i like all 4.
The Terminator and T2 after all these years
- Thread starter WillsBabe
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Oh god, I love that scene so much. A few years ago I became obsessed with it and starting doing my impression of Linda Hamilton in that scene constantly. The way she's confidenty running around the corner with a stern and resolute look on her face and then stops dead in her tracks to wail on her knees as she freaks the fuck out at Arnold coming out of the elevator...man, it is so simultaneously awesome and hilarious. I made a girl I worked with laugh really hard at my impression.
I'm shocked by all the opinions of "The Terminator" that I've read here and on other websites. Before I got into this whole message board thing, I could have never imagined that movie would be so overrated. The number of people who think it is superior to its first sequel is crazy. I like the "The Terminator" fine, but I don't think it's one of those timeless sci-fi classics like "The Day the Earth Stood Still". The fact that it's so dated is one of the only things I don't like about it. Generally, I think it's great, but it's obvious that the second is an improvement in every single way. Everything is better, from the acting to the special effects, to the production design to the story. All the actors bring such intensity to their roles, the action sequences are riveting, and even the humour works. Rehash? Hardly.
I think the only flaw in "Terminator 2" is that I get a bit weary of all the action at the end with the steam factory part that drags just a tad. Like I said, I don't have any major complaints about the original. It simply lacks the scope of the sequel, which it had to, given the budget and F/X limitations of the time. Also, T-1000 is just an enormously brilliant creation in terms of the way it's rendered, combined with Robert Patrick's performance. T-1000 almost singlehandedly makes "T2" better. Really the only thing that bothers me about "The Terminator" is trivial- the look. Arnold and Linda have very cheesy eighties outfits and hair, but everything else is solid. The love story between Kyle and Sarah is surprisingly touching. It's an excellent movie (especially for a debut), but I think the sequel is bigger and better in all the ways that the best sequels are.
I enjoyed "Terminator 2" as a kid, but once I started watching it as an adult, I realized that it wasn't just a fun action movie from my childhood that I'd love out of nostalgia only, but a legit masterpiece. I decided a few years ago that it must be one of my ten favourite movies ever. From the first frame with that amazingly foreboding music and the badass steel font, it's just powerfully captivating. Inspired by fond memories of the movie (and superb craftsmanship), I recently bought that Hot Toys company's T-800. It's a pretty magnificent collectible.
I haven't watched "T2" for awhile because I'm waiting for the right occasion. It's one of those movies where every time I watch it feels like an event that I'm lucky I can experience. 
Yeah, it has a very distinct 80s feel.
Weird. I don't see that at all. A couple of haircuts and some synth music are just not enough to make the movie feel dated.
I re-watched the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still" the other day, and although it's decades older than "Terminator", it doesn't feel dated, either. That's what makes a film a classic---it stands the test of time.
I think that once filmmakers get over their love affair with video game-style FX, and return to their roots, today's films will seem quaintly archaic.
In response to your post in my Star Wars thread, I feel the need to call you an old geezer.
Yeah, it has a very distinct 80s feel.
Weird. I don't see that at all. A couple of haircuts and some synth music are just not enough to make the movie feel dated.
I re-watched the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still" the other day, and although it's decades older than "Terminator", it doesn't feel dated, either. That's what makes a film a classic---it stands the test of time.
I think that once filmmakers get over their love affair with video game-style FX, and return to their roots, today's films will seem quaintly archaic.
In response to your post in my Star Wars thread, I feel the need to call you an old geezer.
Trust me, youngster, movies really are getting worse all the time. I wish it were not so, but it is.
T3 and T4 are typical of today's big, splashy, over-produced films----lots of good scenes that don't add up to good movies.
I agree that Terminator 1 looks very 80s and dated now but that T2 holds up surprisingly well (the graphics and action as well as the fashion!).
I like all four movies. T2 is an action movie classic. I liked T3, particularly the twist ending, and I thought Salvation was great.
I like all four movies. T2 is an action movie classic. I liked T3, particularly the twist ending, and I thought Salvation was great.
I personally don't consider T3 or Salvation to be part of the series (I liked T3 and hated Salvation, however I disliked that they killed off Sarah), to me the series ended after T2 and Judgement Day was stopped (saying that the Judgment still happens makes the events in T2 pretty pointless, however I did like The Sarah Connor Chronicles very much and they dealt with the alternate future better then T3).
