Quicknation    Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Images of: Terminator 2: Judgment DayG Y AOL AV MSN Desc of: Terminator 2: Judgment Day IMDb  Y! DVD: DVD

Terminator 2: Judgment Day Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction film directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, and Robert Patrick. The film is a sequel to , 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 grossed only $38 million in its theatrical run (that film had a much lower budget of $6.5 million), making s 434% increase a record for a sequel.

Upon its release, the theatrical cut ran 139 minutes (2 hours, 19 minutes). On November 24, 1993, the 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.

table

About 10 years after Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) destroyed the original Terminator that was programmed to kill her, two Terminators arrive in Los Angeles from the post-apocalyptic year 2029. The first is the T-800 model 101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the same type of cyborg that Sarah first encountered, while the second is the T-1000 (Robert Patrick); one of them has been sent to protect, while the other has been sent to kill.

John Connor (Edward FurlongTerminator 2: Judgment Day is now living with foster parents. He has grown up on a diet of being told from his mother that he will someday lead what remains of the human race to ultimate victory against the machines. Sarah’s experiences have significantly changed who she is; no longer the frail woman that she has been in the first film, she has become more vigilant and tough, aware of what can ultimately happen to mankind and suffering recurring nightmares about the end of the world. Her personality has led those around her, even her own son, to think that she is insane, and she has, therefore, been imprisoned in a mental institution, Pescadero State Hospital.

Meanwhile, both Terminators eventually locate John Connor. The twist, given away by advanced publicity, is that this time, the T-800 has been reprogrammed to protect John, while the T-1000, an advanced prototype terminator, has been sent to kill him. The newer, sleeker model Terminator is constructed of "liquid metal" and is able to emulate the physical form of any solid object, including another human being. Terrifyingly, this also makes him seemingly indestructible.

After being rescued by the T-800 from the T-1000’s initial attempts to kill him, John realizes that his mother has been telling the truth (thus not being crazy) and decides that he must rescue her from Pescadero. He is told then that the T-800 is programmed to follow his orders, and when he sees him almost shoot a man in the parking lot, tells him not to kill anyone. He decides to use this to his advantage and orders the T-800 to help him rescue his mother.

Sarah is frightened at first upon encountering the T800 again, but she is told by her son that this time, he’s here to protect, although she still finds it hard at first to accept him as an ally. After Sarah is rescued, she asks the T-800 who is responsible for developing SkyNet, the supercomputer, from which the machines stem, that is fated to destroy humanity. The T-800 informs her of Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), a head employee at Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, and begins telling her the history of SkyNet’s development, up to when SkyNet becomes self-aware and launches nuclear weapons against mankind on August 29, 1997, the date known as Judgment Day.

Sarah, John, and the T-800 arrive in the desert at Enrique Salceda’s camp. Ever since Sarah has given birth to John, she has traveled everywhere, dating military men and trying to provide her son with a strong military background. Enrique is one of the people whom Sarah has met before (though the precise nature of their relationship is never established), and he has provided a weapons cache for Sarah and John in the event of nuclear devastation. Sarah plans to flee over the Mexican border with John and the T-800 Terminator, armed with weapons from the cache.

John and the T-800 begin to bond further in the form of a father-son relationship. In particular, a conversation ensues between the T-800 and John about why people cry:

dlJohn: "Uh, no. It’s different. It’s when there’s nothing wrong with you. But you’re hurt anyways. You get it?"

Sarah witnesses their bonding and notes that a machine is the closest thing to a father that John has ever had. Then she falls asleep, where she has a nightmare about Los Angeles being destroyed by nuclear weaponry. She watches in horror as people, children and adults alike, buildings, and cars are all blown to smithereens, and although she tries to warn them, no one in her dream can hear her.

She suddenly wakes up and determines what she should do, as she quickly grabs a firearm and drives off in a car. John and the T-800 realize that she plans to kill Miles Dyson and quickly go after her. After breaking into his home, Sarah shoots Dyson in the back of the shoulder, but stops just short of killing him up close, in front of his wife and son. John and the T-800 arrive, and the T-800 reveals to Dyson who he is. Sarah, John, and the T-800 convince Dyson that they must destroy all Cyberdyne technology used in building SkyNet as well as, which Dyson reveals, the remains of the CPU and cybernetic arm left from the T-800 in the first film that have been locked in a vault in the building.

Sarah, John, the T-800, and Dyson infiltrate the Cyberdyne building and prepare explosives for detonation while retrieving the cybernetic arm and CPU from the vault. However, they attract the attention of police and SWAT, and in the process of escaping, Dyson is shot. He decides to stay behind and detonate the bombs himself through self-sacrifice, but not before allowing Sarah, John, and the T-800 enough time to reach safety.

Meanwhile, the T-1000 is also aware of where they are and catches up to them at Cyberdyne, eventuating into a hot pursuit on the highway, which leads them to a steel mill factory. Eventually, after some violent skirmishing, the T-800 launches a grenade into the T-1000. The grenade explodes, which causes him to lose his balance and fall off a platform into a pool of molten steel. The T-1000 violently slashes about, but eventually dissociates, unable to survive under the extremely high temperature.

