Film review: Terminator 2 Judgment Day

1991’s Terminator 2 Judgment Day is one of the best action movies ever made by more than one metric. Yours truly can never run out of excuses to watch it and the 40^th anniversary of its predecessor is good as any. There is not much myth to bust regarding this one’s inception, but I got my speculation.

After 1989’s Abyss became its lukewarm self, it was likely that James Cameron needed a safe bet to be his next project. Then that “safe bet” became the most expansive to make flick of its day. There were the then new (Not mention expansive and slow to render.) digital effect and loads of stunt work. But with peak Arnold Schwarzenegger on board to play the good guy and a solid foundation to expand on, Judgment Day turned out to be a sure bet. That being said, it’s still a heavier film in terms of subject matter than any post-911 escape can manage.

Nuclear weapon, machine intelligence and time travel

In James Camreon’s Story of Science Fiction, not the tv show but its companion book, the titular Canadian film director voiced his concern for the then current unchecked development of machine intelligence, comparing it to the 1930s’ excitement regarding energy generated by nuclear fission (The one that led to atomic bombs.). Those words were printed in 2018 during US’ Trump administration.

However, when one looks at Judgement Day, one can clearly see that Cameron was thinking about the deadly cocktail of machine intelligence and nuclear weapon way back when another Republican (Namely Bush, but not that Bush.) was US president. Linda Hamilton as Sarach Connor mentioned the fusion bomb to Dyson, the head of developing Skynet chip, for crying out loud.

What’s funny in the scene is that both Ms. Connor and Mr. Dyson saw the inherent benefit of “thinking machine”. The former saw it in action as a guardian and considered it the only piece of sanity she can get in an insane world created by time travel. The latter merely envisioned a world where hazardous jobs like airline pilot can do away with inherent human vices. Then both agreed that global thermal nuclear holocaust is not worth it.

With the nuclear holocaust only mentioned in the 1984 original, the nightmarish (In more than one sense of the word) image of mushroom cloud in the middle of one city was not shown until the 1991 sequel. The different types of terror of war shown in those 2 movies still feel very real to us in the year 2024: first one showed us those forced into fighting a war suffering the business ends of Hunter-killers aka drones (Funny how Cameron quoting Putin’s focus on AI to more than one guest of that show,); then there is the nuclear fire too dreadful to imagine.

This paragraph was written on Father’s Day (CST being the time zone), so it might turn into a roast, figuratively only, of my old man. He introduced Schwarzenegger flicks to me when I was still in kindergarten. I remember sitting through True Lies with the man after he told me about the Rocket Man being fired bit. He wrongly assumed that a movie with heavy subject matter like Judgment Day was suitable for a first-grader. So, he asked me to see this then only Terminator sequel with him. After we got to Connor’s nightmare where the screenshot below was taken, I begged him to turn the movie off.

The Terminator and them Alien flicks never registered in my mind as horror films when I saw those in my middle to late teens. But seeing a nuclear holocaust depicted THIS graphically and personally after some other shit as a six-year-old, traumatized would be an understatement. I did not watch this one through until 7 years later, after Terminator 3 came out and flopped. That third act sure blew that teenager away.

“Other shit” of course involves this movie’s shape-shifting assassin bot. First, they disguised as someone and just stabbed another meatbag through the throat.

Then they can hide in plain sight. When I was 6, my parents moved to a new place with a chess board looking floor more or less like this one. So, I was dreadful of something rising from that piece of floor and stab me in the eyes!

Machine intelligence had likely become a genie incapable of going back to the bottle by the mid to late 2010s. But in the fictional 1994 of Judgment Day, delaying the genie coming out of the bottle was still possible. The Sarah Connor character was supposed to blow up a Cyberdine facility in the first movie in one early draft. Then 6 million us dollar budget and 107 minutes run time both ran out. So, she could only be back to sequel for that unfinished business.

In contrast to Sigourney Weaver only went to the range with Cameron once before she had to fire a gun on set for Aliens, Hamiliton went through serious weapon training before Judgement Day, and it did show on screen. This is a woman handling machine into benefits against machine as hazard.

No, I haven’t forgotten the time travel in this deadly cocktail. But since it’s still science fiction instead of technological reality, let’s hope that this particular genie will never come out of its fucking bottle…

Armed Assholes

James Cameron is unmistakenly a hippy. Not only do pistol fires sound like they do with real life silencers on in his flicks, profound distrust towards armed service is always present as well. I used to think that this hipster trend began in 2009’s Avatar, where heroic tree huggers fight against an evil industrialized war machine. But in fact, all his pre-Titanic action movies said “Fuck cops” at one volume or another.

In the Terminator, cops still bantered in gutter humor with the woman they were supposed to protect present. In Aliens, they space marine lads chitchatted mostly about getting their dicks wet at breakfast (The lack of female input in that flick’s script is obvious with them space marine lasses only chitchatting about Ripley. Men and women mingle with each other well enough though.). The Abyss’ Navy Seal squad prioritizing recovering and arming a nuclear warhead is the closest thing that “Disney fairy tale” (Just look at who composed that flick’s music.) has to an act of villainy. Then there is the “playing everything for farce” True Lies, where that “everything” includes a secret agent abusing his power to stalk his own wife.