My favourite of the series is Terminator 1 (and no I was not around in the 80's I was born 6yrs after this film was released), it has a much darker feel to it, T2 seems to me just a child friendly action movie(I prefer the theatrical cut then the directors).
I'm disappointed by the treatment given T1 to make it more modern e.g. giving it a lighter colouring then the gritty original and making the gunshots sound terrible, the older version had such brutal sounds when guns went off now I can hardly hear some without surround sound, luckily I have an original cut on vhs.
My favourite of the series is Terminator 1 (and no I was not around in the 80's I was born 6yrs after this film was released), it has a much darker feel to it, T2 seems to me just a child friendly action movie(I prefer the theatrical cut then the directors).
I'm disappointed by the treatment given T1 to make it more modern e.g. giving it a lighter colouring then the gritty original and making the gunshots sound terrible, the older version had such brutal sounds when guns went off now I can hardly hear some without surround sound, luckily I have an original cut on vhs.
Funny, I was just having the Terminator argument yesterday. I haven't seen T2 in years, and I don't expect that if I did my opinon of it would change much from my first viewing. Not only is it a cliche sequel, meaning the only thing it really has going for it is being louder with more overblown action than the original combined with a much weaker story, it unfortunately introduced what was to become the formula for the rest of the sequels - good Terminator fighting for the humans versus bad Terminator fighting against them, which to me undermines the strength of the orignal theme which was based on the horrific idea of humans being thrown into a future where the machines they had depended on for survival became their predators. And Terminator presented that reality not in the way so many other SF stories have done - the machines didn't wake up and become mechanical humans with understandable motivations. They woke up and became monstrous, intelligent Others, bent only on hunting humanity down and exterminating it. In The Terminator, it seems the machines don't even have an idea of what they'll do once they've wiped humanity out - they have simpy identified a target and they will continue until that target is destroyed.
Mixing this theme of humanity versus machines up could have been used to great effect, had anything even mildly complex been done with it, but instead we get Good Terminator 1 as cheesy ersatz father (complete with painfully on the nose voice over by Sarah just in case you didn't pick up on the entirely obvious), Good Terminator 2 as loyal soldier and Good Terminator 3 as... confused plot device (if there was any theme in Salvation, even a dumb one, I'm not sure what it was) and all three sacrifice themselves in the end, completely removing the horror and triumph of the first story which lay in the idea of fragile, feeling humans facing and defeating cold, calculating machines. In the sequels, the Machines as enemy lose their monolithic, horrific identity, expressed so well in The Terminator by the shot of the tank treads rolling over human skulls.
Terminator 2 may be a good action flick, but good action flicks are a dime a dozen in the summer Hollywood blockbuster field. The Terminator, dated music, cheap effects and all, is a well-executed, truly frightening and relentlessly paced science fiction horror story. Simple, yes, but pure in its simplicity and in the end, just a damn good story. I can't say that about T2.
Mixing this theme of humanity versus machines up could have been used to great effect, had anything even mildly complex been done with it, but instead we get Good Terminator 1 as cheesy ersatz father (complete with painfully on the nose voice over by Sarah just in case you didn't pick up on the entirely obvious), Good Terminator 2 as loyal soldier and Good Terminator 3 as... confused plot device (if there was any theme in Salvation, even a dumb one, I'm not sure what it was) and all three sacrifice themselves in the end, completely removing the horror and triumph of the first story which lay in the idea of fragile, feeling humans facing and defeating cold, calculating machines. In the sequels, the Machines as enemy lose their monolithic, horrific identity, expressed so well in The Terminator by the shot of the tank treads rolling over human skulls.
Terminator 2 may be a good action flick, but good action flicks are a dime a dozen in the summer Hollywood blockbuster field. The Terminator, dated music, cheap effects and all, is a well-executed, truly frightening and relentlessly paced science fiction horror story. Simple, yes, but pure in its simplicity and in the end, just a damn good story. I can't say that about T2.
I don't see how the fact that its sequels ripped it off makes the movie itself any worse. These things have nothing to do with each other, especially given the fact that the sequels were made without James Cameron, who felt the story was finished after T2. Yes, "Terminator 3" is basically just a less interesting rehash, with a more bland John Connor and a more bland villain, but that has nothing to do with T2's quality.
If T2 was another movie about the idea that machines had turned on humans, it would be a rip-off of "The Terminator". Instead it took the concept and expanded on it, which is what a good sequel should do. T2's story is just richer. It is the same and yet it is more. The idea of John and Sarah being torn between the two different machines with opposite plans for them was a fresh, exciting, original idea, at least for that film. If the sequels couldn't come up with anything more original, that's the problem of the sequels and the people behind them, not this movie.
