Looks like another case of Watchmen. We are getting a movie that fans will enjoy, but one that critics don't like. The difference with Watchmen is that this movie is much more linear and simple, Watchmen was much deeper, layered, and more complex, not to mention much more gory and violent. Salvation should make a decent amount of money in the box office.
People need to stop laying blame ONLY on McG. People need to understand that it was Halcyon Company that approached McG to direct Salvation, and not the other way around. Even McG himself initially wanted nothing to do with this movie. It was also Halcyon Company that hired Brancato and Ferris to write that awful original script. It then took a long time to get Bale to sign on, who only did so once script rewrites had occured. Warner Brothers then made the decision to change the ending of the movie after it had leaked online. Finally, McG was given a lot of creative freedom by WB to make the movie. What happened in the last minute it seems is that there some was studio pressure from Warner to make it PG-13, reportedly because Warner was dissapointed with the performance of Watchmen.
Even though Watchmen was not commercially successful, fans loved it. DVD sales may prove to be strong. Studios need to take creative risks like allowing movies such as Watchmen to be made, otherwise studios risk alienating fans of certain mythologies and also risk alienating some general audiences.
McG definitely has some flaws and is not a great director, but most of the blame here needs to go to Warner Brothers for some silly decisions as well as Halcyon Company since THEY hired McG and they were the ones that got Brancato and Ferris to write the initial full script.
If McG had been given total freedom by WB and Halcyon, he probably would have gotten Nolan to do the entire script with no rewrites, and the movie would have been over 2 hours with an R rating.
What's done is done. If they had gone originally with the Marcus story, it would have been a disaster in the eyes of the fans. It also likely would have flopped at the box office. Bale refused to do the movie playing the Marcus character, so they would have lacked star power as well. Unfortunately McG was not able to do a movie only about Connor since the script was already written, and Halcyon Company wanted to go with the Marcus angle originally. All that McG (with some convincing from Bale) was able to do was compromise with Halcyon, making the story about both John and Marcus.
McG was not the only one who did the editing, so blame cannot go only to him. WB (and Halcyon) very likely pressured him into cutting the movie and making it suitable for a PG-13 rating. Conrad Buff was the main editor for the movie.
The rumoured 30-40 minutes of material are supposed to be deleted/cut footage along with some behind-the-scenes stuff and other extras. I guarantee it is not going to be purely cut footage.
Basically a lot of twists, turns, compromises and revisions occured in the making of this movie. If it had been made the way Halcyon originally wanted it to, I guarantee it would have been an even worse movie.
What McG did was salvage a bad initial script, turning it into a decent script after rewrites and from all accounts he has made a good *Terminator* movie. It may not be a great movie in general, but as a Terminator movie it looks like McG has given new life to the franchise.
Lastly, I will say that I am not even a McG fan in any way, but I give respect where it is due.
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