Jai Courtney talks TERMINATOR GENISYS; plot, PG-13 rating and sequels

As much I get one popped blood vessel closer to an aneurysm every time I write the title Terminator Genisys *cringe*, I am really looking forward to the rebooquel. If you’re looking at that last word and thinking that maybe I’ve already had a stroke and lost the ability to spell properly, then let me assure I still have what little functioning mental faculties I had before. But if this movie can make up words for it’s title, then I’m going to make up words to describe it.

So what’s a rebooquel? We’ll let star Jai Courtney – who plays a new younger version of Kyle Reese, originally played by Michael Biehn in the original Terminator – explain, when he recently spoke to Huffington Post about exactly where this 5th Terminator film fits into franchise.

“What I can say is that we start in a place we’re familiar with from the early films and then, you know, circumstances change. It somewhat shifts the course of events from that point. It’s not necessarily a sequel or a reboot. I don’t even know how you brand it correctly. We’re not remaking one of the early ‘Terminator’ movies. And it doesn’t necessarily carry on from the point where we left off.”

That certainly fits in perfectly with what we heard most recently, which is that the film will be revisiting the infamous scene in the original Terminator where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 first appears in the present (well, the present of 1984) and straight-up kills some punk for his clothes, all while he is in his birthday suit. According to the rumours we had heard earlier in the year, we would see that scene play out as normal, but once that Arnie saunters off in his new duds, a different, older Arnie appears and then proceeds to change things that essentially causes a new timeline to branch off.

While Courtney didn’t shed any further light on the story, he was still awfully chatty and spoke to The Arnold Fans about the possibility of the film retaining the R-rating of the original which was very violent in places (abovementioned punk had his heart punched out of his chest):

“I would love to see it be rated R, but I don’t think it will. I think in this day & age, it’s much more likely to be PG-13. There were no f-bombs. But there’ll be a healthy amount of movie violence.”

Damn you, logical business sense! With studios pumping as much money into these blockbusters as they do these days, convincing one to cut out a massive portion of its audiences, just so that fans can see some blood doesn’t make that much sense. However, it’s not just about gore, sometimes a film needs a dark maturity that PG-13 just doesn’t allow. We have seen some pretty grim PG-13 films though, so I’m 50/50 on this one.

And as is the norm these days, when it comes to studios and their prematurely counted unhatched chickens, it has already been announced that Terminator Genisys will be the start of a new trilogy. With Arnold Schwarzenegger now already pushing 67 years of age, there’s naturally a concern that unless the next two films get filmed soon, he may become too old for the role. But according to Courtney, that shouldn’t be a problem.

“Hard to imagine a Terminator film without Arnold. I guess we start filming – I think the plan is do the next 2 back to back in 2016.”

Terminator Genisys is directed by Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World, Game of Thrones) and also stars Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, Jason Clarke as John Connor and Courtney B. Vance as Miles Dyson, as well as J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Byung-hun Lee, Michael Gladis, Sandrine Holt and Matt Smith. It is scheduled for release on July 1, 2015.

Last Updated: October 10, 2014