And how is T-1000's motive that dramatically different? All T-1000 wants is to kill John Connor. It doesn't have any monologues about why or what it's going to do after. That's part of what makes it such a creepily effective villain. As Robert Patrick said, it's basically like he's playing death. He just keep coming, nothing phases him, and nobody can escape him.
Again, you're talking about things that once worked only to become tedious later, which doesn't change the fact that they worked in the first place. James Cameron obviously loves having his protagonists use voiceover. I remember watching "Avatar" and immediately finding it intrusive, annoying, and corny. Sarah Connor's voiceover, however, is excellent. I think it's a combination of it being unusually eloquent for a Cameron voiceover, and the Linda Hamilton's perfect delivery. Sarah, John, and the T-800 becoming almost like a family unit was a neat, ironic development. It complicated Sarah's relationship with machines from the first movie where they were just enemies, as she's once again running from one, and yet at the same time, she appreciates another for actually being better for her son than any potential surrogate father had ever been.
Not in today's Hollywood. Part of why I've come to appreciate "Terminator 2" more over the years is because there have been so few action movies of such high caliber since. I love action movies. I would love to watch more action movies, but it has been years and years since I've gone to the movies to see one because they are rarely made with half as much substance and craftsmanship as "Terminator 2".
I was arguing with a friend of mine once about action movies. He said they pretty much all suck and I asked, "what about Terminator 2"?. "That doesn't count...that's a classic", he replied. Exactly. "Terminator 2" is not just a great action movie, it transcends the genre. That's what people were saying about "The Dark Knight"...they said it transcends the superhero movie genre. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, but "Terminator 2" definitely deserves to be considered the pinnacle of action movies and then some.
"The Terminator" manages to be watchable in spite of its poor effects and music because it has such a good story and such good performances, but the cheap and cheesy way it looks is constantly detracting from its better qualities. It has a solid story and acting that is held back by the limitations of its budget and the time period in which it was made. "Terminator 2" has everything that movie has and more and is timeless. The pacing in that movie is exhaustingly strong. Like I said, my only criticism is that I find it a little too exhausting by the end. Since 1991, I still I haven't seen a movie that uses CGI as brilliantly. Its story and performances are just an interesting (better, in my opinion) than those of "The Terminator" and it just looks and sounds incredible. Bigger is not always better, but in this case it is.
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The Terminator. Much for the same reasons mentioned but I want to point out three things in particular that make it great.
1. Arnold, and the killer Terminator: Sure, Arnold was good in the first two sequels, but his signature is still palying the evil killer robot of few words. his performance, made up of very few lines, was perfect. Sure in his own way, Patrick was awesome, but nothing sends a chill quite like a huge badass Terminator that's not afraid to - uh - Terminate!
2. The love story. Told with very few scenes with mostly just images. The burning picture, the look of emptiness on Reece's face after his confession of love. The simple sex scene accompanied by a simple piano version of the theme (Cameron reproduced this idea in titanic with the sketch scene.) And Sarah's words at the end that they loved a lifetime's worth. It's believable, sincere, and effective. And yet done with such minimal amount of effort, the love story works so well. I would say it is one of the best love stories ever put in any film, regardless of genre.
3. The simple paradox. Sure, unless both Reese and Arnold went through at exactly the same second, the movie shouldn't work (Reese can't just follow Arnold through because the past would be changed) the movie is otherwise very tight with regards to its use of time travel.
1. Arnold, and the killer Terminator: Sure, Arnold was good in the first two sequels, but his signature is still palying the evil killer robot of few words. his performance, made up of very few lines, was perfect. Sure in his own way, Patrick was awesome, but nothing sends a chill quite like a huge badass Terminator that's not afraid to - uh - Terminate!
2. The love story. Told with very few scenes with mostly just images. The burning picture, the look of emptiness on Reece's face after his confession of love. The simple sex scene accompanied by a simple piano version of the theme (Cameron reproduced this idea in titanic with the sketch scene.) And Sarah's words at the end that they loved a lifetime's worth. It's believable, sincere, and effective. And yet done with such minimal amount of effort, the love story works so well. I would say it is one of the best love stories ever put in any film, regardless of genre.
3. The simple paradox. Sure, unless both Reese and Arnold went through at exactly the same second, the movie shouldn't work (Reese can't just follow Arnold through because the past would be changed) the movie is otherwise very tight with regards to its use of time travel.
