After the comparatively lackluster T3: Rise of the Machines, more than a few people left the Terminator series for dead -- but as it turns out, the franchise may just be catching its second wind.

Aside from The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Fox spinoff series debuting next month, Terminator fans have a fourth film, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, to look forward to -- and after months of scoffing at the very idea of another sequel, let alone one directed by McG, looking forward to it is exactly what many of those fans are doing. All it took was Christian Bale stepping in as arguably the franchise's central character, resistance fighter John Connor.

So. Now that everyone's excited about T4, and filming is only a few months away, how about we get started on some spoilers?

Yes indeedy, plot details for the latest installment are already leaking out, and CHUD's Devin Faraci's got 'em. If you want to know nothing about the new Terminator going in, avert your eyes now! Spoilers come in many forms, sometimes even as italicized fonts:

John Connor is not the main character of Terminator 4; that character is someone named Marcus. Marcus was put 'out of commission' before the nuclear holocaust on Judgment Day and he wakes up about 15 years before the future we see in the original Terminator films, which puts the movie at about 2015 or so. Marcus is a bad ass - think along the lines of Riddick - and what he finds is a blasted world filled with horror. Radiation poisoning, starvation, rampant jaywalking - all the things you expect post-apocalypse. There's also John Connor, who is trying to build a utopian society while running the human resistance.

Connor's role is apparently bigger in the second film; whoever they hire for Marcus (my understanding is that the part is not yet cast) will be around for all three films. Terminator 4 is going to be the most male-centric of all the Terminator films, but there is a butt busting female character by the name of Blair, a pilot for the human resistance.

They're going to need some buttkickers, because the scope of the action in Terminator 4 is HUGE. Lots of machine action in this film, including some battles with the T-600s. Yup, the rubber skin Terminators. And there's another familiar character that shows up - Reese shows up in a scene with John Connor. I don't know what his involvement in the next two films will be, though.

A big aspect of the story is the degrees of difference between a human and a Terminator. By which I mean cyborgs. By which I mean human brains in robot bodies.

Source: CHUD