The new Terminator movie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Carke and Jai Courtney was seen recently filming at the Oracle Heaquarters in Redwood City, San Francisco, according to Inside Bay Area. The location was dressed to look like the iconic Cyberdyne Systems building last seen in 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Completion of filming at the location also marks the completion of scenes featuring franchise star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
While it is no surprise that the Oracle headquarters were chosen to double up as Cyberdyne Systems - one of the founders of Oracle (developers of Java), Larry Ellison, is the father of producers Megan and David Eliison - it is puzzling as to why the director Alan Taylor did not use the original building in Freemont, California, now owned by Mattson Inc., which coincidentially designs, manufactures, and markets semiconductor wafer processing equipment used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The building is not only still standing but also remains virtually unchanged since its appearance in T2, as seen below...
Most Terminator fans, and movie goers in general woud have loved to have seen the same location re-used. Using a similar location doesnt quite hold the same appeal, and will actually pull your audiences attention out of the world of the movie - imagine if in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Annakin Skywalker, when visiting Owen and Beru, did so at a similar dressed location filmed in the Nevada desert as opposed to the original set in Tunisia.
The inclusion of the Oracle Headquarters in conjunction with the movies much publicized premise of time-hopping between the first two instalments, suggests a worrying possbility - does the movie intend to prevent the destruction of the Cyberdyne Systems building and all of Miles Bennett Dysons work into the Neural Network Processor? Is the intention to prevent Dysons death and thus allow his work to continue? Is this new Terminator movie attempting to rewrite the timeline so that the much prophecized date of Judgment Day on August 29th 1997 did happen?
If this is the case, if this Terminator movie is attempting to "repair" the timeline, then they will actually damage the timeline in a much greater fashion than Jonathan Mostow did with T3, or McG did with Salvation. Despite many fans assertations, the events of Terminator 2 did NOT change the future, they actually repaired the timeline - the events depicted in T3 and Salvation are actually parallel to those that woud have occurred in the first, original run through of events, before the time travel incursions seen in the movies. Judgment Day never happened on August 29th 1997!