Terminator is still a great example of a film of genre busting greatness, like Halloween or Star Wars it redefines everything and it's all compared to it from now on, relentless pacing and great writing
T2 suffers a little in the sense that the special effects that wowed us all those years ago aren't so special anymore. For me Robert Patrick still makes the film, his portrayal of the T1000 just perfect
T2 suffers a little in the sense that the special effects that wowed us all those years ago aren't so special anymore. For me Robert Patrick still makes the film, his portrayal of the T1000 just perfect
How were John and Sarah torn between two different machines with opposite plans for them? Goodie Arnie didn't have a plan except to do what John told him to do. He added nothing to the film except the opportunity for the big bad action star to be the leading man (part of my problem with the movie is the way the backstage decisions so obviously ruled the plot of the story instead of it being a more natural continuation of the original story). Had there been no Good Terminator, John and Sarah would have still tried to stay alive.
That wasn't my point, which had nothing to do with the T-1000, but with Goodie Arnie. A complex machine from the future doing humanity's bidding undermined the theme I was discussing where humanity found itself faced with any complex machine being deadly and having to fight such machines with only human resources.
I heartily disgree. I thought it was really stupid the first time. Here was the terrible monster from the future turned into a parody of himself. Bad to the Bone. Really? Nothing in The Terminator was as cheesy as that. Layer on the machine "learning to love" - I practically hurled the first time I saw it and it hasn't gotten any better on subsequent viewings.
Look, if it worked for you, more power to you. But I will always find it contrived and cheesy. It did what so many bad sequel stories do - took the poignant tale of an orphan and removed the emotional power by supplying a surrogate parent. All of which is even harder to buy because Cameron pulled an even cheesier stock sequel plot bit out - let's make young John Connor, instead of a heroic savior in training, an obnoxious tool. In fact, let's make him so obnoxious that at points the audience will actually root for the T-1000 to kill him.
Well you've got to figure it was hard for her to accept that a machine that looks almost exactly like the one that tried to kill her to the point where she's traumatized is now her only hope for her son to survive. I liked the irony of that, and it lead to that previously mentioned elevator scene, which is probably my favourite scene out of both movies too (although it's hard to pick just one).
Your rationalization for the real world reason why T-800 was the hero makes sense, but I don't think it hurts the movie at all. If he'd come back to kill Sarah and/or John again, then it really would have been a rehash. Otherwise, it would just be them against T-1000, which wouldn't have been as interesting. T-800 takes over the Reese role of their protector, but because he isn't human, he doesn't handle it the way Reese did, which again, makes it different and fascinating.
I think that's what Arnold added to the movie, although yes, it was also a breakout role for him, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Obviously he's a limited actor, but I think this was role that used his limited gifts best in his whole career, and it's the one that made me a fan of him as an actor.
But it was the 'human resourcefulness' that allowed them to fight the machine (albeit with help of another machine). I guess it's a more optimistic perspective than the previous movie where it was simply human vs. machine. Suggesting that humans and machines could work together against a common enemy by combining the human resourcefulness with the machine's efficiency was a new approach. The brute force and relentless drive of T-1000 wasn't enough against the combination of brawn with thoughtfulness and ingenuity that came out of Sarah, John, and T-800 all working together. I appreciated the variation on the human vs. machine premise, but I guess you prefer the more bleak one.
Well here is where I can't really defend the choice objectively. I thought that stuff was pretty funny and sweet, but that's all subjective. T-800 asking John Connor "what's wrong with your eyes?" when he's crying is one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in a movie. I vowed to repeat it jokingly one day if I ever see one of my friends crying (as long as it's not something too serious bothering them).
And "learning to love" is a bit of a stretch. He understands what love is a little better, but he doesn't actually love himself. He understands by the end why John has become attached to him and why John cries. He doesn't hug John, say "I love you, John", and cry himself. I thought it was done with enough restraint to not come across as cornball and melodramatic as you're suggesting it was. I appreciated some of that slapstick like the bar scene as well. I thought a little comic relief in a very violent and dour movie was healthy, and again, your mileage may vary, but I also found it restrained. We got all the horrible terrifying monster from the future stuff we could ever want with the first movie and with T-1000. I liked the T-800 being softened a bit.
