Full disclosure: we were completely sober when we watched Terminator: Salvation.

And yes, it very much is the most relevant summer movie of the year.

Why? The Terminator franchise has a history of being timely, a sort of dark mirror reflection of current society when each film was created. The first film has been described as a punk love story – perhaps the most apt description of the feeling of alienation and disenfranchisement many young people had in the early 1980s. The shadow of some future nuclear conflict wasn’t science fiction as much as it was everyday headlines, and the idea that a relentless killing machine might come back in time and chase one of us down seemed possible if not probable.

It is the same feeling of disenchantment that led to the punk movement to begin with, and it is no mistake that the seminal punk film Repo Man opened a mere five months before The Terminator did – and was set in the same grime-covered Los Angeles that a few years before tore itself apart in some of the worst race riots in American history.

Sarah Connor started the film as a party girl stuck in a dead-end waitress job, who is jostled out of her comfort by a machine intent on killing her and a protector from the future who falls in love with her. In that movie, meaningful love is only possible in fleeting glimpses in odd situations set across a backdrop of sewer tunnels and back alleys filled with the homeless. It’s amusing to see Arnold’s T-800 walk into a gun store and simply order automatic weapons as though he’s picking up some Chicken McNuggets precisely because it wasn’t so far-fetched then. The Terminator caught some of the worst aspects of the Thatcher-Reagan years, especially as it appeared to those caught on the fringes at the time: traditional love and romance was bullshit.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day debuted in a much-different 1991, two years after the Berlin Wall fell and the spectre of global nuclear war faded. If The Terminator was a punk love story, Terminator 2 was a punk family tale: the fringe grew up and got a haircut. Despite being the future leader of the human race, John Connor desperately needs something very basic: a father figure. The T-1000, a liquid metal terminator, hunts John directly now, but the old enemy (Arnold’s T-800) is now his friend and protector – and the father figure he wants. Your enemy is now your friend, and your new enemy can look like anything. Nuclear war is no longer inevitable: you can stop it simply by destroying all the pieces of various terminators and blowing up the building researching them. The original ending, with a black highway at night, is intentionally open with an optimistic voiceover, reflecting for the first time a feeling of hope and empowerment: there’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.

Then came Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, two years after the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror. The message changed drastically: Judgement Day could never be avoided, only delayed. To make matters worse our old protectors and value systems were worthless in the face of the new enemy. She could morph like the enemy from Terminator 2, but could bring energy weapons with her through time (previous terminators could not) – foiling the ‘airport security’ that at least put the machines on a relatively equal footing with their prey. It wasn’t the bad writing and overblown action sequences that made Terminator 3 suck, it was the times in which it was created. All the things that made the first two great and memorable movies, especially the second, were gone from the third because it 2003 was a time of hopelessness and inevitable destruction again. There was never a chance to make your own fate, and while ‘Judgement Day’ was pushed back it was never cancelled entirely – and we were only kidding ourselves when we thought we’d solved the problems.

Which brings us to why Terminator: Salvation is a great film, or at least the most relevant popcorn flick you’re going to see this summer (seriously, Transformers 2?) Quite simply, because it’s an extremely profound reflection of the state of our world. We’re learning that, like Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright, our so-called enemies can be our greatest allies. The machines aren’t the clean, laser-firing skull-crushing future robots, but belch diesel exhaust as they pluck people from their hiding places with claws that came from the industrial revolution. Our military leaders may grossly miscalculate their chances of success, and the resistance is something we’re all part of as long as we’re receiving the message.

Something introduced in Terminator 3 and expanded greatly in the criminally-cancelled Sarah Connor Chronicles is periodic changes to the future timeline. While we may still be marching towards Judgement Day, we can have an effect on the future by our actions today – it isn’t simply a matter of hunkering down in a bunker and waiting for the nukes to fly. Salvation presents a changed future, unfamiliar from the first two flims: the optimistic clean-fusion batteries of the 1980s have been replaced with combustion engines and massive industrial complexes, and Los Angeles may still be a boneyard but at least there are plants in the Griffith Observatory. And the Arnold guy? He’s arrived ten years early, so Skynet needs to be fought throughout time because it’s going to continue to fuck around with its future as well.

