Comic-Con: Terminator Will Be "Bach"

photo credit: Warner Brothers

Maybe the “Terminator” franchise is giving Comic-Con attendees a glimpse of the future in more ways than one. One of the things that’s surprising about the convention is that for all the ways Hollywood’s presence here has exploded in the last few years – actors actually deign to appear as a matter of course, and there’s nary a bit of public transport that’s not elaborately shrink-wrapped with ads for some movie or other – the big presentations haven’t changed much. They’re always chaotically organized; they don’t employ props any more elaborate than a dais and movie screens; and most of the fans lining up to ask questions sound like Chris Farley’s fumblingly awestruck talk show host character from “SNL.”

On Saturday, I was waiting with the press pack to be ushered into a big presentation for next year’s post-apocalyptic, Christian Bale-headlined “Terminator Salvation” when I ran into an old colleague (read: someone who, like me, is committed enough to fanboy culture to make the annual pilgrimage here, but not in costume). He made an excellent point about why Hollywood publicists haven’t started choreographing things more, speculating that they deliberately don’t want to lose the grass-roots, amateur-accessible vibe of it all (never mind those $200 million production budgets).

And then “Salvation” director McG (“Charlie’s Angels”) started rockin’ the mic, living up to that deejay-esque handle. He put a new spin on calls for a repeat showing of the trailer – an occurrence as predictable here as a concert encore – by leading the packed auditorium in this-side-versus-that-side cheers. (Shades of the old “Less filling!”/ “Tastes great!” exchanges in the Fenway bleachers.)

When a fan of Asian descent and wearing Schwarzenegger-style shades posed a question in a perfect Ahnold impression, McG broke security etiquette by inviting him up onstage. “That was awesome,” said McG. “And if you’re Asian, that was [expletive] unbelievable.” The director also waved up a woman dressed in Linda Hamilton paramilitary gear, who'd just gotten up to rant (in character) about the seven-foot T-600 cyborg model set up next to McG. Ditto on the invite for another guy dressed as the morphing, shotgun-blasted T-1000, who’d held up a picture of Eddie Furlong and asked the crowd, “Have you seen this boy?”

It made for good entertainment, and gave the presentation an unexpected edge over Friday’s “Watchmen” preview, the con’s centerpiece. But you do start to wonder if these three weren’t plants. That sort of thing has gone on before at the con – notably at a “Lost” panel a couple of years ago, when a “real” fan turned up rambling about the Dharma Initiative. Perhaps that’s the Comic-Con fate that “Terminator” is helping to make.