Responses to Christian Bale's meltdown varied widely: lust, sympathy, disgust, and even indifference. ("Please," one actor with a small part in Transformers told us. "That would have been a good day on the set.")

The actor has yet to issue a statement about it, though a tweet on that matter is no doubt forthcoming from Ashton Kutcher, and Terminator Salvation AD Bruce Franklin has already weighed in at E! Online, downplaying the four-minute tirade as just part of the process:

"If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove...It was the most emotional scene in the movie," said Franklin. "And for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn't walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed.

"This was my second movie with Christian, and it has always been a good experience with him," added Franklin, who also worked with the actor on 2000's Shaft. "He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don't think it's fair. The art of acting is not paint by numbers, it's an art form. "

In Bale's defense, had it been us trying to muster up the intensity required to convincingly battle an army of robot killing machines, and a cinematographer had repeatedly shuffled into a shot mumbling something about being "sure I left my lens cap around here somewhere," we too might have summoned the ire of the Pretentious Actor Gods atop Mt. Methodia. Still, to avoid future confrontations, he might want to take a cue from the zenlike pacifism of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, after 50 failed takes (Terminator: "Are you...line!" James Cameron: "Sarah Connor! Sarah Connor! Sarah Connor! Jesus Christ, for the last time—it's Sarah Connor, you dumb sack of wienerschnitzel!"), quite admirably never once lost his cool.