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Terminator 2: Judgment Day
IMDB 8.2/10 (93,369 votes)
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	James Cameron William Wisher Jr.
Produced by	James Cameron
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Linda Hamilton Edward Furlong Robert Patrick
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release dates	July 3, 1991
Running time	137 min
Language	English
Budget	$100,000,000

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (commonly abbreviated T2), released on July 3, 1991, is a science fiction film directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, and Robert Patrick.

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 approximately $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 (on a much lower budget of $6.5 million), making Terminator 2's 434% increase a record for a sequel. The film is currently on the IMDb's list of the Top 250 films of all-time .

Upon its release, the theatrical cut 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.

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

Plot

Template:Spoiler

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 Furlong) is now living with foster parents (Xander Berkeley and Jenette Goldstein). He has grown up being told by 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. 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 was captured and reprogrammed by the resistance group of humans from the future in order to protect John, while the T-1000, an advanced prototype terminator, has been sent by SkyNet to kill him. The newer, sleeker model Terminator (a "mimetic polyalloy") 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 (and is thus not 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 nearly shoot a man in the parking lot while serving its mission to protect John, orders him not to kill anyone. He decides to use his power over the T-800 to his advantage and orders the T-800 to help him rescue his mother.

Sarah is frightened at first upon encountering the T-800 again, but she is told by her son that this time he’s here to protect them both, 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 top-level computer scientist 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:

John: "We just cry. You know, when it hurts."

T-800: "Pain causes it?"

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

T-800: "No."

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 incinerated in the blast, and although she tries to warn them, no one in her dream can hear her. She suddenly wakes up and discovers that she has scratched "NO FATE" into the table she was sitting at, an allusion to the key message sent to her in the first film by the future John Connor via Kyle Reese:

"The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

Sarah determines what she must do, as she quickly grabs a M16 Carbine with tactical accessories, and drives off in a car. John recognises the allusion to the message and he and the T-800 realize that she plans to kill Miles Dyson, and at John's insistence they 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. Eventually, after some violent skirmishing, the T-800 fires 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.

T-800: "I know now why you cry. But it’s something I can never do."

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 outstretched 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.”

Plot Holes

• As it is stated, the T-1000 is made of a "mimetic poly-alloy", or a simplified "liquid metal". In the first Terminator movie, Kyle Reese is asked, "Why didn't bring a ray gun to kill his friends," by sarcastic police detectives. Reese responds that only living flesh can pass through the time machine. Assuming that Reese's statement is true, the T-1000 should not be able to use the time machine. The T-800 could only transport backwards because its mechanical body frame was surrounded by a surface of living tissue, though there has been speculation that either the T-1000 was covered with a layer of skin for the time jump or the metal does such a good gob of mimicking human skin that it could duplicate the properties necessary for time travel.

• Throughout the film, Reese (in the Extreme Edition) and John make references to a message that Reese gave to Sarah in The Terminator; they constantly repeat "The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." However, that second sentence never appears in T1. Reese's message in The Terminator goes, "Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face except to say that the future is not set. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist."

• It is very hard to reconcile the apparent rules of time travel in T2 with those of The Terminator. A central element of the original film was that even after what seemed to be an incredibly disruptive event to the "original" timeline (the sudden appearance in 1984 of a cyborg and a human warrior from the future) the chain of events leads to Sarah in the Mexican desert seven months later having a polaroid photograph taken of her that is identical to the one Reese possesses in the future of the "original" timeline. This demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that there is only one history and that the terminator and Reese were always a part of it in 1984. (The inclusion of the two scenes with the photograph appear to serve no purpose other than to make this explicit.) Therefore we have a single timeline in which time travel creates loops, NOT diverging or alterable timelines. T2 disregards this core aspect of the original film and instead uses a model in which multiple, branching histories exist following a time travel event (or the original history is wiped out completely, inviting the problematic question of what happened to the people in it, and particularly why John Connor and co would even have had a chance to send anyone to intercept the terminator after it had been sent back rather than being wiped out immediately). This makes it very hard to come up with a consistent set of rules for a single narrative universe that encompasses both stories.

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 reinserted intact. There are, however, two scenes that Cameron shot but chose not to reinsert into the film which have been included as an accessible extra on most - but not all - of the "Special Edition" home video releases. The first scene introduces the audience to the T-1000's tactile approach to acquiring information about the physical world, "scanning" John's room with his fingertips, and eventually finding a hidden shoebox containing pictures of Sarah from circa 1984. The second scene shows the T-1000 visiting John's dog in the backyard of his foster parents' Reseda home, and confirming that the T-1000's imitation of John's foster mother has failed, because he didn't know the dog's name. The scenes 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). While not a scene exactly, an explanation as to why Sarah attacks one of the wardens so badly during her escape with the broom handle is seen, showing two of the men attacking and harrasing Sarah as to make her take her pills.

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 final deleted scenes can be re-integrated into the film on the "Ultimate Edition" DVD by entering 82997 - 8/29/97, 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. The Extreme Edition also has both the Special and Theatrical versions of the movie. Both DVDs contain both the theatrical and director's cut versions of the film, although accessing it on the Extreme DVD requires using a hidden "Easter Egg".

Production

Terminator 2 revolutionized the special effects world, with ground-breaking computer graphics and visual images, particularly in the T-1000's scenes. The film won four Oscars's, all for technical aspects (Best Sound, Best Make Up, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing). Most of the key Terminator effects were provided by Industrial Light and Magic (on the computer graphics side), and by Stan Winston (on the practical effects side). The external aspects of the spectacular scenes at the Cyberdyne Systems Corporation, including the massive explosion towards the end of the movie, were filmed on location at an office building in Fremont, California.

