Trivia

Director McG partially believes that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles lessened the impact of a new Terminator film and may have harmed its performance.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed to lend his face (from The Terminator) to the film as a CG model, used in conjunction with a bodybuilder's body.

Helena Bonham Carter replaced Tilda Swinton shortly before filming was set to begin. She filmed her role in 10 days.

Director McG asked the cast and crew to read the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - the basis for Blade Runner (1982) - because he wanted them to absorb the bleakness of the world in the novels.

Josh Brolin was asked to play Marcus Wright, but he turned it down.

During filming in the summer of 2008, Christian Bale yelled and used profanity at cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, who was adjusting the light in the background while Bale was doing an intense scene and got distracted by the cinematographer. Bale's tirade was then leaked on the Internet. After it was leaked, Bale publicly apologized for his remarks and insisted that he and Hurlbut are on good terms.

This is the first Terminator film not to feature Earl Boen, who played a doubting psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Silberman, in the earlier films.

Christian Bale is one of seven actors to play John Connor. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the adult John Connor was played by Michael Edwards, the teenage John Connor was played by Edward Furlong and the infant John Connor (who appeared during Sarah Connor's dream sequence of the nuclear attack) was played by Dalton Abbott. Nick Stahl played the fourth John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Thomas Dekker currently plays John Connor in the TV series, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (2008), with John DeVito playing a younger John in a flashback.

The first Terminator film to receive a PG-13 rating (the previous films were R).

Principal photography took place over 77 days.

This is the first film in which John Connor and his father Kyle Reese have appeared together (if one disregards the Special Edition of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), where Kyle Reese makes an appearance in a dream sequence that was deleted from the Theatrical Version).

The song You Could Be Mine by Guns N' Roses appears in the film. The song was previously used in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and appeared on the film's soundtrack.

In several scenes, Kyle can be seen wearing Nike shoes. They are strikingly similar to the Nike Vandals Reese wore in The Terminator (1984).

At one point, the film carried the subtitle The Future Begins.

This is the third Terminator film to have the line, “Come with me if you want to live.”In The Terminator (1984), Kyle Reese says it to Sarah Connor at the Tech-Noir club. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the Terminator says it to Sarah Connor when they first meet at the mental institution. In Salvation Kyle Reese says it to Marcus Wright when they first meet. In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), a paraphrased version of this line (“Do you wanna live? Come on!”) is spoken by John Connor to Kate Brewster when he and the T-850 rescue her in the graveyard. “Come with me if you want to live” is also spoken by Cameron in the pilot episode of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (2008), when rescuing the teenage John Connor from the Cromartie T-888.

The appearance of the clown mascot for the abandoned toy factory is based on serial killer John Wayne Gacy. He entertained children as "Pogo the Clown."

This film is dedicated to the memory of Stan Winston, the American visual effects supervisor.

There are 20 new machines, including Harvester, Moto-Terminator, and Hydrobot.