Most importantly is this key element: Skynet is something that can be defeated again and our fate is back in our hands. And maybe, the John Connor of this timeline will send his friend Kyle back to just the right moment to stop it all from ever happening.

In short, it’s our story playing out on the big screen once again. The question is, what will the next Terminator look like? Maybe a little like the Sarah Connor Chronicles, where the machines try to defeat Skynet themselves by creating a kinder, gentler alternative. The war with the machines is really nothing more than a metaphor for wrestling with our own human nature. Arnold was wrong: it’s not in our nature to destroy ourselves, it’s just a habit we’ve picked up. Terminator Salvation achieved the highest honour for a summer action flick by being very relevant to our own lives, because for the first time in quite a while we – all of us – are once again feel empowered to make our own fate.

[story by Jason Mical]

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

It’s the summer. And that means that, as weekend box office law states, all films released now must be angry, loud and full of massive robots punching each other.

But weekend box office law has another rule for the summer – that Pixar gets to release a new movie, and it’ll make all the other films look a bit silly in comparison. And this year that film is Up, the new US weekend box office number one.

What made Up so popular? Was it the groundbreaking technological accomplishments? The mature storytelling? No, it was all the balloons. Balloons are fun. Wheeeee!

So Up is the new US weekend box office, a fact that continues Pixar’s two strongest traditions – their extraordinary run of producing critically-acclaimed movies that are gigantic commercial successes and their even-more extraordinary run of producing miserable films about incredibly depressing subjects.

Seriously. Last year’s Pixar film was about the world’s loneliest robot, 2007’s Pixar film was about a character who couldn’t excel at his job because of his appearance, and Up is about a pensioner grieving the loss of his dead wife. Hardly Dude, Where’s My Car, is it?

Still, congratulations to Up, and we look forward to seeing next year’s Pixar movie – an exploration of social and physical decay that consists of nothing but a two-hour black and white image of an Arctic tundra soundtracked by the distant, sporadic sound of a crying woman. Here’s the weekend box office top five!

1 – Up (We can’t wait for Up to be released on DVD. We’re going to have a directional movie marathon comprising Up, Down, Sideways and the as-yet unreleased masterpiece Sort Of Diagonally Zig-Zagish) $68,200,000

2 - Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian (Coming soon, Night At The Museum: Scuffle At The Bath Postal Museum, where Ben Stiller travels to Somerset to witness a hilariously zany night of mail-based escapades. Starring Robin Williams as Thomas Moore Musgrave, Steve Coogan as postal historian Frank Staff and Ricky Gervais as a fat envelope) $25,500,000

3 - Drag Me To Hell (Originally this film was going to be called Drag Me To Hull, but the name was changed after it was decided that Hull is actually worse than the real hell in every conceivable way, and shouldn’t be joked about) $16,628,000

4 – Terminator: Salvation (This week it was revealed that an alternate ending for Terminator: Salvation was for John Connor to become a terminator himself and kill everyone, which would have obviously been a better ending than the one that was filmed. Although, having said that, if John Connor suddenly woke up and realised it was all a dream, and then the entire cast of the movie waved goodbye to everyone like at the end of The Railway Children that would have been a better ending too. What we’re trying to say, we suppose, is that Terminator: Salvation is rubbish) $16,140,000

5 - Star Trek (Oh Chris Pine, stop being so coy and just record a version of Rocket Man that you sing with two other versions of yourself, would you? Gah) $12,800,000

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

Phat and Small.