Judgment Day somehow topped them all. There is of course the SWAT gunning black man without warning scene. Before that, police uniform made the ultimate cover for a sinister shape shifting assassin. And Cameron seemed to realize his original vision of casting someone striking the balance of slimness and bulkiness for the killing machine in Robert Patrick as T-1000. Not to mention what a better actor Patrick was than Schwarzenegger.

Cast members of this movie, namely Patrick and Hamiliton both went through rigid training for this one. Patrick needed to run without visibly taking breath. And he certainly nailed the killing machine vibe. Just look at him checking out a chrome coated mannequin suspiciously. Liquid metal usually led to some toilet humor. No, not how they got through bars while the gun they carried did not. One bit after that.

Both Cameron flicks contain 3 major action set-pieces: the first encounter between assassin and bodyguard; some indoor mayhem; and the third act rollercoaster ride of almost constant high. The first encounter between assassin and bodyguard is one point where those first 2 Terminator flicks differ.

The first flick made with “only” 6 mil while the second almost a hundred mil, of course there will be differences. Take the “killing machine getting up after being pumped with buck shots” bit for example. The 1984 original sticks to close-ups of the machine’s hand and face moving while the 1991 sequel took the wider angle and had help from digital effect.

Funny enough though, it was always Schwarzenegger’s stunt double through a piece of big enough glass in profile shots then hit the ground in over-the-shoulder shots before shots focusing on Schwarzenegger’s. Maybe times of day and places signal the money spent.

As a “Chinaman” with a Bachelor of Art degree in the Japanese language major, T-1000’s actions in this movie’s final chase begin with a Chinese proverb and almost end with a Japanese figure of speech. “Ru Hu Tian Yi” translated into “Like a tiger learnt to fly” and pounce better, fitting they getting a helicopter for the chase. “Oni Ni kanabon” translated into “Troll armed with (long) metal stick” can describe how T-1000 seemingly shut down T-800 with a, well, long metal stick. Of course, I still consider them melting as the best on screen monster death, bar none.

With the assassin upgraded, the bodyguard was upgraded to a certain degree. The Schwarzenegger bot is back as a hero, or “assassin turned bodyguard”, whose best defend being predicting enemy’s offend and sidestep or charge head-on accordingly. Those machines would trade blows, bullets, vehicle crashes and even lies (Machines built for warfare require the capacity for deception.) to complete their assigned tasks.

The direct-to-video fourth collaboration between Biehn and Cameron among other things

Cameron benefited from home media release both as a consumer and a manufacturer of sort. A Fish Called Wanda is a comedy out in theatres when he was still literally digging that Abyss to dive into, so he only watched it later on VHS tape to cement his decision of casting Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. Almost all his science fiction flicks got extended cuts in home media releases, usually marketed at the version he intended. Judgement Day is an odd duck as in he never advocated it as the “Director’s Cut” the way Special Editions of Aliens and Abyss are.

In some ways Judgement Day’s 150 minutes long Special Edition is a “Writer’s Cut”. As Cameron half-jokingly told co-writer Willam Wisher in that 2003 commentary track, the scenes cut out of the theatrical release were mostly written by Wisher. There is this dream scene featuring Micheal Biehn.

This dream sequence might remind Cameron of his “early days” in Hollywood, as his early draft of Aliens would have other crew members of Nostromo back to haunt Ripley in a bad dream. Biehn was certainly on the downward trajectory with Cameron since Aliens, Corporal Hicks is the one with first confirmed kill of the dickhead monsters and he got into a pool of acid to protect Ripley. Then Coffe died for his wrongdoing in the Abyss. Now in their last collaboration to date still (After more than 3 decades.), Biehn was not seen in the cinema. Didn’t help with that line “On your feet, solider!” since it was only said by Connor herself in the first movie.

Bridging scene like before T-1000 just driving into a nut house to get Sarah Connor. Clearly cut out for pacing reason. Still, them uniforms can cover up some real shit. There is also a comedic subplot involving T-800 learns to blend in. Fun stuff.

In 2000, an even longer cut dubbed Extended Edition were released on DVD. Clocked at 155 minutes, this cut has one additional scene and an alternative ending. That ending is the book end of this article. The other scene showing T-1000 touching John Connor’s room in his frost home to get information and I dare anyone who gets to reboot Alien show a scene where the dickhead monster takes the world around it in with a similar manner.

The End, for good

Science fiction stories with Ouroboros like loop usually end with the serpent choked on its own tail. It’s just what should be done since End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. As an Asimov acolyte (Just listen to Bioship in Aliens), Cameron did envision an ending for Judgement Day that would have ended the loop for good through Schwarzenegger’s character sacrificing themselves. But he seemed to have a problem with aging make-up applied to his then next ex-wife.

Of course, lines about if machines can learn to value human life, then we are not doomed after all were kept, but the visual got switched to a road in the night to symbolize uncertainty, After that, 4 lousy for different reasons sequels came out, with 2003’s Rise of Machine provoking some sentiment as one of “last” R-rated blockbusters. The current trend of “thinking machine” is made in their corporate overlord’s image, aka ever growing no matter the human cost. This franchise certainly fit into that mold, ironically enough. We truly need creators who care enough about all kinds of price people might pay to end something for good.

(Fin)