Terminator Salvation falls under the category of post-apocalyptic science fiction war films.
Terminator Salvation is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic science fiction war film directed by McG and starring Christian Bale and Sam Worthington . In a departure from the previous installments , which were set between 1984 and 2003 and used time travel as a key plot element , Salvation is a post-apocalyptic film set in the year 2018 , fifteen years after the events of Terminator 3 : Rise of the Machines .