During the filming of Terminator Genisys, io9 got to visit the set and noticed something specific about new Kyle Reese, Jai Courtney’s, shoes.
They’re exactly the same as Michael Biehn’s shoes in The Terminator.
Exactly.
Costume Designer Susan Matheson is not only a shoe expert, but a Terminator fan. Nike stopped making the original Nike Vandals seen in the first film, and when asked to provide a new pair for Genisys, they tried to pass off a Frankenstein’d pair cobbled from various similar Nike parts. That didn’t fly.
“I’m a sneaker person and I know every single base of every sneaker. The Air Force One base is not the same as a Nike Vandal. So I said, ‘No. I’m not going to do that. I need you to make me the real sneaker… Everybody watching this movie is going to know if it’s the real sneaker or the non-real sneaker.’ Anyone who is a fan of Terminator knows that sequence and knows the photo booth, and knows him grabbing the jacket, and knows that he’s taken the pants off the bum in the alley. We all know this, because I’ve watched this movie in slow motion frame by frame over and over and over. This is the entire reason I went into moviemaking, was a combination between Terminator and Mad Max. Those two movies made me decide that I wanted to do costumes. So for me, if I can’t give you the real sneaker, then I might as well not do the movie, right?”
Nike relented and produced a special pair of vintage-style Vandals just for the film. (Or, y’know, because they’re going to re-issue them later as they’d be insane not to at this point.) Susan Matheson is a gift to shoe fans and killer robot fans alike.
You can check out the trailer for Terminator Genisys right here.
Via io9
