Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Image:Terminator2poster.jpg
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	James Cameron William Wisher Jr.
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Linda Hamilton Edward Furlong Robert Patrick
Produced by	James Cameron
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	July 3, 1991
Runtime	137 min
Language	English
Budget	$100,000,000
IMDb page

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (commonly abbreviated T2) is a 1991 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, and Robert Patrick and directed by James Cameron. The theatrical cut seen in theatres upon its release ran 139 minutes (2 hours, 19 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 Cameron's director's cut of the film. The film is a sequel to The Terminator, which was released on October 26, 1984. Another sequel, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, was released (in the United States) on July 2, 2003.

Shooting began on October 9, 1990, and was completed on April 4, 1991. The movie was made for $100 million, and at the time was the most expensive movie ever made. It was a box-office smash, earning $204.8 million in the United States alone, and was the highest grossing film of 1991. The original Terminator grossed only $38 million in its theatrical run (that film had a much lower budget of $6.5 million), making Terminator 2's 434% increase a record for a sequel.

1 Cast
2 Plot
3 Paradoxes
4 Versions of the film
5 Trivia
6 See also
7 External links

[edit]

Cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger The Terminator (T-800 Model 101)
Linda Hamilton Sarah Connor
Edward Furlong John Connor
Robert Patrick T-1000
Earl Boen Dr. Peter Silberman
Joe Morton Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson
S. Epatha Merkerson Tarissa Dyson
Castulo Guerra Enrique Salceda
Danny Cooksey Tim
Jenette Goldstein Janelle Voight
Xander Berkeley Todd Voight
Leslie Hamilton Gearren T-1000 Sarah
Ken Gibbel Douglas
Robert Winley Cigar-smoking biker
Peter Schrum Lloyd (as Pete Schrum)

[edit]

Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Image:Terminator2001.jpg

Sarah Connor

Image:Terminator2003.jpg

T-1000 in police disguise

Image:Terminator2002.jpg

Sarah Connor

Image:Terminator2004.jpg

Naked T-800 confronts a biker

In the original Terminator, the cyborg Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Series 800 (played by Schwarzenegger, also called T-800) travelled from the future to do away with Sarah Connor (Hamilton) before she had a son who would one day lead the resistance against the robot's creator, a supercomputer that will have taken over the world. A member of the resistance also travelled back in time, and helped Connor to defeat the robot.

In the sequel, two robots travel back from the future: one to kill Sarah's son John (now 10 years old, played by Edward Furlong), and one to rescue him. (This film took place in the year 1995.) The twist (given away by the movie's advance publicity) is that this time Schwarzenegger's character (another T-800) is the rescuer, having been re-programmed by the resistance to protect John from the more advanced prototype T-1000 (Patrick) that has been sent back to kill him. The newer robot's liquid metal construction gives it the ability to change shape, an ability which was the focus of many of the movie's Oscar-winning special effects.

In some ways, Terminator 2 is a character study of Sarah Connor. She is a quite different person from the frail woman in the first Terminator film; her entire perspective on life has been irreversibly altered by the events in her life. We find her in a mental institution at the outset of this film. The knowledge she has about mankind's future has made her ever vigilant, a trait which is perceived as paranoia and psychosis by those around her. It is also the source of recurring nightmares, and a great deal of antagonism, making it even harder for the doctors overseeing her "recovery" to accept the reality of what she has lived through. However, during the escape from the hospital, the lead doctor is stunned to see both Terminators in operation and realizes that Sarah was telling the truth.

She finds it nearly impossible to accept that the Terminator (Schwarzenegger) is benevolent; throughout the film, she remains hostile towards it and what it represents, while her own son develops a bond with it resembling a father-son relationship. In the director's cut of the movie, it is revealed that Sarah has the opportunity to destroy the machine's processor, thus killing it. She nearly does so, but is stopped by John as he begins to develop leadership qualities.

In a moment of desperation, Sarah attempts to murder Miles Dyson, the researcher who is destined to build the neural network that eventually becomes Skynet. Ultimately, Sarah, John, and the Terminator persuade Dyson to stop his research and destroy all recovered remnants of the first Terminator. After destroying the T-1000, the Terminator then destroys himself to prevent his own technology from being used to create Skynet, despite the emotional protests of the young John.

[edit]

Paradoxes

There are a few paradoxes in the Terminator storyline (assuming a single-timeline model of time travel). If the Terminator did destroy Cyberdyne and Skynet, he and the T-1000 would never have come into existence. Also, if the Terminators succeeded in killing John Connor, there would no longer have been a reason for them to have been sent back in time to kill John Connor.

However, by adopting the multiple timelines model, the paradoxes mentioned can be resolved. In fact, the entire Terminator series demonstrates the 'NO FATE' hypothesis, by suggesting that Sarah, John and the T-800 changed the future. So when they blow up Cyberdyne, they end up in a different timeline to the one Cyberdyne's Skynet existed in.

Fortunately, John is not killed throughout the movie, so the paradox that would have occurred had he been killed never comes into being. Also, since Skynet and the Terminators must exist in timelines following the destruction of Cyberdyne, it must still be developed by someone else without using the cybernetic arm. There are two theories to explain Skynet's creation.

