LOS ANGELES, May 18 (UPI) — Terminator 2: Judgment Day, returning to theaters Friday, exponentially expanded the dramatic possibilities of its predecessor. The Terminator is a great film and Terminator 2 sowed the seeds it planted in ways rarely equalled.
Ten years after a terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from the future tried to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), her son John Connor (Edward Furlong) is living with foster parents. An advanced T-1000 arrives to eliminate John, but future John programmed a T-800 terminator (Schwarzenegger) to protect him.
Schwarzenegger as the hero was supposed to be a surprise but the trailers gave it away months ahead of time. T-800s have been heroes ever since, though in 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, only after he completed his evil mission.
It wasn’t too great a stretch. In the seven years since 1984’s The Terminator, Schwarzenegger had been the hero in Commando, Predator, The Running Man, Total Recall and even Twins and Kindergarten Cop.
What makes Terminator 2 compelling beyond its explosive action scenes is how director James Cameron, co-writing with William Wisher, thought of the natural dramatic extensions of everything The Terminator established.
Would future machines with access to time travel give up after the first try failed? Probably not.
Sarah learned she was the mother of the leader of humanity. What would living with Sarah have been like for John? How would Sarah react to seeing a T-800 again?
John orders his T-800 not to kill anybody. Schwarzenegger called himself “the kinder, gentler terminator” in press, paraphrasing George H.W. Bush at the time.
Subsequent Terminator sequels would think of clever twists on the formula. In Terminator 3, the T-800 was sent by John’s wife so did not take orders from John. In Terminator: Genisys John sent a T-800 back to Sarah’s childhood to wait for the 1984 model to arrive.
None of the sequels, including the Cameron-produced Dark Fate, really evolved the story like Terminator 2. The TV show did though. Two seasons of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles really developed the characters in meaningful ways.
In 1991, Terminator 2 sold audiences on a thrilling vehicular chase through the L.A. River, robot fights in an elevator and parking garage, the destruction of an office lab, and extended climaxes on the freeway and in a molten factory.
These were actual stunts, no green screen. The only screens were backdrops for driving shots, and those backdrops were still filmed on the road, not generated in a computer.
The T-1000 was the groundbreaking digital effect in 1991. It is still impressive because of how the T-1000 uses its liquid metal powers.
Absorbing bullets is convenient, but he also spreads onto the floor and pours himself into a helicopter. The best is when the T-800 slams him into a wall and the T-1000 just comes out his own back without turning around.
The digital morphing was used in less than 50 shots. The metal bullet holes were just an editing trick. Every time the T-800 shoots, Cameron cuts to the T-1000 with a new metal blob attached to his chest and Patrick jolts like he’s just been shot.
Since 1991, some clever talkbackers have suggested the T-1000 never had to return to the Robert Patrick visage. However, that’s not so clever when you analyze it.
The T-1000 can take the forms of people he killed. That would raise a lot more questions it doesn’t have time to deal with once those bodies are discovered.
A generic cop can pass undetected and the value of an identifiable villain is worth it. They have made movies with transferred villains. The Hidden is cool but Fallen doesn’t quite work, despite producing the greatest Denzel Washington GIF of all time.
Hamilton’s muscles were also groundbreaking in 1991. As tough as she was though, seeing the T-800 again turns her right back into the scared waitress from 1984, for one scene at least.
She snaps back into soldier mode once she learns this T-800 is a protector and even recognizes the value of a robot as father. There’s no emotional backlash. One tried to kill her but the other protected her son relentlessly, which is the most valuable quality to a mother.
A deleted scene from The Terminator told Sarah she can’t prevent Skynet. Cameron changed his mind between films since he let them blow up Cyberdine, the robotics company that creates Skynet.
That script also expertly introduces all the players in this story. After the cyborgs arrive, we see John with his foster family (Jenette Goldstein and Xander Berkeley).
In the mental institution, Sarah tries to deny the Cyberdine cover-up to humor Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen reprising his role from The Terminator). Then they cut to Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) opening the vault with the metal arm and chip from The Terminator.
The basic location footage is as impressive as the action. The T-800 and T-1000 pass each other on different floors of the Galleria. Cameron staged and coordinated multiple floors of shoppers just to get a shot of them going different directions, and it is effective because it places them in the real world.
Terminator 2 is the flashier film, but revisit the original and it still resonates. Terminator 2 is about a boy and his robot, and John comes of age but Sarah was already an adult, struggling as a single waitress in L.A., suddenly burdened with birthing the savior of humanity.
There was no easy answer for Sarah. She just had to survive and wait. The first Terminator also has the best future war scenes in the series, and Terminator 4 was all future war.
But, Terminator 2 is the one celebrating its 35th anniversary in theaters. The sequel is still more invigorating than most recent blockbusters.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
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