Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1992)

I love this movie, and never quite understood the backlash against here on the boards. It's a superbly crafted action film, the music is great without ever being intrusive, the effects were groundbreaking (and I don't think they've aged all that badly...with the exception of Clayamation Arnold's leap from the tanker truck toward the end), and the direction is so tight you could bounce a quarter off it.

Personally, I like the director's cut better, because everything feels more fleshed out, and the story never bogs down (in my opinion, anyway). Sure, Furlong is kind of a weak link, but I can look past him, and don't really find him all that annoying to begin with. This a great flick, and a personal favorite that I just never get sick of.

I could've sworn Patrick dissed T2 in another "Films in Release or On Video" thread?

ETA: nevermind. Kids, reading is fundamental.

I love so much about this movie:
-Sarah Connor has actually been locked up and her son thinks she is crazy. And he's half right. They redeem her when she can't kill Dyson but it's a pretty brave setup;
-most of the humor they get out of the Terminator ("He'll live." "I would." His glare at Furhlong after the kid's "Too slow.") is organic to the setup and not groan-inducing (see T3 for how NOT to do it);
-Robert Patrick brings a lot of menace with very little "acting."

And I disagree about the FX, I still see a ton of CG in the big blockbusters (Spider-Man 2 and 3 come immediately to mind) that doesn't hold up as well as the liquid metal effect in most shots.

I agree with BrianM regarding the effects. This and Jurassic Park are the two early CGI films that a lot of the newer effects films still can't seem to top.

Off-topic, but I agree wholeheartedly on Jurassic Park. I'm constantly amazed by how good those CGI shots look even to this day. Amazing work on that film.

Back to the topic at hand. I pretty much agree with Dickson on the T2 effects, except for that one shot that I mentioned earlier. It never fails to take me out of the film, though the rest of the tanker crash sequence is pretty stellar.

Not at all. The effects on the film (Particularly the shot of the T-1000 posing as the tiled floor) are superb. And the New Terminator Tv show uses them this season, they really suck in comparison.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day is a fantastic film, and it is too bad that James Cameron never capped off the trilogy himself. To me...Edward Furlong is perfectly cast as the teen jerk that eventually becomes a hero who saves all mankind. Linda Hamilton is great in the film as well. The only thing I didn't like is that Schwarzennegger never kills anyone other than the T-1000. The chase/action scenes are fantastic, I would place T2 as James Cameron's 3rd best film after True Lies and The Terminator. I

I hope that McG's new Terminator trilogy is better than Jonathan Mostow's Terminator 3. It does look like McG might have the best incarnation of John Connor if Christian Bale is as good in the new films as he was in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Judging by the time I wasted watching what passed for a T-1000 on that shitty TV show, no they do not.

Movie is as great as it ever was.

Yeah, the effects are still great. The only thing that seems to really show age is the soundtrack - as great as it is, I think it's the only thing really giving away the age, besides any computer references.

Starship troopers on blu-ray's CGI effects are still excellent, the practical stuff in high-definition looks pretty cheap though.

Re: the effects, when the T-1000 comes walking out of the burning truck crash it looks weightless, some of the bullet "splash" effects later in the movie sit up on top of the image instead of blending, and the transformation from the foster mom back to cop is squirrelly, but coming off the tiled floor to kill the guard (as mentioned by Dixon), reforming after he's blown to bits in the Ebert Smoke-And-Steam Factory at the end, when Motorcycle T-1000 head-butts and comes through the helicopter windshield before reforming, most of the T-1000 "damage" shots and the various skewerings and impalings all look really great I thought. And the reflections and lighting for the effect always look really good even if the entire thing isn't perfectly blended with the surrounding scene.

Also, when the T-1000 apparently tosses that driver out of the truck's cab, is that really the stuntman we see hitting the pavement feet first because if so DAMN that looks painful and the guy must be 2-3 inches shorter to this day.

You weren't watching it on a 120hz TV were you?

I think Enrique is one of the underappreciated charcters from T2.
EYYYYYYYYYYYY BEEG JOHN!!

Nope. I'd only just discovered 120hz TVs existed today in the HDTV thread. I thought 100 was the top.

