Terminator 2: Judgment Day

I've discussed parts of Terminator 2 several times on here. The scene where the orderlies are so busy trying to restrain Sarah Conner they somehow don't notice the enormous man with the shotgun walking towards them. My concern with the presentation of psychiatry in the movie. It looks like, in a footnote to my review of Poul Anderson's There Will be Time from 2010, I predicted the plot of the sixth Terminator film. Blind hog, acorn, you know how it goes.

Never really discussed the film entirely, though. So, short review, I really like it. Probably more than the original, definitely more than T3 or Terminator: Genesys (I haven't seen the other two.) It's like most sequels, though, in that it wouldn't work anywhere near as well without the first film. Terminator, like Alien, works perfectly well as a standalone film. T2 (like Aliens) relies on the first movie for some of its story beats to land. Sarah Conner being a completely ripped head case doesn't land as well if we haven't seen her as the terrified, confused waitress. It's cool on its own, but the contrast adds something. Same with having the first movie's antagonist become the protector in the sequel, while the new antagonist is an even more advanced machine. March of progress, villain upping its game, take your pick. And both those sequels are more conventional action movies, whereas the originals are more suspenseful. The smaller budgets required more to be hinted at, less shown until key moments.

(Although I've been thinking, Kyle can't bring weapons - or clothes - back because nothing technological or artificial can come with him. The T-800 skates by because it's flesh and blood over metal. Which suggests they could have tried stashing some futuristic plasma grenade inside Kyle's body like he was a coke mule, but anyway, the T-1000 doesn't have any flesh. It's all liquid metal. So how does it make it back unscathed?)

And T2 is definitely less suspenseful. It's a much brighter looking movie (the better to see some very cool stunts and effects), and even though the T-1000 is a move advanced killing machine, there's not the sense of John, Sarah, and "Uncle Bob" really being in severe danger. There's the long stretch after they escape from the hospital until the big shootout at Cyberdyne where the T-1000 has no clue where they are. Which is sort of a silent testament to Sarah's preparation over the years. Contrast that with the first Terminator, where even once Kyle has found Sarah, he seems certain the Terminator will find them again, it's just a matter of time. There's more of a constant background terror that it could show up at any moment, because it's relentless in its pursuit. Almost like a Friday the 13th movie, only instead of a zombie in a hockey mask, it's a killing machine that looks like an Austrian bodybuilder.

Terminator 2 does use the long quiet stretch to some effect to let us see the three heroes interact. I guess a lot of people don't like Eddie Furlong's John Conner (or at least that's the impression I get when I see people discuss the film online), but I'm fine with his performance. I think you have to make allowances for it being his first acting gig, and he's dealing with James Cameron writing dialogue for him. Not quite as bad as having George Lucas writing dialogue for you, but still sub-optimal. 

I think there is a genuineness to the performance. He's an angry, confused, kind of fucked up kid, because he's had a shitty exhausting life with a mother putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on him. The scene when he realizes the Terminator has to follow his orders, how giddy he is at the power that gives him. This thing his mother has told him to be terrified of, is his to command. How awesome. Not quite the same thing, but when I was a kid I definitely thought it would be cool to pilot Voltron, or one of the Power Rangers' Zords. But if I had, that would have ended badly for a lot of people.

He immediately tells the T-800 to get rid of some guy that was only trying to help, because he wants to see his cool toy in action. That turns in a second when he realizes the Terminator's definition of 'get rid of this guy' is "shoot him in the face". A kid gifted incredible power he doesn't grasp the danger of. And you can tell his feelings towards Sarah are mixed. She's his "real mom" and he cares about her. He keeps that photo from the end of the first movie with him, even when he's just going to the arcade. When he thinks she's in danger, there's no hesitation on his part that they have to save her. 

At the same time, there's definite resentment. That he couldn't have a normal life because she's so hellbent trying to get him ready to survive the War Against the Machines. You can hear it when he and the Terminator are working on the truck in Mexico. John talks about the one guy they lived with for a while that was cool, who taught John about engines. Then he sort of scoffs and says, 'Mom screwed it up, of course. Started going on about Judgement Day, and how I was this great leader.' Every time John starts to find some stability, a life like other kids get, his mom wrecks it because she can't stop thinking about the future. Sarah's trying, in her own way, to keep him safe, but she can't see there are things John wants from her he's not getting. 

Linda Hamilton's got this fierce protectiveness in her, almost feral, but she doesn't really know how to comfort her son (she and Arnold sort of swap the traditional gender roles.) She wants to check him for injuries, but then she berates him, calls him stupid, for risking his life for her. She doesn't seem to get why it would be important to her son to make sure she's OK. It doesn't even register. You start to see it breaking through when she's thinking about the T-800 and how, not only would it do everything possible to protect John, it would always be there for him, never lose patience with him. Let him teach it elaborate high-five sequences.

There was an oral history of T2 on The Ringer (which is fun to read, especially Arnold being befuddled he's not killing anybody in this movie), and there's a bit in there from Cameron about how part of the notion he had, and part of the thinking behind having the T-1000 appear as a cop, was to be about how people make themselves into terminators. Where we abandon compassion. Sarah very nearly falls into that. She makes the same mistake Skynet makes. Skynet always acts as though, if it kills John Conner, it wins. There will be no Resistance if he's dead. It might occasionally target his future High Command (Terminator 3), but it's still trying to kill him, too. 

Sarah decides if she kills Miles Dyson, that's it for Skynet. It'll never exist. We already know that's nonsense, because we've seen Dyson works for a big company with an entire team studying the remains of the first T-800. But Sarah's fixated on the notion that all it takes is knocking over one domino, even when the T-800 tells her Dyson is only the one considered most important, not solely responsible. 

(T6 apparently makes it entirely clear that killing John doesn't make a difference, because there's still a Resistance. Resisting an entirely different AI, apparently, so even though Sarah and John did keep Skynet from coming into being, it just got replaced by some other artificial intelligence. Which is pretty depressing. But at the rate things are going, the climate will kill us all long before machines can. Probably do it more efficiently, too.)

Anyway, I like Terminator 2 a lot. The way all the characters come together in the psychiatric hospital, and Sarah's escape in general is fun to watch. The highway chase scene with the helicopter and later, the liquid nitrogen truck (and that was a real chopper flying under overpasses, not CGI, which is terrifying. I couldn't pilot a helicopter under an overpass in Grand Theft Auto without damaging it, and that guy did it for real.) The movie uses Arnold well, Hamilton's aces, I already said I like Furlong's performance. Robert Patrick as the T-1000 gives a good performance. He's got that unsettling intense expression when he's moving. He can drop it occasionally, smile or say "thank you"and have it not reach his eyes, but mostly it's just there, along with all these movements that are just a little stilted. The way he turns his head or walks, or whatever. It could seem like overacting since he's supposed to be imitating people, but he is a machine trying to imitate a person, so he is overacting. Presumably he'd get better at it over time, since I imagine he can learn from experience like the T-800, but he's a brand-new experimental unit. It's still early in the learning curve.