Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill Sarah Connor, must now protect her teenage son, John Connor, from a more advanced and powerful cyborg.

Director:

James Cameron

Writers:

James Cameron, William Wisher

Stars:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong

Top Rated Movies #36 | Won 4 Oscars. Another 32 wins & 33 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Arnold Schwarzenegger	...	The Terminator
Linda Hamilton	...	Sarah Connor
Edward Furlong	...	John Connor
Robert Patrick	...	T-1000
Earl Boen	...	Dr. Silberman
Joe Morton	...	Miles Dyson
S. Epatha Merkerson	...	Tarissa Dyson
Castulo Guerra	...	Enrique Salceda
Danny Cooksey	...	Tim
Jenette Goldstein	...	Janelle Voight
Xander Berkeley	...	Todd Voight
Leslie Hamilton Gearren	...	Twin Sarah
Ken Gibbel	...	Douglas
Robert Winley	...	Cigar Biker
Peter Schrum	...	Lloyd (as Pete Schrum)

Storyline

Over 10 years have passed since the first robot called The Terminator tried to kill Sarah Connor and her unborn son, John. The man who will become the future leader of the human resistance against the Machines is now a healthy young boy. However, another Terminator, called the T-1000, is sent back through time by the supercomputer Skynet. This new Terminator is more advanced and more powerful than its predecessor and its mission is to kill John Connor when he's still a child. However, Sarah and John do not have to face the threat of the T-1000 alone. Another Terminator (identical to the same model that tried and failed to kill Sarah Conner in 1984) is also sent back through time. The battle for tomorrow has begun.

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Plot Keywords:

time travel | liquid metal | future | sequel | voice over narration | 

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Taglines:

Hij zei "I'll Be Back". hij had gelijk. (He said, "I'll Be Back". He was right.) (Dutch DVD)

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Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sci-fi action and violence, and for language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site (3D re-release)

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

3 July 1991 (USA)

Also Known As:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Filming Locations:

Santa Clarita, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$102,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$31,765,506, 7 July 1991

Gross USA:

$205,881,154

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$520,884,847

Company Credits

Production Co:

Carolco Pictures, Pacific Western, Lightstorm Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

137 min 153 min (Special Edition) 156 min (Ultimate Cut)

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (analog 70 mm prints) CDS (digital 35 mm and 70 mm prints) Dolby SR (analog 35 mm prints) Dolby Stereo (in selected theatres) Dolby Atmos (IMAX version) Dolby Digital (Extreme Edition)

Color:

Color (CFI)

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When the project was first announced in late 1984, the projected budget was US $12 million. The final budget was US $102 million. Despite initial studio concerns that the movie might be unable to recoup its costs, due to lucrative distribution deals, the film had already earned back its budget before it played on a single screen.

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Goofs

(at around 32 mins) When Terminator lifts John Connor off the dirt bike during the canal chase, though it's only a 1.5-second shot, the T-1000 in the background is actually a blue screen image, as evidenced by the difference in contrast and image sharpness between John and Terminator in the foreground, and T-1000 and the truck in the background.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Sarah Connor: [narrating] Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which controlled the machines, Skynet, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance, John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The ...

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Crazy Credits

Play the Nintendo Game from Acclaim/Lin Entertainment

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Alternate Versions

When Terminator 2 was shown on BBC One in 1994, they broadcast the 1993 Special Edition version which was edited for violence and had all uses of the 'F' cut out.

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Connections

Spoofed in Errors in Geography: Schizope (2016)

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Soundtracks

Bad to the Bone
(1982)
Performed by George Thorogood & The Destroyers (as George Thorogood and The Destroyers)
Written by George Thorogood
Published by Del Sound Music (BMI)
Courtesy of EMI Records USA
A Division of Capital Records, inc.
by Arrangement with CEMA Special Markets

User Reviews

surpasses the original

Terminator 2 perhaps shows that Cameron was at least was cognizant of life and its meaning. I mean, this IS the movie where the end of the world has the most impact outside of Dr. Strangelove, right? One of those outstanding dream scenes in movies, one of the ones that actually works because it's true in its savage simplicity, Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor sees herself in her 1984 waitress get up with baby John in a playground and then everything gets wiped out by the BIG BOMB (Dmitri) that also incinerates Hamilton into BBQ.

So it's with this kind of thought that Terminator 2 means to be the most kick-assingest blockbuster of its (or all?) time while trying to keep the loss of life very small - or, rather, the "Bad" Terminator who was designed by the wizards at ILM can kill to its mission's content - I mean, DAMN, it still looks great, and in its silver-liquid-chrome simplicity much more, for me, impressive than the clanging junk of Bay disasters. It's arguable, of course, that the Terminator (T-800) does kill some people, incidentally, or, you know, all that gas from the gun he shoots could make some people really screwed up but, hey, "He'll live" is enough.

But if Cameron is "soft" at all here, it doesn't show too much... well, okay, Lil' John (hehe) does squeak and squak those early 90's amorphisms "No Problemo - chill out - listen to Kriss Kross - etc", and Edward Furlong is one of the things that just does not hold up here. He's serviceable at best, annoying at worst. He can cry okay though.

But it's Arnold, in his swaggering low-key and then with an occasional grin awesome leading man turn, and especially Linda Hamilton who make this tight script so compulsively watchable. Hamilton makes Connor into what Cameron likely saw in his one-time wife/collaborator Bigelow - a take-no-prisoners soldier who can take charge and has muscles and can probably knock you upside the head (maybe that's why they divorced, he couldn't take all that woman... but I digress, at any rate he moved around a lot till his current wife) And there is also a vulnerability still to Sarah that makes her so endearing.

She can never be completely hard, though time and experience and the dread of what's to come had scarred her, so by the time she has the chance to kill the Man Who Destroys The World, she can't do it. A scene like that is probably more emotionally gripping than so many other scenes that try in these blockbusters (something like Days of Future Past, which is a cousin of this flick, gets there). The fact Hamilton wasn't able to parlay such high caliber performance work into a better career is kind of sad, but at least this stands as a benchmark of a woman action hero, one of the two Cameron Wonder Women really.

So, blast your Guns N Roses, say hi to the kid from Salute Your Shorts (that's him, right, Connor's friend in the first act?) and ride your motorcycle through LA - it's a bad mother-jammer of a blockbuster that holds up enough to look over its faults (i.e. some dialog isn't tight, like the voice-over, it's alright but whatever - perhaps it was ambitious enough to best The Perfect Action Movie, which the first Terminator just was).