This is definitely still one of my favorite movies. As a kid I struggled to understand why I liked it so much more than other action movies and it is one of the movies that made me think critically about the things I would watch. On a lighter note, my favorite method of brother torture came from this movie. I would poke my little bros in the shoulder with a stick and say "Call to John"

My Furlong defining moment is:

"You can't just go around killing people?"
"Why?"
"Because you can't"
"Why"
*in whiniest voice possible* "You just can't, okay?!"

Also, "You're calling moi a dipshit?"

Apparently this doesn't include The Sarah Connor Chronicles. They have a character that is a T-1000, and the morphing was completely horrible. People commented in the thread that if anything that scene in the TV show served to remind us how well the movie's graphics hold up.

The dude playing Sarah Connor has soooooome hairy shoulders.

Like Robin WIlliams as Wolverine hairy.

Man, I went to see this opening day, and I dunno, just didn't enjoy it as much I should have I guess. Lots of great explosions and effects, but it just didn't do it for me.
I think the biggest problem I have with it is Arnie's Terminator coming back as a good guy. I hate it when stars want to be the heros.

And of course that awful G&R song.

I love Hamilton and Patrick in this, hate Furlong and Schwarzenegger.

I'm not a fan, either. It's all spectacle and no heart. There's not even that much tension to it, since there's a nearly-unstoppable killing machine protecting Sarah and John from a slightly more-unstoppable killing machine, and it's hard to like Sarah and John all that much to begin with. The big, dumb action movie aspects of it steamroll right over the better elements that carried over from the first movie.

And, yeah, the GnR tie-in kind of exemplifies where it's coming from. Where the first one was a lean, smart, scary sci-fi action movie, Terminator II is sheer product, designed not to thrill, but to sell.

POSSIBLE RESPONSE:

YES/NO
OR WHAT?
GO AWAY
PLEASE COME BACK LATER
F**K YOU ASSHOLE
F**K YOU
WTF???

I like Schwarzenegger in general, but here, as a good guy, who can't kill, who interacts with Ed Furlong, who is less cool than he was in the last film... I don't know, man.

I love the original a lot but I really, really, can't get behind T2 in any way other than appreciation of Cameron's action sensibilities. Despite the lack of fatalities the films action sequences have a heft to them which a lot of R-Rated action films can't compete with.

I find everything else either insanely cold or weirdly maudlin. It's like Cameron can't write humans so he veers between the two extremes he knows.

I'd agree with Spike here, it does feel pretty cold.

That'd also explain him bringing in Arnie for True Lies. No less of a "human" character than the Governator.

I could understand this if the movie didn't offer up a villain superior to the original, but it did.

Arnold's Terminator not killing in this one leads to some of the better and hilarious ("He'll live") moments in the film. There is only one thing his character needs to kill in this one and he accomplishes that just fine.

What really amazes me if how they thought the T-X from T3 was an upgrade from the T-1000. It always seemed like a normal T-800 with more weapons and a shapechanging ability.

If the Rule is that DaveB is always right then this is the exception that proves the rule! No heart? What about Lil' John Connor's desperate need for a father figure and the resulting relationship he develops with the Terminator? What of the tragic warping of that cheerful diner waitress into a paranoid pain-in-the-asskicker, wrought by her knowledge of an impending and horrible future, and the victory of her humanity when she decides not to shoot Dyson in the face right in front of his kid? And what, Mr. "No Heart," of the sadness we MUST feel when we realize that a killing machine with detailed files on human anatomy has no idea why humans leak water from their eyes, until he learns a lesson in love?

This movie has TONS of heart, plus an excellent milkcarton-head-stab kill.

I suspect you may be dead inside.

I have to disagree, compared to a lot of big spectacle movies these days, T2 is a class act sophisticated piece that manages to combine spectacle and content that has emotional resonance. One that comes to mind for instance the scene where Sarah can't get herself to kill Dyson and breaks down, then follows a nice scene with John...

I guess I was the right age when this came out. It was, and still is to some degree, the exemplar of what a good action/thriller movie should be to me. It sets up the stakes early (I still get chills watching Arnold pull the shotgun out of the flower box in the mall hallway) and the tension never lets up. There are so many great action set pieces. And the villain seemed unsurmountable. I remember freaking the fuck out when the T-1000 started doing all its morphing tricks. I could not figure out how they would stop it. Everything they did in the first movie, wouldn't work. Rip off an arm? It'll just liquify and join back up. When they froze him and there's a slight pause in the action and then you realize that shit ain't working, man... you could slice the tension in my theater. And yes there's heart. You see Sarah grow*, you see Arnold grow, and you realize, even though the world is full of fucked up shit, maybe people really are worth saving. I <3 this film.


