Simon and Jim discuss TERMINATOR SALVATION directed by McG. They discuss the film’s disappointing turn from the franchise’s anti-war themes towards working directly with the US military and parroting establishment narratives, the dour over-saturated (by design!) late-2000s colour palette of the film, what specific voice Christian Bale is doing as John Connor, how the film represents (or doesn’t) the nuclear and the horror of nuclear weaponry, the odd allusions to other films like THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and MAD MAX, the interesting work that could be done tracing the production rights to this franchise and how that impacts the texts themselves, and Jim tells us about his legendary Worst Day of Cinema.

Content warnings: incarceration and capital punishment; misogyny and patriarchy; nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; militarisation and civilian casualties; murder and violent death; body horror and removal of skin; steroid abuse; heart surgery.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at ⁠https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix⁠

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at ⁠https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/J4XVRVSM/collection