John then throws both the first T-800’s cybernetic arm and CPU into the molten steel. However, the T-800 points out that he has to be destroyed as well to expunge all existence of SkyNet technology. John doesn’t want to accept this and demands the T-800 not to go. Seeing tears on John’s face, the T-800 finally understands the reason that people cry.

dl

John and the T-800 embrace for the first and last time; then, the T-800 and Sarah shake hands, proving that she has finally accepted the T-800 as an ally…and a father figure. The T-800 steps onto a chain overlooking the molten steel pool and bids both of them goodbye; then Sarah lowers the chain, and the T-800, into the molten steel. As they watch from above, the T-800 slowly disintegrates in the sizzling pool of fire before dying out forever. The last actual image of the T-800 is its outstreched hand forming a thumbs-up, signifying that the T-800 has, indeed managed to understand humanity.

In the closing scene of the film depicting a dark highway at night, Sarah Connor concludes that the future is not predetermined and whatever happens depends on the choices we make.

Sarah: “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.”

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 and processor chip. There are two theories to explain Skynet's creation.

The first theory assumes that the United States Defense Department, 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.

Thankfully for the timeline in general, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines satisfactorily answered most of these questions. Also, it may be postulated that SkyNet, being an advanced computer, may have realized the chance of paradox, and programmed the T-1000 to contact SkyNet once the relevant dates of time travel were reached, hence sending back the necessary Terminators (though, how to find Kyle Reese and change his memory involves a whole lot more work.)

It also stands to reason that since John sent his true father back in time to impregnate his mother. Thus when the machine future is changed, John could never send his father back in time, and would therefore never be born, thus creating a "parodoxial circle" if you will.

Although he was portrayed by an older actor, John could only be 9 or 10 at the time of the second film based on the birthdate that we are given. John rides a motorized dirt bike on public roads in several scenes in T2, something that would get him arrested if he were so young.

The Terminator tells John and Sarah during the second film that Judgement Day will occur on August 29th, 1997 at 2:14 A.M. EST unless something is done to stop it. Using the above mentioned timeline, this would make John only 12 at the time of Judgement Day, too young to lead a massive, weaponized human resistance campaign. It is possible, however, that John does not become leader until some time much closer to 2029 (when he is 44 years old). If so, details about what he did, where he went and how he became leader of the human resistance over the 32 years between 1997 and 2029 are not revealed in T1 and T2.

John lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Reseda in the San Fernando Valley, which itself is substantial and well populated. The city of Los Angeles and its outlying suburbs, including the suburbs of the Valley would most certainly be targeted during the nuclear strike launched by Skynet, yet John was supposed to survive Judgement Day. It is not fully explained how it is he would have avoided Judgement Day, had it happened, and survived to become the leader of the human resistance, although there is some indication that Sarah may have planned to flee over the Mexican border with John and the T-800 to avoid the strike.

Sarah was in state custody at Pescadero psychiatric hospital during the first part of T2, and had tried, unsuccesfully, to escape on at least three occasions. In addition, John was living under the assumption that his mother was insane, and was well grounded into his life in foster care. Given that this was the case, it is unlikely that advanced, intelligent machines would send the T-1000 back in time to make an attempt on John's life. If left alone, he would have stayed separate from his mother, remained in Los Angeles, and died on Judgement Day, thus ending their troubles.

The storyline as extended by the third film seems to answer some of the questions regarding how John would survive the strike and become leader of the human resistance. Nontheless, it is apparent that James Cameron did not intend for a third film to be made, and that the story should end after T2, with Judgement Day having been averted. The third film also causes some new issues to arise.

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 accessible 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 separately from the film on the director's cut Laserdisc releases of the film and on the "Ultimate Edition" DVD release (now out of print).

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 final deleted scenes can be re-integrated into the film on the "Ultimate Edition" DVD by entering 82997 - 897, the date of Judgement Day - on the main menu screen with the DVD remote (both the Terminator's eyes turn red if this is successful, and the message "The future is not set" will be displayed).

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 (the older DTS track is not present) and its own set of bonus supplements, 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.

The two most used guns by Arnold Schwarzenegger are m1887 shotgun (from pub scene to Enrique site) and m79 grenade launcher (Cyberdyne headquarter scene to end)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.According to Cameron on the Extreme Edition commentary, he was written by "some scientists" regarding the dream sequence in which Sarah is killed by a nuclear blast. They said it was the "most realistic" depiction of a nuclear explosion ever put on film.There were storyboards for an extended version of the Future War backstory, but it was dropped for budgetary reasons and never filmed.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 mimic 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 Mcfarlane has published the Movie Manic Series 7 and part of this series contains action figures from T2: Judgement Day. T-800 by Arnold Schwarzenegger, T-1000 by Robert Patrick and T-800 endoskeleton were featured. T-800 has most of the face ripped off, primarily due to license problems so that the actual Arnold face cannot be shown. T-1000 has a good capture of the last scene from the movie. The T-800 endoskeleton has two version: a normal version and a special version, where the length of armoured chess is different.Numerous artists had also made T2 figures, where most of them are T-800 and T-1000. The most famous two being the Horizon and

Classic plastic. The Horizon models stand 14 inches respectively, with extreme likeliness of Arnold and Robert. Both arms of T-800 are present which is believed to be either a mistake or intentional so that professional modellers can re-model it. The Classic Plastic figures are of a slightly smaller scale of about 16 (12 inches) made up of resin. The Arnold figure has the same problem with both hands but is believed to be used for balancing the figure. Sarah Conner figure is also available from Classic Plastic.