Folded:

• Terminator Salvation (worse than hoped, better than expected)
• Farmers (about the only people doing great during this recession. Why? Because of the weak pound we have to buy our produce over here, that’s why)
• Outrun Online Arcade, downloadable for PSN and Xbox LIVE (more fun than cheating at your exams)
• We Are the People by Empire of the Sun (calming in a really cool, just drunk kind of way)
• Moon Bloodgood (see Terminator Salvation. Wow…just WOW)

Creased:

• Bank holiday drinkers (why not drink on the Sunday instead? You have Monday off, not Tuesday. Cretins)
• Printers (if they’re not spewing out blank paper, they’re claiming the new black ink cartridge you just bought a week ago is ‘empty’. Smash ‘em all)
• Let’s Get Excited by Alesha (let’s listen to the biggest album track of all time)
• A new, pre-loaded with 15 games Sega Mega Drive for £40 (apparently it’s as tough as Styrofoam. Just buy an original for ten quid off eBay)
• Wheelchair woes (consider yourself blessed if you never need one. Shoppers will dive out of the way for a chav kid in pushchair, but curse with scorn those have don’t have the ability to use their legs)

Ciphering through the wasteland of recent movie related news, a few choice nuggets stick out between the tidal wave of trailers and clips that have submerged the internet recently.

Sherlock Holmes is now blowing shit up instead of smoke rings and all creativity seemingly being lost, Hollywood enlists Peter Berg to direct an adaptation of the board game Battleships (Wasn’t that Crimson Tide?). If someone doesn’t shout out “You sunk my battleship” then something has truly gone awry.

So at least this week has proved to be surprising! Here’s some more…

Headlines:

Terminator Salivating Footage Online:

Like the kid being ignored in the corner, T4 is flapping its arms for attention. Debuting online are eight new clips that help flex its own character complexities (see; Star Trek) dark plotting (see; Wolverine) and giant robot madness (see; Transformers 2). Warner Bros. are hoping to release enough footage pre-release so that any semblance of surprise is taken out of your cinematic experience.

Click here for clips

Buffing the Iron:

News trickles out of the bottom of the Iron Man suit this week as Jon Favreau (Director/Favs) has been regularly updating about the shoot on Twitter. Also official stills and set photos have gone online. God knows what will happen when a photo appears of leather-clad Scarlett Johansson emerges online.

Pictures Here

Filling up on Diesel:

The action star/franchise whore/washout Vin Diesel (delete where applicable), has now become somewhat of an innovator. Recently released action game Wheelman, which starred the more economically run action star, has been greenlit into a full motion picture! It was meant to be a film before it was a game, so now it’s a film adaptation of a game that was a tie-in for a film that was never made. Confused? Not Vin!

Prime Adaptation:

Why? Inexplicably the ITV drama Primeval has been picked up by Warner Bros. for adaptation into a big screen dino-adventure spectacular! Expect less S Club 7 alumni but much more nonsensical, cross-dimensional bollocks. Except it’ll look prettier. Much, much prettier.

Sly Remake:

The Stallone remake you never asked for is here! Cliffhanger – that 90’s nail-biter which featured a bloke from Eastenders – is the latest in line for the remake treatment. Although nothing is confirmed expect lots of cliffs and muscles.

Must See This Week:

Star Trek:

If you haven’t seen it yet – watch it! Making the uber-geekfest that was Star Trek into the hip new must-see summer blockbuster was like turning water into wine, but Lost supremo J.J.Abrams has managed to do just that. It’s got boom and crash and ahhhh and ooooo and all the rest….

Must Not See This Week:

Angels & Demons:

Pseudo intellectual guff with potato-Hanks running around the Vatican investigating a dead Pope. Did you also spot that bad guy in the first five minutes? Damn you Hanks and Ritchie Cunningham – you can do better!

Video Corner:

Demoted Trailer:

One to keep an eye on; a return to comedy from Sean Astin, who hasn’t hit these highs since California Man. Also featuring the ever reliable David Cross going some way to show that there are still plenty of laughs to be had in toilet jokes.

[story by David Scarborough]

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

Folded for the good stuff, Creased for the bad.

Folded:

• Land of the Lost trailer online (and, surprisingly, it looks okay)
• Being only as tall as a Ribena Berry yet still being able to kick everyone’s ass (we’re talking about you, Mr. Jack Bauer)
• The Thing…coming back to your screens on September 15th (a giant widescreen head on legs? We’re there)
• Dr. Oetker pizzas (extra fat, extra taste)
• Dizzee Rascal (don’t let the fact that Dizzee looks like a sixth-former playing truant fool you, he’s alright)

Creased:

• Four minute Terminator Salvation clip online (enough already)
• This year’s The Apprentice contestants.. (..are the worst ever, right? Ben isn’t fit for £100 a year, let alone £100,000)
• Friday night KFC (seriously don’t even get tempted. It’s worse than you could possibly remember)
• Sunny and cold (an increasingly common weather phenomenon for the U.K. For putting you in a good mood, it’s right up there with warm and drizzly)
• Ben Sherman shirts (haven’t been worn correctly for twenty-five years now)

It had it all – a furious star, a nonsense story, an oddly-named director – but now Terminator Salvation has more.

