Warning: This is going to get a little 'spoilery', so if you haven't seen Terminator Salvation you might want to bookmark this baby for later.

It was the moment we were all waiting for this summer season: the resurrection of Terminator. The trailers were looking good, there was a Nolan in charge of rewrites, and for god's sake we even had Batman as John Connor -- how could this go wrong? Well, if you happened to catch the movie over the weekend you know just how wrong it was. It's time to play Monday-morning quarterback in the aftermath of one of this summer's biggest letdowns, and so let's try to answer one question: whose fault was it?

McG
There might be plenty of votes for McG as the culprit. He doesn't have the greatest track record for quality films, but I thought he pulled off a much better movie than expected. The cut-happy editing of Charlie's Angels was long gone and he had some great action set pieces, but that doesn't mean he made a good film. All of his trademark flaws were on display: uneven pacing, character motivations are glossed over or not even addressed; not to mention some stunning gaps in logic -- mainly: can someone explain to me why a techno-overlord like Skynet would build a machine that they can't control?

After the jump; find out who else earned the last three nominations...


Christian Bale
As the story goes, Bale was originally expected to play the Marcus Wright character, but he wanted the John Connor role -- and thanks to his star-power he could demand that the script be rewritten to beef up that part (the original script supposedly kept Connor off-screen for a good part of the film). Most of the reviews have already faulted Bale's performance, and while I thought a slightly mopey John Connor made sense, there just didn't seem like there was much for the resistance fighter to do. I doubt Bale would be willing to compromise the quality of a film just for more screen time, but a forced rewrite could explain why Connor really seems shoe-horned into the story. Now you knew it was going to come up again; but let's talk about that infamous rant: Just for the record, I don't think it has anything to do with the film not winning over audiences, but you have to admit it is kind of ironic that Bale was caught railing against the DP when the 'look' of Salvation is probably one of the best things about it.

The Internet
Back in March I asked you all whether a side-effect of the leaked ending last June could be the chance for McG and company to improve the film. Well, I will be the first to admit that I couldn't have been more wrong. I can't help but think back to J.J. Abrams' piece in Wired last month on the world of spoilers and how more often than not we are just ruining the fun; and Terminator could be a good example of how filmmaking at 'gunpoint' never ends well. It's possible that the leaked ending forced WB's hand to create something different when in fact we should have just let McG do his thing with the original script. At this point I think most of us would have preferred the rumored skin swap over a cheesy heart transplant scene any day -- and was I the only one who thought it looked like Marcus was just a little in love with John Connor? But maybe that's just a bit of wish fulfillment on my part.

Us
Now this might be a bit controversial, but does anybody else out there think that we're all being a little too hard on this movie? I'll be the first to admit I was hoping for something a little better than I got, but I've seen worse (Wolverine, anyone?) Sure, it was a different kind of Terminator film than we're used to; how could they not start the film with that iconic theme song? But, in our brave new world of franchise reboots, maybe we should be a little more open to change?

That said, I'll turn it over to you: tell us what you thought of Terminator and place your vote for who you think deserves the blame.