Terminator 2: Judgment Day
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Synopsis
The year is 1995, eleven years after Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) destroyed the original Terminator that was programmed to kill her, two men arrive in Los Angeles from the year 2030. The first is a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) identical to the one that Sarah first encountered, while the second is an unknown man (Robert Patrick) who dresses as a police officer. John Connor (Edward Furlong) is now living with foster parents. He has grown up being told by his mother that he would someday lead the remnants of the human race to victory against the machines. Sarah's experiences have significantly changed who she is, making her tougher and more vigilant, but also more desperate to warn humanity about the threat of the war of the machines. While previously attempting to destroy the headquarters of a computer company, Sarah was arrested and remanded to the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Meanwhile, the Terminator and the unknown man eventually locate John Connor. The "police officer" is revealed to be a machine trying to kill John; the Terminator protects John and reveals what is happening. He is a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, reprogrammed by the future John Connor to act as his protector. The other Terminator is a T-1000, an advanced new prototype, programmed to kill John. It is made of "a Mimetic polyalloy", essentially liquid metal, allowing it to emulate almost anyone or anything of equal size.
When John learns that the T-1000 will likely copy Sarah and then kill her, he and the Terminator go to rescue her. Initially, Sarah is terrified by the Terminator, but after seeing it fight off the T-1000, she accepts that they need its help. As they escape the city, the Terminator tells her about the future of Skynet, the sentient computer that will destroy humans. He tells her about its creator, Miles Bennett Dyson (Joe Morton), who designs a learning computer that is entrusted with command of all military force. When Skynet becomes "self-aware", it launches nuclear missiles to destroy most of humanity, an event referred to by the survivors as "Judgment Day".
Eventually, Sarah, John, and the Terminator arrive in the desert at the camp of Enrique Salceda, who has preserved an underground weapons cache in the event that the war actually happens. Sarah plans to take John and flee over the border into Mexico. During the time at this camp, John bonds more closely with the Terminator. Sarah soon believes that by killing Dyson she can prevent Skynet from being invented, preventing Judgment Day and the war with the machines. After she leaves, John and the Terminator figure out what she is going to do and drive after her. At Dyson's home, Sarah shoots him in the arm, but finds herself unable to kill him in front of his family. When John and the Terminator arrive, they inform Dyson of the consequences of his research. They convince him that they must destroy everything related to his chip design including the CPU and arm from the previous Terminator.
Sarah, John, the Terminator, and Dyson break into the Cyberdyne Systems building and retrieve the parts from the first Terminator. While preparing explosives to destroy all of Dyson's research, security alerts the police who show up in force. When the SWAT team enters the building, they fatally shoot Dyson who stays behind to trigger the detonator. Sarah, John, and the Terminator escape in a SWAT van, with the T-1000 in pursuit, first in a helicopter then a liquid truck. The truck crashes into a steel mill, causing the tank to rupture and liquid nitrogen to spill everywhere, freezing the T-1000. Even though the Terminator shatters him, the pieces thaw and reassemble. The T-1000 and Model 101 begin to fight, and the T-1000 stabs him through the power cell with a metal pole, deactivating him. The T-1000, disguised as Sarah, goes to hunt John. As John is confronted by two Sarahs, the Terminator, who had reactivated itself using an alternate power source, finally destroys the T-1000 by shooting it with a grenade launcher which causes it to deform and lose balance, and ultimately fall into a vat of molten metal which destroys it.
After John throws the parts from the first Terminator into the molten metal, the Terminator tells him that he too must be destroyed to prevent his technology from being used to create Skynet. He tells Sarah that he cannot self-terminate, and she must lower him into the steel. John tearfully begs the Terminator not to leave, but the Terminator insists it must be done. As he sinks into the molten steel, he gives a thumbs up. The film ends with a voice-over from Sarah, in which she describes her newfound optimism regarding the future.
Appearances
Characters
- T-800, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton
- John Connor, played by Edward Furlong
- T-1000, played by Robert Patrick
- Dr. Silberman, played by Earl Boen
- Miles Dyson, played by Joe Morton
- Tarissa Dyson, played by S. Epatha Merkerson
- Enrique Salceda, played by Castulo Guerra
- Tim, played by Danny Cooksey
- Janelle Voight, played by Jenette Goldstein
- Todd Voight, played by Xander Berkeley
- Twin Sarah, played by Leslie Hamilton Gearren
- Douglas, played by Ken Gibbel
- Cigar Biker, played by Robert Winley
- Lloyd, played by Pete Schrum
- Daniel Dyson, played by DeVaughn Nixon
- Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn (deleted scene)
Terminator Series
Locations
Organizations
Technology
- Combat chassis
- Endoskeleton
- Head-up display
- Hyperalloy
- Living tissue
- Mimetic Polyalloy
- Neural Net CPU
- Plasma
- Time displacement equipment
Television spin-off
The 2008 television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a direct follow-up to T2, with several episodes making direct reference to events, and with several characters from the film -- such as Dyson's widow and Dr. Silberman -- making appearances. The producers of the film have stated in several venues that the series intentionally ignores the events of T3.
Deleted scenes
Several scenes were removed prior to the theatrical release of the film. The most notable removals were a sequence in which Sarah dreams about Kyle Reese, and an epilogue showing an elderly, but very much alive Sarah Connor some 30 years later, reflecting on the fact Judgement Day never occurred. Both scenes, and many others were later included in an extended version of the film released to home video and to television, although the Future-Sarah ending is contradicted by the subsequent Terminator 3 which established that she died approximately three years after the events of T2, as well as the fact that in T3 Judgement Day does actually happen.
DVD Release
T2 received three DVD releases: a standard DVD edition, a later Ultimate Edition and a final Extreme Edition. The Ultimate Edition has the theatrical and special editions of Terminator 2, while the Extreme Edition has the extended special edition, and the theatrical version is only available on an Easter egg. The Ultimate Edition is currently discontinued, probably in favor of the Extreme & "Skynet" Edition on Blu-ray disc.
On the Extreme DVD, in order to watch the theatrical cut, for the menu of Disc 1, one must go to "Sensory Control" and hit the right arrow on their DVD remote five times, which will then move to the right onto a panel that says "The future is not set". If the Enter button is pressed when the words are visible, the menu (and the scene selection menu) will change to the theatrical version. T2 is the only one of the 3 films to get a Collector's Edition. It contains 4 discs (one of which being a Blu-Ray) all of which are stored in a T-800 Endoskull bust or steelbook case. The bust contains lights and sounds. The sounds include effects of guns and explosions, the lights are the eyes of the Endoskull.
Notes
- While a central point in Terminator 2, the phrase There is no fate but what we make for ourselves is not said in The Terminator. The phrase comes from a deleted scene.