*I only watch the extended film, so I can't recall what was or wasn't in the theatrical cut anymore. But I'm pretty sure this scene wasn't. Sarah and John stop to fix Arnold at a gas station, and after he talks them through how to open up his head to access his CPU, Sarah attempts to smash it with a hammer. John talks his mom out of it, showing his ability to stand up to his mom, but also that all life is worth saving. It's a nice counterpoint to the scene where Sarah tries to take out Dyson but has a change of heart, realizing that he deserves a chance to redeem himself.

That, and the T-1000 glitching out post-freeze are my favorite bits from the extended cut. I could do without the rest(the "learning to smile" scene is bad, but Arnold's horse grin is priceless).

I still love the movie, holds up really well for the most part. Still loathe the thumbs up.

Ah T2.

Was awed by this movie when I saw it in the Theater. But it's true that it did not have the tension of the first movie.

BUT it has Arnold, the gorgeous Linda Hamilton (I nver had a bicep fethish until I saw her in T2) and the revelation that is Robert Patrick. A guy who probably weighs 1/5 Arnold. but exudes more menace.

Forget his feet! That guy's head bounces off the pavement!

All these years, and I still cringe a little when I see that...

People, this is how you spell villain.

Not like this: villian.

Like this: villain.

In a move shocking no one who knows me, I side with Dave and Spike. I'm just glad I wasn't a kid when I saw it, so I don't have to look at it through those lenses. From an adult, objective viewpoint, it's really not a good film, in almost any way. Okay, nice action sequences. That doesn't help the other two hours, which are cheesy, bloated, and filled with bad dialogue. And it's just impossible to overlook how bad Furlong is in this, since he is the protagonist.

I now return you to your childhoods, already in progress.

I too switched opinions on it. Twice.

When I first saw it I thought it was the best thing ever but I got tired of it really fast. But it was on TV the other day and having nothing better to do I watched it. It really wasn't bad. Not at all. Other than the awkwardly forced sentimentality and Furlong's gratingly bad acting there's not much wrong with T2. It may be a cynically created product but when the execution is so damn good I can't protest too much.

I am unable to see The Rocketeer through old man eyes. Please tell me if it sucks.

The nostalgia condescension!

You don't have to have seen it as a kid (I didn't) to recognize it as an objectively good film. Adult eyes can appreciate the plot-incited set pieces that Pat mentioned. The humor is done well and is delivered in such a way as to be perfectly complementary of the apocalyptic tone of the whole thing. The plot is simple without being dumb, interesting without being obtuse. It manages to acknowledge, homage, and build from the first film while upping the scale to a completely different plateau. The list goes on. Ed Furlong may be annoying, but I don't really see how he can be faulted for playing a screechy pubescent teen boy, since that was character, and was for a reason. I don't know if you've hung around too many screechy pubescent teen boys, but they are fucking annoying.

Man, I had no idea Sarah Connor had some hairy shoulders. WHO KNEW?!

Greg David, I saw T2: Judgement Day when I was 23 years old and I think the same of the film then as I do now...It is completely awesome, especially the directors cut.

Yeah, but you've got the mind of an eight year old so you don't count.

This may be the greatest thing I've ever seen!

I agree, that's the hardest I've laughed at something on YouTube in a long time.

The golf clubs killed me.

It's pretty sad that having action sequences that logically proceed from the narrative is considered worthy of praise. That's just competent storytelling, not remarkable filmmaking. You people need to lay off the Michael Bay films for a while.

That's a terrible rebuttal. I don't find him annoying because he's an accurate portrayal of an annoying person. I find him annoying because he's an awful actor. Besides, it's not as if he's proven his skills since this film. He's been unconvincing in everything he's appeared in since, so I'm not sure why you'd give him the benefit of the doubt here. It's a bad portrayal of a teenage boy. To see how an annoying teenage boy can be convincingly portrayed, see Rushmore.

I haven't seen Furlong in many movies, but I love him in Pecker.