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McG on His Philosophy of Using CG Only When Absolutely Necessary:
"It’s a very militant philosophy when it comes to that. I'm very passionate about that. I think that human beings that spend a lot of time looking at physics, you just understand what that pen’s going to do when dropped. And I think we can all smell the CG component in these films and you immediately are taken out of the picture. So we wanted to go to great lengths to go to the one and only Stan Winston, who passed in the making of this picture and we've dedicated it to his memory, to build all the robots and all the machines of Skynet to the best of our ability.

We wanted to do as much as possible in-camera so you get that level of physics and that level of response, and most particularly you really get the performance you're looking for when you're not stuck telling an actor, 'Oh the tennis ball is the robot. Be afraid.' That's terrible. I want a seven foot piece of Soviet tank machinery where if you punch up against that thing, it’s going to hurt your hand. And when the red eyes glow and the puppeteers from Winston Studios do this and smack you, it brings a better performance out of Sam Worthington and out of Christian Bale and everybody else who’s interacting in the film. So it was absolutely critical to build as much as was humanly possible. And then when you have to extend in a CG capacity, sure, go for it. But films that take place purely in a CG environment, I find they just feel animated and I detach as a viewer, so I'm less interested in that respect."
Getting the Colors Right for This Post-Apocalyptic World:
"I talked to a bunch of futurists at MIT and Cal Tech regarding what would happen if the world blew up.

What happens to the ozone layer? What happens to the patina of the Earth? And we studied Chernobyl and the whole idea of life after people. And what we did is we ended up using some dead stock from Kodak. We left it in the sun too long to damage it so it lost some of its nuance and characteristics. We used old lenses, the primo, not the primo but the ultra-speed lenses from Panavision which are more likely to flare and they bulk-up in the blacks and that range of the spectrum a little bit. And then we bathed the film in more silver than one would traditionally do it, and then in the digital intermedia we took that idea even further. So every step of the way we were trying to make moves to create a look. You know from seeing the film...it doesn't assault you but it just makes you cock your head a little bit to one side and say, 'What's off about this world?' And of course what's off about the world, the suggestion is it blew up and there was a global nuclear holocaust that changed the way things smell and look and touch and taste."

He'll Be Back - The Return of Arnold:
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a role in Terminator Salvation without ever having stepped on the set. Through the magic of CGI, Schwarzenegger and Bale share a scene in Terminator Salvation. McG only received permission to use Schwarzenegger's image a month before the final cut was finished. Asked if he'd received it earlier, would the scene have gone on longer, McG replied, "I didn’t want the scene to go on. I just wanted it to be a tip of the cap. There are a great many elements in the film that are designed to be respectful of the passionate fan and that being the number one moment. And you'll notice the door flies off and Connor goes down on his back and he shoots the machine gun up the chest of the T800. And if we were unsuccessful in getting the likeness of Schwarzenegger, we were just going to have the machine gun having blown his face off. And it would have been the endoskeleton, you know, the skull idea, and it would have been nearly as satisfactory. And in the end I think the Governor’s very pleased with what we did and the manner in which it was handled. So I think that's a nice moment in the movie when that shows up."

McG vs Michael Bay - That 'Penis' Comment is Explained:
"Well the funny thing is, is I have an Irish curse and I think we’re all familiar with exactly what that means. But the funny thing, you know what's really unfortunate about that is somebody says, 'Whose robots are bigger?' To which I thought, 'That is a ridiculous question.' And I thought it would be made clear - I'm being very forthcoming - with saying, 'Oh why don't we meet at the Spartacus Steps at midnight,' and I was trying to channel my inner Ricky Gervais to try to get the irony out there. And of course that was lost immediately and people sort of gravitated to two spoiled brat directors thinking they have big cocks. And it’s just, nothing can be further from the truth[...]"

* * * Sort of a Spoiler * * *

This last question addresses proposed endings of the film, but not the actual ending of Terminator Salvation.

That Controversial Rumored Ending:
A while back when the movie was still in production, McG said audiences would either love or hate the ending. Asked to explain that now that the film's complete, McG said, "Well that was at a time when there was a very dark ending. That's the great irony of the way the film shook down. There was this leak that, 'Oh, Connor dies and they put Connor’s face on top of the machine body of Marcus.' And everybody went, 'Boo, what's that!' That's half of it. We had a jet black ending. Connor dies, we're in a room like this, it’s all the people we care about, [spoiler deleted], you take Connor’s likeness, you put it on the living machine of Marcus. He sits up now looking like Christian Bale, takes a gun, kills Kate, kills Kyle, kills Star, kills everybody – eyes flare red, the end."

"Just take a deep breath. Imagine that you were there. Okay, that's the ending. I mean I would hope the oxygen would just go right out of you. You'd be like, 'You can't do that. That’s the biggest bummer I've ever seen in my life.'"

Writer Michael Ferris explained further: "There was an ending of intermediate darkness in which the transition to the mechanical, Marcus takes over as Connor and goes on to lead the Resistance and becomes... Essentially it’s a secret from everybody except the inner circle that John Connor is now a robot. He’s now a Terminator. We were going for some irony there."