And if it doesn't work for you, I just think that's unfortunate. It's your loss. I still see a lot of poignancy in that movie. There's still a lot of sympathy to be felt for Sarah in her isolation and fear for her son's safety as no one believes her. Her anger about the future is very moving too. That scene where she tries to kill Dyson in cold blood in front of his family had a hell of a lot of emotional power for me.
I think it would have been more of a "stock sequel plot bit" to make John Connor just the 'heroic savior in training' and proof is in the fact that this is exactly what the other two Terminator sequels did, to their detriment. Look how much more boring Nick Stahl was in the sequel when he played the role completely straight-laced. John being such an obnoxious kid was realistic and made him more human. Not that I'm saying all orphans turn out this way, but him becoming such a brat after what happened to his mother makes sense.
There's two ways you can look at a kid who is screwed up like that. You either simply say, "well he's obnoxious, fuck him", or you feel sorry for him because you know he's had a hard life that contributed to him turning out that way. I took the latter perspective, so his snotty attitude didn't stop me from wanting him to survive, or from feeling really sad for him at the end when he doesn't want T-800 to kill itself.
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I think your interpretaion of both movies is too literal. Yes, to a certain extent, they're both about technology run amok. But at their heart, it seems to me that they're both really about the duality of man, and the horrors (both real and potential) of the 20th century.
One of the central features of every horror movie is the return of the repressed. In the case of the Terminator movies, what has been repressed is the memory of totalitarianism and genocide, and the fear of nuclear war. The memory of the ways in which human beings, and specifically men, have used technology to enslave and murder their fellow human beings, and to ruin and destroy an entire century of progress. The memory of the ways in which men willingly became heartless, unfeeling, inhuman instruments of tyranny, death, and destruction. And the knowledge that, somewhere behind the scenes, under the surface, and beneath the skin of contemporary society, the potential for even greater mass murder and mass destruction still exists, in the form of nuclear weapons.
In both movies, this repressed memory and repressed fear returns in the form of the Terminators. On the outside, the Terminator in the first movie resembles the Heroic-Realist statues of Nazi Germany, with its bulging muscles and Teutonic sneer. But on the inside, it's a soulless, heartless machine with no personality or conscience--a robotic genocidaire.
The T-1000, by contrast, is not even superficially human: it is metal, through and through. It's as physically unthreatening as a USAF airman working in a nuclear-missile silo, launch key at the ready. Its ability to change form at will suggests, at least to me, that the totalitarian, genocidal impulse that was formerly concentrated in places like the Nazi death camps has metastasized throughout our society. When given the chance, it reverts to type, wearing a cop uniform and motorcycle boots which recall the Nazi SS.
These machines are not Others at all. They are Us. Both of them represent certain ideals of masculinity which men willingly embraced in the previous century, and their violence is no more brutal or indiscriminate than that which these men have inflicted on their fellow human beings. On Judgment Day, Skynet even uses our own weapons to destroy us.
But, thankfully, not all men have embraced this ideal. If the Terminators represent men's evil and destructive impulses, then Kyle Reese represents their good and creative impulses. Reese sacrifices his own life to save Sarah, and warn her about the future. And in the process, he joins with her to bring new life and hope into the world. Doomsday is still coming, but humanity will survive, and life will go on.
The situation in T2 is more complex: in place of the first movie's black-and-white morality, we have shades of grey.
In this sense, both movies are products of their time. The Terminator was released in 1984, when the nuclear arms race was at its height. T2, by contrast, was released in 1991, after communism had fallen, and the threat of nuclear annihilation had receded.
On the one hand, we see that Sarah has drawn the wrong conclusions from her experiences in the first movie: that the only way to fight the machines is to become as hard, and ruthless, and unfeeling as the machines. She has become corrupted by the same robotism that almost destroyed her. And when she learns Dyson's identity, she becomes a Terminator herself, buckling on a hyper-masculine shell of combat gear as a symbol of her resolve. But in the end, Sarah's humanity reasserts itself: unlike the psychopathic Terminators, she cannot bring herself to shoot a defenceless human being in cold blood. The end does not justify the means.
While Sarah is trying, unsuccessfully, to dehumanize herself, the 'good' Terminator is gradually being humanized by his relationship with John. This character, to me, represents the War Machine which was built up to fight first the Second World War, then the Cold War--a machine which, in the post-Cold War environment of T2, has now outlived its usefulness. Once it has successfully defended John and Sarah against the T-1000, it realizes that its continued existence would only endanger the world. It too must be destroyed--melted down, like an old sword, to be re-forged into a plowshare.
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