That’s right – Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sort of. Even though it opens next month, Arnold Schwarzenegger still doesn’t know if he’ll be in Terminator Salvation or not. He might be, but only if producers insert footage from the first Terminator into the new film.

Which is rubbish. We want Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Salvation in real life, perhaps as a demonstration of the time Skynet got drunk and made a murderous robot that looked like a fat old man for a laugh.

There’s nothing that anybody likes more than a third sequel to a 25-year-old film where you’re asked to completely disregard its entire TV spin-off series, most of what happened in the second sequel and the alarming realisation that in the future all embittered leaders of resistance movements against armies of unstoppable machines hellbent on the eradication of mankind will have accents that lurch indiscriminately between London, LA and borderline offensive comedy Pakistani.

And therefore, there’s nothing that anybody will like more than Terminator Salvation. Hype is already at fever pitch over Terminator Salvation, having been drummed up by a fairly impressive trailer and that tape of the angriest man in all the word bellowing “AH DA DA DA DA!” at a subordinate. But you know what would be the robot cherry on the cyborg cake? Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has played such a big part in all the other Terminator movies – he was the unstoppable villain in the first one, the underdog hero in the second one and the embarrassing shadow of his former self in the third one – that it wouldn’t feel right if he didn’t have a part to play in Terminator Salvation.

And now there’s a fighting chance that he might. In a way. In a really crappy way. The LA Times reports:

Warner Bros. is exploring whether it can insert images of Schwarzenegger from the original “Terminator” movie into the new film starring Christian Bale, directed by McG and slated for release May 21…  In the film, a prequel to the original, Schwarzenegger would be in a brief scene in which the main character encounters him as a “future Terminator,” according to the governor.

As potentially rubbish as that sounds, the description is a little vague. We imagine this means that Terminator Salvation will feature a scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger time-travels back from the future to try and kill Christian Bale, but Christian Bale gets all “YOU’RE A NICE GUY, YOU’RE A NICE GUY, BUT THAT DOESN’T FUCKING CUT IT!” on him, so Arnold Schwarzenegger decides it’ll be easier to time-travel back even further and just kick his mum in the stomach when she’s pregnant with him instead.

If that’s the case, we’re sold. Someone book us a ticket.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

If that sounds terrifying – don’t worry, because according to other trailers we’ve seen John Connor defeats them by reprogramming a bunch of Roomba vacuum cleaners to infiltrate the enemy and destroy them from the inside.

We’re told this scene is particularly gripping, as one robot vacuum has to slowly suck up its own mother.

But this isn’t the only Terminator Salvation drama – no! There’s also a producer already suing other producers for 160 million in non-robot dollars.

If there’s one thing the Terminator movies tell us about the future, it’s that Star Trek isn’t even close to accurate. This is really a pretty big shame as we’d always thought that maybe one day our great, great grandchildren could beam our corpse to the table at family holiday meals. This would probably be a far less disgusting way to carry out a family tradition we intend to one day decree in our will.

But no – the John Connor-future is a grisly one wherein shape-shifting robots stab things with their pointy hands, and then go on to replace David Duchovny on the X-Files. It’s also a place at war – and while you’re trying to visibly emote behind a pile of sand bags or something, lighting people rudely walk by – completely throwing off your game.

Also in the future, Comcast will probably make Connor & co pay for internet by the minute. That’s probably the catalyst causing John to realise he needs to lead the rebellion.

The future doesn’t necessarily look bad for one guy though – if his lawsuit goes through that is. The man we’re talking about is Moritz Borman – and there’s not anything slightly off about his name at all. Moritz is suing some Salvation producers for $160 million.

