McG told Brad Fiedel the opposite in that he wanted to hire Brad to score as to be true to the original movies. However, McG wanted Elfman to give those themes and ambient sounds a “Wagnerian quality”.
Later a character receives an injection prior to a medical procedure. During this film’s opening moments, a man is prepped for an execution by being strapped down and having drugs injected into his veins. McG met with the original Terminator composer Brad Fiedel but was not interested in repeating the sounds Fiedel achieved in his films. Terminator Salvation is rated PG-13 by the MPAA PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and language. He (McG) wanted to discuss scoring the film with Hans Zimmer but he was unable to arrange a meeting. So, the fact is… we never heard back, not even a phonecall, not even ‘Sorry but’ you know, ‘the chemistry wasn’t right’, whatever it could have been but not even the respect of a call, after they swore up and down that if I came up from mexico I was the guy“ Brad Fiedel So they flew- they said “Yes, absolutely”, they flew me up there, I watched the film, I guess I wasn’t jumping up and down in, in enthusiasm but I- ‘cos I’ve always been a straight shooter but I didn’t, you know, I was diplomatic and I said: “Wow, yeah there’s a lot here, I think music can really be a contribution” ( trying to find positive things to say) but I guess he, he thought that I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t kissing his ass for the job that he’d done um, or whatever, I don’t know, I, truthfully I don’t know, all I know is he said: “Great, great!”, we had a great- we had a really good constructive meeting and the reports back was ‘ that was a good meeting‘ you know, from my agent, whatever, and I went home and I said: “Well,” uh, “we need to get this together” uh, “because if not I need to really get beck to Mexico, things are being built down there and I need to be there if I’m not doing this gig”.
Anyway, he uh, I was in the midst, I had- I had become a bit of a surf er, bum, after you know, moving to Santa Barbara and the Hollywood thing kinda finding its own uh, ending, between me and between them ‘them’ being producers and directors of Hollywood but anyway um – I realized that I needed something else to do, I actually designed and built a little hotel, surf hotel, in Mexico but the bottom line is – I was down there doing my business, doing a whole different thing, I hadn’t scored anything in like eight years and I got the call that McG wanted to talk to me, and I said: “Man, I can’t” you know, “I can’t do that” and he said- they said: “No, no, no, he really wants to be true to the other films, he really wants you”, and I, through my agents or whatever, I said: “Look, I’m not coming up there for an audition, if he really wants to hire me to do it I will come up” you know.