Terminator 2 Judgment Day poster
Tri-Star Pictures

He said he would be back, and he wasn’t lying. Thirty years ago, on July 3rd, 1991, Arnold Schwarzenegger put the sunglasses and leather jacket back on, and James Cameron followed up a top-ten action movie of all time with…another top-ten action movie of all time as Terminator 2: Judgement Day was released. After the massive success of The Terminator (1984), which grossed more than $78 million against its paltry $6.4 million budget, Cameron took more than ten times that amount and created the biggest spectacle the film industry had ever seen. 

In the first film, Schwarzenegger’s T-800 was sent back in time to terminate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she could give birth to John Connor, who would eventually become the resistance leader in a future war of humans vs. cyborgs. In T2, the switch is flipped and T-800 is sent back in time by humans to protect the now 10-year-old John Connor (Edward Furlong), who an even more advanced Terminator is hunting, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick). Sarah, John, and T-800 must team up to stop Skynet from forming into the human-eradicating, world-dominating power it will become before T-1000 can hunt them down. 

Hardcore fans of the first film immediately felt the vast difference between the first and second films. Where the first had a darker, grittier ’80s opening, similar to something like Alien or Blade Runner, T2 started in a more balls-to-the-wall lighthearted action style, as T-800 whips up on a bunch of bikers, while George Thorogood & The Destroyers’ “Bad To The Bone” plays in the background.

Right from the start, so much of the film, including its characters, were opposites of what Cameron had already introduced, creating an intriguing dynamic for the audience. Sarah Connor, who had been timid, small, and afraid in the first film, was now a hardened, ripped, psychologically imbalanced version of who we knew before. T-800 was no longer trying to terminate everyone in his path but was protecting, learning, and eventually feeling. 

Robert Patrick was brilliant and terrifying in his role as T-1000. His never-changing facial features, stiff runs, and cold-blooded, emotionless killing completely personified the villain Cameron was trying to create to counter-balance the newly softened T-800 character. He also amplified the Terminator we saw in the first film. His lack of personality blended flawlessly with this sleek new liquid metal design, a special effect that, outside of a similar use in Cameron’s 1989 film The Abyss, hadn’t really been seen by moviegoers to this point in film history. 

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Cameron took all of the insane action of the first film and multiplied it ten fold. He used groundbreaking action effects that, even today, are a spectacle. Almost every scene outdid itself in a good way. It was like like the audience got an appetizer of a semi-truck/motorcycle chase through the L.A. aqueducts, and then for the main course, got two more later chases in the same scene. One with a semi/helicopter and the other with a truck/liquid nitrogen tanker. The explosions and intensity were absolutely epic. Even as this scene felt like the end of the film, he hit us with an another whole action sequence through the steel mill.

T2 grossed more than five times its $102 million budget. It brought home four Academy Awards for various sound and visual effects, making it one of the most financially and critically successful sequels of any franchise. After T2: Judgement Day, Cameron was interested in writing and directing another film but ultimately only ended up with producer credits for the slew of Terminator sequels that followed, and their quality certainly paid the price compared to Cameron’s two films. T2: Judgement Day also boasted an incredible score composed by Brad Fiedel, who also returned from the first film (I’m actually listening to it while I write this).

For the 30th anniversary, I suggest you grab an extra large bowl of popcorn and have yourself a badass double feature of the first two films. It doesn’t get more action-packed than watching those back-to-back. Hasta la vista, baby!


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