All Headline News has the specifics:

“Moritz Borman has filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday against Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicke and their Halcyon Co. banner for more than $160 million…[Borman] said that financial backing for the movie was secured through investment fund Pacificor LLC in exchange for the movie’s approval rights, involvement in all creative decisions and a $5 million producing fee. But [Kubicke & Anderson] purportedly failed to honor their deal, “hijacking” the production in July last year and refused to pay him the $2.5 million balance of his producing fee.”

How exactly the $2.5 million mentioned up there turned into $160 million, we may never understand. When asked what he intends to do with the money should he win his case, Borman reportedly said:

“I’m gonna get me some cats.”

We don’t actually have a source for that last bit. We just don’t, ok?

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

But we warned, the trailer does give away some pretty important Terminator Salvation plot details – like the bit where Christian Bale realises that the only way to beat the invincible machine army it to loudly berate it for trashing his scene, mock the way it walks by screaming “AH DA DA DA DAH” at it and then inform it that he’s finished with it professionally. So, you know, watch it at your own peril.

But what’s also fact is it’s not universally loved. The sad truth is that some saps can’t take pleasure from a recording of a prick being a prick to a prick. And, inevitably, most of those people are famous.

So far, Whoopi Goldberg and Terry Crews have stood up for Christian Bale, building hopes that there’ll soon be an all-star charity concert to raise awareness of the rights of unbearably dickish actors with indeterminate accents so. Fingers crossed it’s called AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH-Aid.

Look, we know it might cause unimaginable harm to his career as an actor, but we never want this Christian Bale rant stuff to end. Really, we don’t.

It’s so perfect that we want it to follow him everywhere for the rest of his life. We want Batman 3 to be about Christian Bale being driven into geographically nonspecific madness when an Alfred The Butler keeps trashing his scene and walking about ah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah like this even though he’s a nice guy.

When Christian Bale dies, we want his Oscars ‘In Memorium’ photo to be accompanied by the sound of him shrieking “DO NOT SHUT ME UP! NO! NO!” In short, we are in love with Christian Bale’s Terminator rant and we want to marry it.

But that’s going to be an uphill struggle, not only because getting married to a recording of Christian Bale’s abusive voice is both unlawful and probably a sign of a deep psychiatric disorder, but also because several people are doing their best to brush Christian Bale’s obviously dickish behaviour under the carpet. Yesterday a Terminator Salvation assistant director called Christian Bale’s rant a ‘non-event’, and now other celebrities are leaping on the bandwagon as well.

First came Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi can totally relate to Christian Bale’s predicament, partly because of the time she got so angry on the set of Star Trek that she ended up biting Worf on the forehead, and secondly because her day-job involves sitting on a table with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a job which would leave anyone teetering on the edge of a violent meltdown. On The View, Whoopi said:

“We don’t know if this (incident happened) at the end of the day, we don’t know how many hours (he had) been working. It’s tough. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I too have gone off on people, because if you’re a professional, you know what you’re not supposed to do.”

And then Terry Crews, who is apparently an actor, decided to step in for Christian Bale as well, saying:

“I’d get mad too if I was the number one star in the world and people started to mess with me. He is a class act. He is one of the greatest actors ever. You can catch anyone on a bad day.”

Where we go from here is anybody’s guess. Although it looks like the movie world is already starting to rally around Christian Bale, there are also murmurs that his career could be badly affected by his outburst.

All we do know is that Christian Bale and Shane Hurlbut – the man on the receiving end of his tantrum – are through, professionally. Which is a real shame – as well as Terminator Salvation, Bale and Hurlbut had previously worked together on the Samuel L Jackson Shaft movie, meaning that Hurlbut’s career in the spectacularly badly thought-out remake/sequel business is all but over.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

But you probably didn’t realise that. And that’s all thanks to yesterday’s glorious tape of Christian Bale unloading both barrels of his sweary idiot-gun at a director of photography on the Terminator Salvation set.

But, according to a Terminator Salvation assistant director, Christian Bale’s tantrum was a “non-event”. Rumours that he said this while whimpering on his knees while Christian Bale held a knife to his throat and cackled like a maniac are unconfirmed, but probably true.

