ellison asked Cameron for input on the new film. Cameron met several times with David Ellison, where they discussed Schwarzenegger's role and how to remain true to the T-800 character. Director Justin Lin had to leave the project because of his involvement in Fast & Furious 6. Two screenwriters, Laeta Kalogridis of Shutter Island and Patrick Lussier of Drive Angry, were commissioned to write the screenplay in January 2013. Kalogridis and Lussier turned down the project three times, but Cameron persuaded them to accept it.
4. Paramount Pictures (which has a financing and distribution deal with Skydance) was confirmed as the distributor in June 2013, when they and the producers announced a release date of June 26, 2015. Rian Johnson, Denis Villeneuve and Ang Lee were approached to take over direction from Lin, but Thor: The Dark World director Alan Taylor was selected in September 2013. In January 2014, Megan Ellison announced that Annapurna was no longer financing the film; Skydance and Paramount would provide funding, and Ellison would be credited as an executive producer.
5. The film's producers, David Ellison and Dana Goldberg, worked with writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier to devise the story. Kalogridis and Lussier were invited to write the script while they worked on another project with Ellison and Goldberg. They agreed to write a Terminator film when Cameron, a friend of Kalogridis who worked with her in Avatar, gave it his blessing. The starting point of the script was to retain Schwarzenegger as a central character, unlike the Star Trek reboot with Leonard Nimoy as an older Spock in a minor role. They had to write in the actor (now 67 years old), and followed a suggestion by Cameron that the Terminator's living-tissue exterior was vulnerable to aging and their idea of Skynet sending a Terminator after an infant Sarah Connor. Kalogridis and Lussier extended this to the core characters of Kyle, Sarah, and John Connor, despite each being from a different time period. Although the writers reportedly enjoyed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, they opted to escape its suggestion that Judgment Day is inevitable because of a causal loop in favor of all Terminator timelines existing simultaneously in a multiverse. To map out the timelines and plot, Kalogridis and Lussier had five whiteboards "covering every wall in the office". They eventually reached a central plot thread in which the Skynet of one universe, defeated in several timelines, sent the T-5000 to the Genisys timeline hoping to defeat the humans by "having the best weapon that humans have": John Connor. The first draft of the screenplay, to attract a director, was delivered in July 2013. Few changes were made to the script from that point onward. One expansive scene that was removed from the final script would have explained what Sarah Connor's life was like with Pops.
6. The film is inspired by the first two Terminator films from Cameron while largely ignoring the two subsequent films that came before Genisys. David Ellison described the film and its intended film trilogy as standalone projects based on Cameron's original Terminator films. Ellison said the film is neither a sequel or a prequel to previous Terminator films, saying "For us this is Terminator 1, this is not Terminator 5". A Skydance executive said, "It's not a traditional remake, nor is it a continuation or a sequel, nor is it exactly a reboot. In a sense, it's a reimagining".
7. The film features seven different time periods, with 1984 and 2017 being the primary setting for the story. Taylor said the film's storyline would be more complex in comparison to the original two films because of its time-travel aspect. He also described the original Terminator film as a love story and the second as a father/son story, and said that Genisys would be a combination of the two ideas, including a focus on the aspect of a dysfunctional family. David Ellison said the film was inspired by the idea of technological singularity, stating that in reality, humans are addicted to technology "to the point where it's easy to imagine a world where Skynet has infiltrated every single aspect of your life, and you didn't fight it - you invited it in."
8. Principal photography began on April 21, 2014 in New Orleans. The film shot under the code name Vista, a possible reference to the Terminator's "hasta la vista" line in Terminator 2. The first unit shot the film over a total of 90 days, in high definition. An early sequence from The Terminator is recreated in Terminator Genisys, in which Kyle Reese and a T-800 arrive in 1984 from the future. Because the original film was owned by a different company, the filmmakers did not have the rights to use its opening sequence in Terminator Genisys and instead had to recreate the scenes. In addition, Taylor explained that the original footage would not look right with the rest of the film due to its grain quality. The sequence was shot within the first two weeks of filming. The T-800's arrival in 1984 takes place at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a location that was recreated as a set in New Orleans.
9. To authentically recreate one of the scenes, costume designer Susan Matheson had Nike produce new pairs of discontinued Nike Vandal sneakers for Courtney to wear. Matheson had initially searched for a pair of the sneakers, but the ones that she came across did not look new enough for the scene. Matheson eventually spoke to Paramount, which convinced Nike to produce 25 pairs of Vandal sneakers for the film. For certain scenes, the production tried to match the cinematography of the first two Terminator films. Scenes set in 1984 favored blue, green, and black tones to match the look of The Terminator, and those set during the future war against the machines were modeled after similar scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. For the future soldiers, arm and shoulder pieces were made of rubber car mats which had been cut up and aged to simulate makeshift armor that the soldiers had salvaged. Legacy Effects, successor to Stan Winston Studio, created the Terminator robotic and make-up effects, led by John Rosengrant (who worked on the previous four Terminator films). Jeff Dawn, lead make-up artist for the first three installments, did not return.