• According to Cameron on the Extreme Edition commentary, he was written to 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.
• 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 "real Sarah"). In addition to the Hamilton twins, twins Don and Dan Stanton were also used in the scene where the T-1000 kills a mental hospital guard, Lewis. Dan played the "T-1000 Lewis guard."
• The three most frequently used weapons by Arnold Schwarzenegger are an .45 M1911A1 pistol (from bar scene to the steel mill), a 10 gauge M1887 shotgun (from bar scene to Enrique's compound) and an M79 grenade launcher (Cyberdyne headquarters scene to end). The minigun used at the Cyberdyne building is the same gun that was used in Predator.

Alternative versions

• There were storyboards for an extended version of the Future War backstory, including the Resistance's discovery of the terminator factory and the time displacement equipment, but it was dropped for budgetary reasons and never filmed.
• 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 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 was dropped by Cameron in editing claiming it was "inappropriately ending a thoroughly dark movie with a cherry on top", but it also contained an unbelievable plot point -- with his extensive criminal background (culminating in the Cyberdyne terrorism act), John would be in prison, not a U.S. Senator.

Trivia

• Whilst The Terminator was set in the year it was released (1984), the events of 1991's Terminator 2 take place in the then-near future of 1995. Although the date is never directly stated, it can be clearly calculated from information provided in the film. Early in the film, the T-1000 commandeers a police cruiser and looks up John Connor on the police computer, which gives his date of birth as 28 February 1985, and his age as 10. This clearly indicates that the events of T2 take place in the year 1995 (or possibly in early 1996, before John's eleventh birthday). (NB In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines John Connor contradicts the T2 timeline, saying he was 13 years old at the time of the events of T2, which would date them to 1998, assuming the date of birth given in T2 is correct. But the events of T2 take place some time before the anticipated Judgement Day of 29 August 1997.)
• During her escape attempt Sarah says that there are 215 bones in the human body. An adult human has 206 bones on average, although this can vary slightly from individual to individual, depending on the number of small bones that fuse during growth (a baby is born with approximately 270 bones).
• Skynet machines that did not make it into the movie: FHK Bomber, Silverfish, and Centurion. The Silverfish does show up, however, in "T2: The Arcade Game", a lightgun-based platform for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. The Centurion does make appearnaces in the many comic books set in the Terminator universe.
• Skynet was rumored to have been modeled after Microsoft, and Judgment Day the result of the public's blind trust in technology.
• Robert Patrick had to mimic the head movements of the American Bald eagle in order to attain his role as the T-1000.
• In the Spanish version of the film, T-800's Spanish catchphrase Hasta la vista, baby! was changed because it did not sound ominous enough. In that version, T-800 shouts Sayonara, baby!
• The chemical used to blow up the Cyberdyne building, "polydichloric euthimal", is named after the powerful hallucinogenic drug featured in Outland (1981) -- a homage to that movie.
• The logo of Benthic Petroleum, a reference to The Abyss (1989, also directed by James Cameron), appears on the pumps at the gas station where the trio spend the night (and, in the special edition, where they activate the T-800's learning capability).
• In 2003, The American Film Institute released its list of the 100 greatest screen heroes and villains of all time. The Terminator appeared as number 48 on the list of heroes.

See also

• The Terminator
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (arcade game)
• Terminator argument

External links

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day at IMDb
• Cyberdyne Systems Filming Location
• Indepth discussion on coherence of time jumps in T1/T2 and hidden timelines
• Fan made Terminator 4 posters. A look at the future?

v t e Terminator
Films	The Terminator Terminator 2: Judgment Day Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Terminator Salvation Terminator Genisys Terminator: Dark Fate
Television series	Live-action The Sarah Connor Chronicles characters episodes "Pilot" "Heavy Metal" "Self Made Man" "Born to Run" Animated Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series Terminator Zero
Characters	Sarah Connor John Connor Miles Dyson Kyle Reese Skynet Terminators Terminator/Model 101/T-800 T-1000 T-X Cameron Catherine Weaver T-3000 Rev-9
Music	The Terminator Terminator 2: Judgment Day "You Could Be Mine" "The Current" The Sarah Connor Chronicles Terminator Genisys Terminator: Dark Fate
Video games	Film-based The Terminator DOS Sega Sega CD Terminator 2 arcade computer 8-bit 16-bit Game Boy Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines War of the Machines The Redemption Salvation Genisys: Future War Non-film based The Terminator 2029 RoboCop Versus The Terminator Rampage Future Shock Skynet Dawn of Fate Resistance Survivors
Print	Comics Aliens versus Predator versus The Terminator RoboCop Versus The Terminator Superman vs. The Terminator: Death to the Future The Burning Earth Infinity Transformers vs. The Terminator T2 novels
Attractions	T2-3D: Battle Across Time X: A Laser Battle for Salvation Terminator Salvation: The Ride
Quotes	"I'll be back" "Hasta la vista, baby"
Related	"Soldier" (The Outer Limits) Lady Terminator Shocking Dark Rottweiler The Terminators Light & Magic Special effects of Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Category

• 1991 films
• Cult science fiction films
• Dystopian films
• Terminator films
• Post-apocalyptic science fiction films
• Films directed by James Cameron
• Road movies
• Time travel films
• Sequel films