Now, we’re not saying that Christian Bale is an angry man as such, but we wouldn’t really like to be in the same room as him today. Remember that Christian Bale is the sort of person who, if you tell him that he’s the above-the-title star of the second-biggest movie in cinema history, will get arrested for assaulting his own mother.

And that’s Christian Bale on a good day. So just imagine what sort of prick he’s being today, now that the infamous tape of Christian Bale ranting at a Terminator underling has hit the internet.

You’ve no doubt heard the tape already, so you’re fully aware of the majesty contained within. The swearing. The egomania. The deployment of at least 36 different regional accents. The immortal line “Why the fuck are you walking right through? AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH like this?” The inescapable sensation that Christian Bale is the world champion of being a swaggering, self-important prick to almost everyone he meets. It is golden, and we’re not even slightly exaggerating there.

However, that hasn’t stopped any number of party-poopers from rushing up and widdling all over our strawberries by bleating that “oh, but the tape was taken out of context,” and “but Christian Bale is a professional,” and “you don’t understand what it’s like to be an actor.” And to those people we say this: “DO NOT SHUT US UP! Do not… NO! NO!”

Sadly, one of those people is Bruce Franklin – an associate producer and assistant director on Terminator Salvation – who has come scampering to Christian Bale’s defence, probably because he’s terrified that he’ll end up with a screwdriver poking out the top of his skull if he doesn’t. E! Online reports:

“If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove…It was the most emotional scene in the movie. And for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn’t walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed. He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don’t think it’s fair.”

Actually, we do see Bruce Franklin’s point here. Christian Bale was working on a very emotional scene. The most emotional scene in a movie full of emotional scenes, in fact. Wait, did we just say ‘emotional scenes’? We meant ‘utterly clueless scenes of Christian Bale running away from a load of angry robots’. Our mistake.

Whether Bruce’s defence of Christian Bale helps is another question, though. Some are already saying that Bale’s career might be affected by this tape, with producers being reticent to hire such a notorious hothead for their movies. But even if that’s the case, we’re sure that Christian Bale will still find work. True, that work will be limited to being the holiday cover for Bill O’Reilly, but a job’s a job.

But anyway, if the Christian Bale rant tape and all its reprecussions have taught us anything, it’s that we really need to build a time machine and travel back to see what the set of 3:10 To Yuma was like. Seriously, you can’t employ two actors as obviously mental as Christian Bale and Russell Crowe without someone having their jaw ripped out.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

Seriously, Alec should send Christian Bale a cookie basket. Because Christian Bale has made sure that Alec Baldwin’s insane ‘ignorant little pig’ rant at his daughter has been relegated to only second most brilliant recorded tantrum in history.

A recording of Christian Bale screaming at a Terminator Salvation DP has hit the internet and, if you do one thing today, you must hear it. It’s not just Christian Bale’s fury, you see – it’s the fact that he rants in about 13 different accents.

There’s a lot to like about Christian Bale – the fact that he’s not quite as good at acting as he thinks he is, the way he gave his Batman the most bewilderingly incoherent voice in cinema history, his, um, hair – but nothing even comes close to the way that Christian Bale promotes his films. When it comes to that, the man is a stone cold genius.

Upon the release of The Dark Knight, you’ll remember that Christian Bale got arrested on suspicion of assaulting his own clown mother in a hotel room. That’s dedication for you, and it worked – the film went on to become the second-biggest of all time. And it’s clearly a trick that Christian Bale wants to reproduce for his next movie Terminator Salvation.

What makes us so certain? Why, only a recording of Christian Bale going absolutely batshit at a director of photography on the Terminator Salvation set that’s just hit the internet. There are literally no words to tell you how amazing the tape is. It’s actually brilliant. We’re not overstating it one bit. Listening to Christian Bale going potty-mouthed berserk at a man who probably doesn’t even make a tenth of the money that he does is the best thing we’ve listened to all year.

