Terminator 2: Judgment Day, commonly abbreviated T2, is a 1991 science fictionaction film directed, co-written, and co-produced by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, and Robert Patrick. A sequel to 1984's The Terminator, it follows the characters of Sarah Connor (Hamilton, reprising her role from the original film) and her son John (Furlong) as they are pursued by a new, more advanced Terminator, the T-1000 (Patrick). Schwarzenegger reprises his role as the Terminator, but while the character was the antagonist of the first film, in Terminator 2 he is a protagonist,
defending John and Sarah from the T-1000 and assisting them in their
attempt to prevent Judgment Day, a future event in which machines will
begin to exterminate humanity.
Terminator 2 was a significant box office and critical
success. It had an impact on popular culture, and is considered hugely
influential in the genres of action and science fiction.[3] The film's visual effects included many breakthroughs in computer-generated imagery,
marking the first use of natural human motion for a computer-generated
character and the first partially computer-generated main character.[4] It received many accolades, including four Academy Awards for makeup, sound mixing, sound editing, and visual effects.[5][6]
In 1995, eleven years after the events of The Terminator, John Connor (Edward Furlong) is ten years old and living in Los Angeles with foster parents. His mother Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) had been preparing him throughout his childhood for his future role as the leader of the human Resistance against Skynet,
but she was arrested after attempting to bomb a computer factory and
remanded to a hospital for the criminally insane under the supervision
of Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen). Skynet sends a new Terminator, a T-1000 (Robert Patrick), back in time to 1995 to kill John. A more advanced prototype than the Terminator
that was sent after Sarah, the T-1000 is composed of "a mimetic
polyalloy", a liquid metal that allows it to take the shape and
appearance of anyone or anything it touches. Though it cannot mimic
complex machines such as guns or bombs, it can shape parts of itself
into knives and stabbing weapons and can mimic the voice and appearance
of humans. It assumes the identity of a police officer and goes in
pursuit of John. Meanwhile, the future John Connor has sent back a
reprogrammed T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), identical to the one that attacked Sarah, to protect his younger self.
The Terminator and the T-1000 converge on John in a shopping mall,
and a chase ensues in which John and the Terminator escape by
motorcycle. The Terminator explains that he has been programmed to
protect and obey John. Fearing that the T-1000 will kill Sarah in order
to get to him, John orders the Terminator to help free her. They
encounter Sarah in the midst of her own escape attempt, and she is
initially terrified by the Terminator but accepts his assistance after
he helps them to escape the T-1000. The Terminator informs John and
Sarah about Skynet, the artificial intelligence that will initiate a nuclear holocaust
on "Judgment Day" and go on to create the machines that will hunt the
remnants of humanity. Sarah learns that the man most directly
responsible for Skynet's creation is Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), a Cyberdyne Systems engineer working on a revolutionary new microprocessor that will form the basis for Skynet.
Gathering weapons from an old friend, Sarah plans to flee with John
to Mexico. However, after having a horrific nightmare of a nuclear
explosion she awakens with strengthened resolve and sets out to kill
Miles Dyson. She wounds him at his home but finds herself unable to
kill him in front of his family. Deducing her plan, John and the
Terminator arrive and inform Miles of the consequences of his work.
They learn that much of his research has been reverse engineered from the CPU
and arm of the previous Terminator sent after Sarah. Convincing him
that these items and his designs must be destroyed, they break into the
Cyberdyne building and retrieve the CPU and arm. The police arrive and
Miles is mortally wounded, but stays behind to trigger the detonator
that will destroy his research.
The T-1000 pursues John, Sarah, and the Terminator, catching up to
them in a steel mill. In a climactic battle, the Terminator fires a
grenade into the T-1000 and it falls into a vat of molten steel where
it is destroyed. John throws the pieces of the first Terminator into
the steel as well. The Terminator then sacrifices himself, asking Sarah
to lower him into the steel so that his technology cannot be used to
create Skynet. Sarah looks to the future with hope, believing that if a
Terminator can learn the value of human life, then perhaps humanity is
not doomed to self-destruction.
I always felt we should continue the story of The Terminator, I told Jim that right after we finished the first film.[7]
–Arnold Schwarzenegger on Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Though there had been talk of making a sequel to The Terminator immediately after the original's release, legal and technical issues prevented it. The legal gridlock was finally broken by Mario Kassar in 1990, whilst the technical ones by James Cameron himself during the making of The Abyss.
James Cameron and William Wisher completed the 140-page first draft
on May 10, 1990. By July 15, the first shooting draft was distributed
to the cast and crew. [8] Originally, he thought of casting actor Michael Biehn, who played Kyle Reese in The Terminator, in the role with the explanation that Skynet managed to clone
Reese's body and use it for a new Terminator. Cameron ultimately
dropped this idea after deciding the audience would find it too
confusing.
Billy Idol was Cameron's original choice for the T-1000, and Cameron had drawn storyboards to resemble him, but Idol could not accept the role following a motorcycle accident.[9] Cameron stated that "I wanted to find someone who would be a good contrast to Arnold. If the 800 series is a kind of human Panzer tank, then the 1000 series had to be a Porsche."