10. To prepare for his role, Jason Clarke observed Edward Furlong's performance as John Connor in Terminator 2. For a scene in which John Connor delivers a motivational speech to his troops, Jason Clarke referred to passages from Hamlet, Henry V, and a Steve Jobs speech. Courtney watched the previous Terminator films for context and inspiration, but did not seek to replicate the performances of actors who portrayed Kyle Reese in those films.
11. Filming in New Orleans included NASA'S Michoud Assembly Facility, where a set was constructed to portray part of the Cyderdyne facility's interior, as well as its time machine. Michoud was the only location in Louisiana tall enough to contain the set. Filming took place there during July 2014. The Oracle Corporation headquarters in Redwood City served as the exterior of Cyberdyne; Oracle was founded by the Ellisons' father, Larry. Filming at the Oracle headquarters, including interior scenes, took place at the end of July 2014.
12. In early August 2014, filming took place at the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Scenes involving cable cars and stunt automobiles were shot on San Francisco's California Street from the night of August 4 to the early hours of August 5, 2014. Because of the late-night filming, the production team had to receive approval from residents and business owners in the area; nearly 99 percent of them approved the shoot. Filming would also take place on Mission Street, in which extras flee from a threat which would be added in later through computer-generated technology. The scenes would depict chaotic city scenes. Subtle action scenes were also scheduled to continue at the Golden Gate Bridge. One scene features a school bus that is flipped through the air while driving on the Golden Gate Bridge. A 500-foot-long replica of the bridge was built in New Orleans for the shot involving the bus flip, something that was done without visual effects. Scroggins Aviation Mockup & Effects was called in to fabricate and build the Police AS350 and Coast Guard A109 helicopter mock-ups for the production.
13. On August 6, 2014, it was announced that filming had concluded, and that the official title would be Terminator Genisys rather than Terminator Genesis. Ellison later said about the film's Genisys title, "It didn't work. The actual thought process behind it was, we were kind of playing on words a la Google. And it's in reference to genesis, which is in reference to the singularity and the man-machine hybrid that John Connor ends up beginning. Also, if you pronounce it a different way it signals a new beginning. So it was kind of a play on words and it did not come across that way." At one point during post-production, the mid-credits scene was included at the end of the film, before the credits. Taylor decided to make it a mid-credits scene after getting reactions from test audiences.
14. Visual-effects supervisor Janek Sirrs oversaw approximately 1,200 visual-effects shots generated at Double Negative, Moving Picture Company (MPC), Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Lola VFX, One of Us and Method Studios. Double Negative was the lead company, with 900 shots which included the T-1000, T-5000, and T-3000 Terminators, the helicopter and bus-chase scenes and the Cyberdyne explosion. The complexity of the T-3000, which had to be shown as a living mass of nanomites with the ability to transform in successive layers, required as much as 20 hours to render a single frame. The mechanical cells aimed to resemble the material on stealth aircraft, with a result described as "more matte than metal" and resembling a slightly-iridescent ceramic carbon. Since the T-3000 was a man transformed into a robot, the design aimed for a human shape streamlined for better combat efficiency. The T-1000 was built from fluid simulations, their environments filmed with high-resolution cameras to ensure proper reflection. Its acid destruction was realistically depicted after studies of acids burning aluminum ingots and other metal. Double Negative's artists shot many reference plates of San Francisco, including scans of the Golden Gate Bridge, to ensure that the city was recreated properly in the bus and helicopter chases.
15. MPC's most elaborate effect was the digital recreation of the original Terminator, which required 12 months for 35 shots (completed 30 minutes before the final print was submitted to the studio). Performance capture was used only for facial animation, since Schwarzenegger was scanned reading his lines. The studio's artists studied archive footage of the actor, focusing mainly on The Terminator and Pumping Iron, and were given a 1984 plaster cast of him. On set, the fight between both Terminators had Schwarzenegger and Brett Azar (a bodybuilder chosen for his resemblance to the actor in 1984) and, in more dangerous scenes, Azar and a stunt double—requiring effects artists to replace the face of Pops. MPC also handled the future battle, with set extensions and Skynet robots and vehicles based on models by Legacy Effects. ILM did the opening scene – in which San Francisco is wiped out on Judgment Day, inspired by the Los Angeles nuclear destruction in Terminator 2 – and the Terminator vision. For the IMAX 3D release, the film was remastered with IMAX DMR technology to create 3D effects and a high-resolution film print.