Listen to Christian Bale’s incredible Terminator rant here

See? How incredible is that? We’ve found it so completely impossible to pick our favourite part of Christian Bale’s meltdown, so here’s a cluster of them for you. Oh, and by the way, you should take it as a given that the way Christian Bale’s voice lurches from LA drawl to gobby cockney to Nu Yawk screech to Welsh to borderline offensive comedy Pakistani during the rant is one of the best things about it. Because it is. Anyway, in no particular order:

“Do I walk fucking walk around the… NO! Do not shut me up, Bruce! Do I walk… No! NO!”

“Why the fuck are you walking right through? AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH like this?”

“Do you want me to go and trash your lights? DO YOU WANT ME TO GO AND TRASH ‘EM?”

“You’re a nice guy. YOU’RE A NICE GUY! But that don’t fucking cut it.”

“I don’t need any fucking walking. He needs to stop walking. I AIN’T THE ONE WALKING!“

Genius. There’s, we’ve said. Christian Bale is actually a genius. Obviously he’s a gigantic self-important prick of the absolute worst kind and spending a second in his company must be like spending three eternities getting kicked in the jaw by an angry horse, but Christian Bale is a genius as well.

According to IMDb, Christian Bale’s next movie is the Michael Mann film Public Enemies. Lord alone knows how he’s going to promote that one, but we’d wager that it’ll involve a tank of petrol, a lighter, a box of puppies and some sort of tribal dancing.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

But because of all the pre-release hype surrounding Terminator Salvation, it’s almost certainly not going to be the last Terminator film. In fact, according to producers, Terminator 5 is now going to be rushed into cinemas by summer 2011.

Apparently to be set in the Middle East, Terminator 5 will revolve around the time when John Connor got a nasty scratch from some robot shrapnel and looked for treatment. It’ll be called Terminator Savlon. Sorry.

Terminator Salvation isn’t being released until the middle of next year, but already the hype onslaught has started. There are rumours that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be a Terminator in it, and that Christian Bale will become a Terminator at the end of it and that if anyone so much as mentions Terminator 3 or that bit from The Sarah Connor Chronicles with the toilet that turned into a Terminator who looked just like the singer from Garbage in it, they’ll be crushed.

Trouble is, though, at the moment Terminator Salvation looks rubbish.

Judging from the Terminator Salvation trailer – which is supposedly a collection of all the best bits from the movie – Christian Bale’s still doing his ridiculous indecipherable Batman growl and there’s a metal Cloverfield monster running about the place going apeshit at everyone. Worse still, we get the feeling that there won’t even be a naked Austrian cyborg from the future demanding that a truck driver lends him his trousers. And, after all, isn’t that what the Terminator movies are about?

But anyway, even if Terminator Salvation turns out to be an embarrassing mess it doesn’t matter – because according to Halcyon Co bigwigs Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, Terminator 5 is already in the works. Variety reports:

The duo had originally planned to wait until the release of “Terminator Salvation” next summer before deciding on whether to proceed with the next chapter, but the positive studio, fan and media reaction to footage from the current pic has encouraged them to move forward ahead of schedule. “We feel the time is now to start shaping the next part of this,” Kubicek said.

That makes such good business sense – strike while the iron is hot. Hot and unfinished. Hot and unfinished and possibly a bit crap. There’s literally nothing that could go wrong with this plan whatsoever.

Apart from the fact that, you know, by announcing that there’s going to be a Terminator 5 before Terminator 4 has even been released it’s perfectly clear to everyone that John Connor won’t beat the Terminators for another film or two so it’s not really worth paying to go and see this one. But apart from that, it’s a genius plan.

In fact, it seems a bit pointless calling the new film Terminator Salvation at all, now that we know nothing will be salvaged until at least Terminator 5. Perhaps Halcyon will take this onboard – after all, it’s not too late to switch the word ‘Salvation’ for an equally pointless noun in the title. We were thinking maybe Terminator Pianola or Terminator Bum.