Anthony Cortes served as personal trainer for Linda Hamilton, who
began training for three hours each day, six days a week, thirteen
weeks before filming began. She also lost twelve pounds on a nonfat
diet, which continued throughout the film's six-month shoot. Uzi Gal,
an Israeli commando, trained her for her actions scenes with "judo and
heavy-duty military training. I learned to load clips, change mags,
check out a room upon entry, verify kills."[10]
Shooting began on October 9, 1990 and was completed on April 4, 1991.[11] Most of the key Terminator effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic for computer graphics and Stan Winston for practical effects. The external shots of Cyberdyne Systems Corporation were filmed on location at an office building on the corner of Gateway Boulevard and Bayside Parkway in Fremont, California.
Of the fifteen minutes that the T-1000 displays its morphing and
healing abilities, only six of those minutes were accomplished with
pure computer graphics.[12] The other nine were achieved in camera with the use of advanced puppets and prosthetic effects created by the Stan Winston studio, who were also responsible for the metal skeleton effects of the T-800.
I had a ball with [Schwarzenegger] on the set. Absolutely. We were
both very professional. We both showed up, did our work, and we were
under, well, I was under a great deal of pressure because I was an
unknown and I had been given this plum role and I didn't want to screw
it up.[13]
–Robert Patrick on acting in Terminator 2.
The budget, which was believed to have been $90 million at the time
- 3.5 times the cost of the average film - was already nearly earned
back prior to the film's release. Worldwide rights were sold for $65
million, video rights for $10 million, and television rights for $7
million.[14] Schwarzenegger received a salary of $12–15 million for his role as the Terminator,[15][16] Linda Hamilton received $1 million to reprise her role of Sarah Connor.[17]
Linda Hamilton's twin sister Leslie Gearren was used in scenes that
required two Sarahs. She is the mirror image of Sarah in the scene
where they open up the Terminator's head, and in the scene where the
T-1000 impersonates Sarah,[10]
she is whichever one is farthest from the camera, alternating between
the real Sarah and the T-1000 based on camera position. Another set of
twins, Don and Dan Stanton, were used to play the mental hospital
security guard and the T-1000 copying him.[18][19]
The film's visual effects were highly advanced for the time.
Biehn reprised his role from The Terminator in a cameo appearance, but his scene was cut from the theatrical release.[20] It was restored in the Special Edition of the film.
The shotgun used by Schwarzenegger throughout the film was a Winchester Model 1887, modified especially for the film to allow it to be "flip-cocked" by the actor in several of the film's scenes.
Opening in 2,274 theaters, Terminator 2: Judgment Day earned $54 million during its Fourth of July opening weekend. At the time, only Batman
had had a better opening weekend with $57 million during a five day
period. An anonymous theater chain owner was reported as saying "[b]ut
nothing since 'Batman' has created the frenzy for tickets we saw this
weekend with 'Terminator.' At virtually all our locations, we were
selling out well in advance of showings, and the word-of-mouth buzz out
there is just phenomenal."[21]
Made for approximately $102 million,[22] the movie was, at the time, the most expensive movie ever made. However, if adjusted for inflation, Cleopatra, which cost $44 million when it was made in 1963, would have been $219 million in 1995 dollars.[23] It was a box-office success, earning $204.8 million in the United States alone, and $519 million worldwide and was the highest grossing film of 1991, beating Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.[22] The original Terminator grossed only $38 million in the U.S. in its theatrical run,[24] making Terminator 2's 434% increase a record for a sequel.
Upon its release, the theatrical cut ran 137 minutes. On November 24, 1993, the Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Special Edition cut of the film was released to Laserdisc and VHS, containing 17 minutes of never-before-seen footage including scenes with Michael Biehn reprising his role as Kyle Reese
in a dream sequence. The subsequent "Ultimate Edition" and "Extreme
Edition" DVD releases also contain this version of the film.
The Montreal Film Journal calls it "one of the best crafted Hollywood action flicks."[25]Screenwriting guruSyd Field lauds the plot of Terminator 2, saying, for example, "every scene sets up the next, like links in a chain of dramatic action."[26] The film was placed #33 on Total Film's 2006 list of The Top 100 Films of All Time.[27]Terminator 2 was also named the 35th greatest film ever by Empire Magazine on their list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[28]
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. It currently
holds a 98% "Certified Fresh" score on the popular review-aggregator
site Rotten Tomatoes[29] and 91% by those who are considered as being "Top Critics" with 10 positive reviews and 1 negative. The similarly themed Metacritic rates the movie 69/100.[30]Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times,
who gave the film 3.5 stars out of a possible 4, complimented
Schwarzenegger's performance, saying that "Schwarzenegger's genius as a
movie star is to find roles that build on, rather than undermine, his
physical and vocal characteristics."[31] Hal Hinson, reviewer for The Washington Post,
was also very positive in his review, writing that "No one in the
movies today can match Cameron's talent for this kind of hyperbolic,
big-screen action. Cameron, who directed the first "Terminator" and
"Aliens," doesn't just slam us over the head with the action. In
staging the movie's gigantic set pieces, he has an eye for both
grandeur and beauty; he possesses that rare director's gift for
transforming the objects he shoots so that we see, for example, the
lyrical muscularity of an 18-wheel truck. Because of Cameron, the movie
is the opposite of its Terminator character; it's a machine with a
human heart."[32]
Writing for Time Magazine, Richard Corliss
was far less pleased, stating that the film was "[a] humongous,
visionary parable that intermittently enthralls and ultimately
disappoints. T2 is half of a terrific movie—the wrong half."[33]
In 2003, the American Film Institute released its list of the 100 greatest screen heroes and villains of all time. The Terminator was ranked number 48 on the list of heroes for its appearance in T2, as well as number 22 on the list of villains for its appearance in the first Terminator
film. This is the only instance where the "same" character appears on
both lists, though technically they are different characters based on
the same model. T2 was ranked number 77 on 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies.[34] Arnold's famous quote "Hasta la vista, baby" was named the 76th best movie quote on AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes list. In 2008, the film was voted the eighth best science fiction film ever made on AFI's 10 Top 10.[35]
The movie was first released on DVD as a single disc in August 1997.
