Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991): Favourite Films Series

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991): Favourite Films Series

The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (T2) were among the earliest R-rated films I ever saw, and introduced me to a fusion of action and horror and sci-fi the likes of which I had never witnessed before. Little did I know at the time, but it would become a massive influence on the kinds of movies I would grow to love, as well as influence my own writing. 

As much as I absolutely love the original Terminator, I always tend more toward T2 if a choice between one or the other is presented, for a few reasons. Nothing against The Terminator, but it looks and feels like a deeply 80’s movie, and that’s a huge part of its charm. T2, on the other hand, is timeless. The visual effects hold up incredibly well, and I’m not just talking about the innovative cgi effects that brought the iconic T-1000 (Robert Patrick) to the screen. In fact, for a movie so well remembered for breaking ground with computer effects, it boasts equally impressive practical effects. But what are effects in a movie without a good story at its base? Well, T2 has that going for it, as well. 

T2 is often cited as one of the best sequels of all-time. I had seen it many times before I was made aware of, in retrospect, something glaringly obvious: T2 is also kind of a remake of the original Terminator. I think the reason I didn’t notice for so long was because of how different the characters are. When you break it down, Terminator is about a warrior from the future (Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese), protecting someone in the past (Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor) who is important but vulnerable, from an assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger as The T-800 Terminator) that’s also from the future. 

The difference the second time around is the future warrior is the re-programmed T-800 (a concept so simple and simultaneously so ingenious it’s unbelievable), the victim is young John Connor (Edward Furlong), and the assassin is the T-1000—a more advanced model that’s debatably more frightening, because of its even wider array of abilities, the greatest of which being able to take the shape of other people and various weapons. 

Some fans feel that one of T2’s weakness is its lack of originality, but to me, it’s a non-issue. It is perhaps the greatest sequel I’ve ever seen. The story, though similar in its simplest form, has higher stakes than before, and the characters have greater depth. 

Sarah Connor is no longer a damsel in distress, she’s a hardened badass—perhaps the toughest female action star since James Cameron made Sigourney Weaver into a comparable warrior in Aliens—and though Sarah shares the main lead with John, she’s even more sympathetic than before, because the audience knows what she went through before, but no one else believes her, and she’s pent up in an insane asylum. 

As for future Resistance leader J.C, some think he’s annoying and are critical of Edward Furlong’s performance, but I think he’s great. He doesn’t give a shit about his step parents or his crazy mom or obeying any rules…at least, that’s what he wants everyone to think, but as the movie progresses, we see he really does care about his mom, and feels bad he didn’t believe her when she told him he was the key to saving humanity in an unwritten future.

And that’s another huge element of this movie that I always love, the concept that the future is undetermined, and they have the power to change it. At the end of The Terminator, even though Sarah Connor has crushed the T-800 in the hydraulic press, there’s this sense that things are not over yet. I remember the first time I saw the T-800 arm and broken hard drive stored in those glass containers at Cyberdyne, I was shocked. The whole later part of the film, where they team up with the man who unwittingly creates Skynet, Miles Dyson, to destroy Cyberdyne Systems, was (and still is) as riveting as anything I had ever seen. This is what I mean about the stakes are higher. Not only do they need to protect the future resistance leader, they need to stop Skynet in its tracks before it can become self-aware, but the T-1000 (and the entire L.A. police force) are all after them. 

In essence, T2 is just a big chase film. The Terminator was a simple, surprisingly airtight plot that allowed for some really excellent action sequences. That may be another reason to like it more than T2, because when you dig into the plot of T2, some things start to not add up, but it, too, has a pretty well-thought-out plot. The difference here is it’s primarily action, whereas The Terminator tended a lot more toward straight-up horror. That’s not to say there isn’t horrific stuff in T2 (the reveal that the T-1000 has stabbed John’s stepdad through the head freaked me right out as a kid), but the action scenes are more numerous and more jaw-dropping. 

In particular, the chase through the L.A. River is one of the best (if not the best) chase moments/action scenes in the whole movie, and it happens fairly early on. Another great moment of action comes at the end when the T-800 and T-1000 engage in hand-to-hand combat. Future sequels would try to recreate amazing moments like this, and fail extremely hard.   

Despite the shoddy sequels, the Terminator franchise is still relevant today, as evidenced by the 3D re-release of Terminator 2 this past weekend. It’s still relevant, all these years later. That’s how well T2 holds up. It set a new precedent for how summer blockbusters were made (in 1991, it was the most-expensive movie ever made at that point), but I doubt very many that have been made following it will be able to live up to its legendary status. I’ll end this write up the only way I know how: with the final line of the film—one of the greatest final lines in film history.

“The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life…maybe we can, too…”

-Sarah Connor