The first theory assumes that the U.S. Department of Defense, the ultimate developer of Skynet, is also its original developer - the same one that created it in the very first timeline, in which the Terminator and Reese did not appear in the past, John Connor had a different father, and Judgment Day occurred later than 1997 (it took longer because there was no future technology to base the research on).

The second theory says that the new Skynet development could be based on the second T-800's severed forearm, which John and Sarah neglect to recover and destroy.

[edit]

Versions of the film

Two versions of the film exist, the standard theatrical cut that was shown during the film's initial theatrical run and a "Special Edition" director's cut of the film that has been made available on Laserdisc, VHS and DVD.

The director's cut of T2 has been the same from release to release, with all the scenes that Cameron re-inserted in-tact. There is however one scene that Cameron shot but choose not to re-insert into the film which has been included as an accesible extra on most - but not all - of the "Special Edition" home video releases. The scene shows the T-1000 visiting John's dog in the backyard of his foster parent's Reseda home and then "scanning" John's room with his hands, eventually finding a hidden shoebox containing pictures of Sarah (Linda Hamilton) from circa 1984. The scene can be viewed seperately from the film on the director's cut Laserdisc releases of the film and on the "Ultimate Edition" DVD release (now out of print), but is inexplicablly absent from the more recent and still currently available "Extreme Edition" DVD of the film.

As a side note, the "Ultimate" and "Extreme" editions of the DVD contain different supplements:

The "Ultimate Edition" contains an older Dolby Digital mix of the film's soundtrack along with a DTS track mixed specifically for the DVD. It also contains bonus featurettes that are not present on the newer release, including an "Easter Egg" (hidden bonus material) wherein the viewer can see the original Japanese-market trailers for the film. The "Ultimate Edition" was also the last (and only) version of the film released to DVD which contained both the special *and* theatrical release editions of the film.

The newer "Extreme Edition" has a clearer picture made from a newer, more advanced High Definition film transfer, a Dolby Headphone soundtrack in addition to a newer, re-mixed Dolby Digital track and its own set of bonus supplments, along with a High Definition (nearly 1080p) version of the film in WMV HD format that can be played on high-end PCs. Many collectors continue to keep both DVD releases in their collections so as to have access to the full range of supplements.

[edit]

Trivia

The omitted original ending of the movie shows an alternate future that negated the entire future man-machine war. In this future, Sarah (now an elderly woman) recalls about the Terminator, the future, and the events that took place after the movie. Also in this future, John is a U.S. senator and has a daughter. It is likely that the ending was considered inconsistent because of the forementioned paradox.

Apparently, the nuclear war scene was described as the "most realistic" interpretation of a nuclear strike against any country (in this case, the U.S.).

There were storyboards for an extended version of the Future War backstory, but it was never filmed and it was dropped for budgetary reasons.

At one point during the end of the film the T-1000 tortures Sarah in order to have her call to John. This makes no sense under the realization that the T-1000 has voice reproduction capabilities which includes the ability to reproduce painful outcries. The continuity of this scene breaks down even further as the T-1000 leaves Sarah alive in order to search for John after she does not comply and call for him. This could of course be somewhat explained by the fact that at this point the T-1000 is already showing signs of malfunction, blending the bodies of the first police officer and the bike cop, as well as replicating objects unintentionally (the striped handrail). Another explanation is the T-1000 simply did not have enough information on Sarah's voice to reproduce it.

Skynet machines that did not make it into the movie: FHK Bomber, Silverfish, and Centurion.

Terminator 2 generated $200 million in the United States alone in its first few weeks of release in the cinemas.

Terminator 2 revolutionized the special effects world, with incredible computer graphics and special effects that were present in the film, primarily during the T-1000's scenes.

Robert Patrick had to mimick the head movements of the American Bald eagle in order to attain his role as the T-1000.

Linda Hamilton's twin sister Leslie Hamilton was used in three scenes (the scene where John and Sarah open the T-800's head to access his chip, she is the mother in the playground before the nuclear attack, and the scene that features "two Sarahs" where Leslie played the "T-1000 Sarah"). In addition to the twins being used, twins Don and Dan were also used in the scene where the T-1000 kills Lewis the guard at the hospital. Dan played the "T-1000 Lewis guard."

When Sarah Connor is trying to escape from the mental health facility and is tackled by the guards, then runs into the T-800, the T-1000 misses an opportunity to kill John Connor by firing his pistol from the other side of the barred door. Instead, the T-1000 steps through the bars before trying to go after the Connors, by which time the T-800 has the time to shield them with his body.

For all of the mayhem and violence in this movie, 16 (at the most) characters actually die. Of the people we know get killed, there are three soldiers, the armored truck driver and his gunner, the cop, a mall employee, the trucker, Todd and Janelle Voight, Lewis the Guard, a cop on a motorcycle, Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson, and the tanker truck driver. We're not exactly sure if the police helicopter pilot or the pickup truck driver dies (they both fall from a high place). The T-1000 is directly or indirectly responsible for most of the deaths. Surprisingly, the Terminator never kills anyone, only injures people. Infact, the only death the Terminator actually causes in the film is the death of the T-1000.

[edit]