Three versions of the film exist: the Theatrical cut, a "Special Edition" of the film for Laserdisc, VHS and DVD and an "Extended Special Edition" available only as an Easter egg on the Ultimate Edition DVD. The "Special Edition" was titled the director's cut on the European high definition releases.
The special edition has been the same from release to release, with
all the scenes that Cameron reinserted intact. There are, however, two
scenes that Cameron shot but chose not to reinsert into the film which
have been included as an accessible extra on most "Special Edition"
releases. The first scene shows the T-1000's tactile approach to
acquiring information about the physical world, "scanning" John's room
with its fingertips, and eventually finding a hidden shoebox containing
pictures and tapes of Sarah, seen at the end of the first film. The
second scene is an alternate ending set in 2029 with an aged Sarah
Connor reflecting on how Judgment Day was averted. The addition of
these scenes is the only difference between the "Special Edition" and
the "Extended Special Edition". This version can be accessed by
pressing 8, 2, 9, 9, 7 (based on August 29, 1997, the date of Judgment
Day) on the main menu of the DVD. The Easter egg is only functional on
the Ultimate Edition DVD (no longer produced); however, these scenes
can be accessed at a certain point in the film with the interactive
mode on the Extreme DVD. In addition, the Extreme edition contains
several Easter eggs, which include access to the theatrical version of
the movie and a preview for the Ultimate Edition DVD.
The Extreme edition DVD has several DVD-ROM features, including
Infiltration Unit Simulator and T2 FX Studio, an application where
images of a person can be imported and morphed into a T-800 or T-1000,
and Skynet Combat Chassis Designer, a program where viewers could build
a fighting machine and be able to track progress online.[37] The Extreme DVD also contains a WMV-HD theatrical edition of T2, where the film can be watched, for the first time, in Full HD 1080p format.
Lionsgate
released a Blu-ray of the film in 2006, presented in a slightly
washed-out 1080p transfer and included no special features and a DTS
5.1 audio track from the DVDs instead of a high definition audio track.
On May 19, 2009, Lionsgate re-released the film on Blu-ray with an
enhanced and improved video transfer, as well as a THX certified
DTS-Master Audio 6.1 audio. This "SkyNet Edition" also saw a limited
collector's edition encased in an Endoskull. The limited collector's
edition includes the 2009 Blu-ray as well as the Extreme Edition and
Ultimate Edition DVDs and a digital copy of the film.[38]
The film was adapted by Marvel Comics as a three issue miniseries, which was collected into a trade paperback. Prior to the release of T3, there were several sequel books including: Malibu Comics Terminator 2 - Judgment Day: Cybernetic Dawn (aka. 'Present War'), Terminator 2 - Judgment Day: Nuclear Twilight (aka. 'Future War'), IDW Comics T2: Infiltrator, T2: Rising Storm & T2: Future War by S.M. Stirling and The John Connor Chronicles by Russell Blackford.
Following the film, James Cameron directed an attraction at Universal Studios Theme Parks, entitled T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, reuniting the original T2
cast. Costing $60 million to produce, and with a run time of only
twelve minutes, it became to most expensive venture per minute in the
history of film.[39]
The attraction opened in the Hollywood area of Universal Studios
Florida in Spring 1996, with additional venues opening in the Upper Lot
of Universal Studios Hollywood on May 6, 1999 and the New York section
of Universal Studios Japan on March 31, 2001.
An Italian film, an unofficial "sequel" of sorts to the original Terminator film, was released in 1990 as Terminator II. However, it has been known by various other names including Alienators, Aliens 2, and, internationally, Shocking Dark.
Robert Patrick makes a cameo as the T-1000 in Wayne's World,
where he pulls Wayne Campbell over and asks him if he's seen John
Connor while showing him a picture of Connor. Patrick also has a
(non-speaking) cameo in his T-1000 costume in Last Action Hero (also starring Schwarzenegger) as Jack Slater and Danny Madigan enter LAPD Headquarters. Sylvester Stallone appears in the film, posing as "The Terminator" for a fictional Terminator 2 poster.