Unless, of course, the hidden twist of Terminator Salvation is that all the invincible killing machines are destroyed by the Salvation Army, who march through the post-apocalyptic wasteland blowing up the robots by playing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on the tuba. If that’s the case we take it back. We take it all back.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

9 - A man visits the set of Terminator Salvation and does his best not to point out that it’s really going to suck. A lot - Premiere

8 - Burger porn. It’s OK for work, unless you work for PETA. Then you will DIE – Houstonpress

7 - There’s a fire-breathing robot dog in London. Just, you know, a heads-up - Fanboy

6 – The best virals of the year. The fact that we recognise all of these is proof that we need a new job – Videogum

5 - 10 things some bloke wants Apple to make. Clearly missed off ‘girlfriend’ on purpose – Techradar

4 – Something good from The Onion – Theonion

3 - Scientists can detect dementia by gauging how well they understand sarcasm. Note to 85% of our readers: you all have dementia – News

2 - Nintendo terrifies the young – Gonintendo

1 - Mean, mean quotes. Memorise them all – Menshealth

Fortunately there’s a Japanese Terminator Salvation trailer online now, and that goes some way to offering an answer to that question. So is Terminator Salvation going to be rubbish? Here are the three things we took from the trailer:

1 - Realising that the entire point of the original Terminator was that John Connor saves the day, Terminator Salvation has been set in a different future, where everything is exactly the same but John Connor is a bit crappier. In summary: rubbish.

2 - What’s that big metal thing at the end? Terminator Salvation needs to work out if it wants to rip off Transformers or Cloverfield. It can’t do both. In summary: rubbish.

3 - Why is Christian Bale still doing his stupid Batman voice? Why? It’s literally the worst voice from any character in any movie ever made? Does he want us to hate him? Does he? Huh? Honestly, the first person to force a lozenge into that man’s mouth wins our undying respect forever. In summary: go on, guess.

And, obviously, the only ones that matter a jot are the Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminators, because they speak a base amount of Spanish and occasionally use coffins to deflect machinegun fire. So it was with a heavy heart that we learnt that Arnold Schwarzenegger was probably too busy being a high-falluting politician to appear in the upcoming Terminator 4.

But according to Terminator 4 director McG, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be appearing in the new movie – as a half-CGI, half-human hybrid Terminator, but only if ILM gets its act together. We don’t know what part CGI Arnold Schwarzenegger will play in Terminator 4 but he’s 61 now, so he’ll probably be seen in the Terminator reject warehouse because a) his skin is too saggy and b) he looks a bit mid-life crisisy in a leather jacket.

If you ask us, the new Terminator Salvation movie isn’t going to be much cop. We basically have two reasons for this.

Firstly, Terminator 4 can’t ever compete with the majesty that is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Will Terminator 4 have a scene in it where a man gets killed because the urinal he’s using turns into a robot version of the lead singer from Garbage who rams a spike through his head? No. Case closed.

Secondly, there’s going to be no tension to the movie because Christian Bale is playing John Connor. And if Bale can treat his own clown mother in the way that he’s alleged to have done, then an endless army of indestructible murderous robots is going to be a titting cakewalk for him.

So let’s be serious – there’s only one thing that can save Terminator 4 from being dreadful, and that’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. If we can’t believe that super-advanced computers from the future decided to model their killing machines on the sag-faced Austrian bloke from Jingle All The Way, then the whole movie’s flawed from the outset, frankly.

But with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s screentime dedicated solely to rubbishy tourism adverts for California these days, his involvement in Terminator Salvation wasn’t looking promising.

So we should treat the declaration that Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to appear in Terminator 4 like the joyous news it is, even if he’s not really going to appear in Terminator 4 and any images of his face are going to look like they were crapped out by an Atari 2600. Totalfilm reports:

“We’re trying to synthesise a human character with a CGI character and that may or may not have something to do with the T800,” McG told us with a smile. The process isn’t without its problems, though. McG isn’t happy with ILM’s work so far… “At the moment it’s not good enough,” he said. “And we’re running out of time.”

It doesn’t look hopeful at the moment, does it? Still, there’s nothing like a tight deadline to sharpen focus, so we’re sure that Terminator 4 will have loads of CGI Arnold Schwarzeneggers coming out of its arse. And, if not, there’s always Plan B – a bunch of topless teenage boys roaming about a futuristic dystopia with black and white photocopies of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face sellotaped around their heads.

Oh, like it’d make the film any worse.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!