TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

terminator 2: judgement day (1991) movie

Genre             |  Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   144 minutes

Released         |   3 July 1991

cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger...Terminator
​Linda Hamilton ... Sarah Connor
​Edward Furlong ... John Connor
Robert Patrick ... T-1000
Earl Boen ... Dr. Silberman
Joe Morton ... Miles Dyson
Epatha Merkerson ... Tarissa Dyson
Castulo Guerra ... Enrique Salceda
Danny Cooksey ... Tim
Jenette Goldstein ... Janelle Voight
Xander Berkeley ... Todd Voight

director

James Cameron

writer

James Cameron ... (written by) &
William Wisher ... (written by)

cinematographer

​Adam Greenberg

music

​Brad Fiedel

film editor

Conrad Buff IV ... (as Conrad Buff)
Dody Dorn ... (special version)
Mark Goldblatt
Richard A. Harris

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box office result

Worldwide             $​520,881,154  

Australia                 $​​​​​​​​​​​not available

North America       $​​​​205,881,154  

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movie minutiae

​Carolco studio executives were nervous and concerned when the original budget of US $75 million ballooned up to US $88 million, with more to come. In order to keep the budget manageable, they proposed to eliminate a few scenes, particularly the opening biker bar scene where The Terminator is introduced. They tried to get Arnold Schwarzenegger to persuade James Cameron to remove that scene, but Schwarzenegger turned them down, saying, "Only a studio guy would cut a scene out like that."

The idea to destroy the Cyberdyne Systems building to prevent the future war was in the first Terminator movie, but it was cut from the final release (it can be seen in the deleted scenes section of the THE TERMINATOR (1984) DVD). Director James Cameron said it was lucky he chose to cut that scene in 1984, as it formed the "nucleus" of TERMINATOR 2: JUDEGMENT DAY (1991).

Director James Cameron asked Stan Winston to direct a teaser trailer. Cameron did not want the trailer to just be early footage, and so with a budget of $150,000, Winston created a trailer that showed a futuristic assembly line churning out copies of Terminators, all of which looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cameron was pleased with this trailer, as he had fears about audience reactions to trailers showing Schwarzenegger returning as a Terminator (after the Terminator in the first film was clearly destroyed). The teaser ran over a year in advance of T2's release and was shown before another Schwarzenegger hit film, TOTAL RECALL (1990).

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991) MOVIE IMAGES

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TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991) STORY SYNOPSIS

​In this sequel set eleven years after "The Terminator," young John Connor (Edward Furlong), the key to civilization's victory over a future robot uprising, is the target of the shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a Terminator sent from the future to kill him. Another Terminator, the revamped T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), has been sent back to protect the boy. As John and his mother (Linda Hamilton) go on the run with the T-800, the boy forms an unexpected bond with the robot.

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 3 July 2017

Pop ​Movee Rating

The years between THE TERMINATOR (1984) and TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY allowed James Cameron to develop his skills as both a Director and, more broadly, as a film-maker who was prepared to use cutting-edge technology in an effort to produce the best possible movie.

ALIENS (1986) and THE ABYSS (1989) both demonstrated his capacity to use both existing source-material as well as new ideas to produce quality entertainment. While THE ABYSS was considered his first commercial failure, the epic nature of the story-telling and the use of ground-breaking CGI effects served Cameron well in understanding how to achieve what he wanted for TERMINATOR 2.

There is little argument that TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY started the 90s with a very large bang and set a new standard for action films. Cameron didn't venture too far from the structure of the 1984 film, as the story is very similar.

This time the story is about a Terminator unit sent to kill the adolescent John Connor played by Edward Furlong. This time though, the Terminator sent is a T-1000, played by Robert Patrick, which has the ability to morph into solid objects and is extremely difficult to harm because of its liquid metal composition. In this film, the hero is not a human, but another Terminator unit played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold's popularity as a box office draw had risen dramatically since the first TERMINATOR film and he had become a science fiction and fantasy genre favourite with films like CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982), PREDATOR (1987), THE RUNNING MAN (1987) and TOTAL RECALL (1991). Linda Hamilton also returned for the sequel, but her character, like Schwarzenegger's, is the same in name only. In the second film, Sarah Connor is mentally unstable, tortured by years of recurring nightmares about her ordeal with the original T-800 unit.

The film breaks into its stride when Arnold's Terminator is forced to protect John Connor in a shopping mall shoot-up, smack down with the T-1000 unit. The young boy realises that his mother isn't crazy after all and enlists the help of the T-800 to bust her out of the mental institution in which she's being held. Not to be out-witted, the T-1000 also makes its way to the facility in an effort to terminate John and whoever else gets in its way.

This sequence has some great action story-telling and the concept of the morphing T-1000 is out to its best use in this sequence. The scene where the T-1000 is camouflaged as a floor and then rises up as a dopple-ganger to a surprised security guard is a great effect and added to the sense of danger our protagonists find themselves in, as no inanimate object is safe and could result in their death.

The second half of the film has multiple set pieces to drive the story forward. Cameron takes the elements that audiences loved from the first film and expands the scope dramatically to show us the sometimes more really can be more! The break-in and escape from the Cyberdyne building is a great sequence and will remain memorable for Cameron blowing up the side of a building for real. Schwarzenegger's gattling gun became a fan favourite, as the T-800 learns what it means not to kill, and the T-1000 motorcycle jump into a police helicopter was the epitome of Cameron's $94 million budget hard-at-work!

Unlike so many big-budget films though, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY  does not end happily.

The nuclear horror inflicted by Skynet is averted, but the T-800 is forced to sacrifice itself. In the end, only Sarah and John remain. In a sad and poignant scene, Schwarzenegger's T-800 sacrifices its existence, after the T-1000 is defeated, to make sure that no trace of the future remains. He does this despite having evolved throughout the course of the film into a character who understands something of what it means to discover human traits. Just prior to lowering itself into molten hot metal, the Terminator tells the young John and Sarah Connor that knows "now why you cry. But it is something I can never do". It's a perfect way to capture the evolution of Arnold's T-800 from mindless killing machine to completely sympathetic, fully-formed character with its own distinct personality.

James Cameron and William Wisher's script balances the transition of the T-800 extremely well, as is the use of the T-1000 as a more versatile killing machine, with its morphing capability, that make it far more dangerous than threat presented by Arnold's T-800 in the original TERMINATOR film.
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TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY was recognised for its technical achievements culminating in four Academy Award wins for Best Sound Effects/Sound Editing, Best Makeup for the late Stan Winston, Best Effects/Visual Effects and Best Sound.

​In its various home entertainment releases, there have been two additional versions of the film made available, adding additional scenes to the 137 minute version seen in cinemas. There is a Special Edition version which runs for 152 minutes and there is an Extended Special Edition version that runs for 154 minutes. These versions both contain a Sarah dream sequence where she talks with Michael Biehn's Kyle Reese, as well as a more elaborate explanation of how John reprograms the T-800 so he doesn't kill.

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY 3D MOVIE (2017) USEFUL LINKS

​Terminator 2 (1991) - IMDb
​Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Wikipedia
​Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) - Rotten Tomatoes

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