FEBRUARY 22, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 3

John Conner doesn’t understand why his friend, this father figure, must be destroyed. After almost two-and-a-half hours of special effects laden action combined with a buddy comedy and a little family drama thrown in, Sarah Conner must lower the Terminator into the glowing orange lava since the robot cannot self-terminate. As the damaged robot is lowered, Brad Fiedel’s score hums in the background. A distraught John Conner looks on. A stoic Sarah Conner realizes this is what must be done to preserve the future. Just as the Terminator is about to be completely melted, he gives one final thumbs up.

The cheesiness of the thumb and the above quote which ends the movie makes it easier to forget the spectacular special effects and the fact that this film shows a great deal of heart even despite Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name being attached to it.

Terminator II: Judgment Day is one of my favorite films. On the surface, it’s easy to see this as just another entry to Arnold’s action Hall of Fame. There are, however, many themes to be explored. James Cameron inserted his fear of a nuclear holocaust into a number of his films from 1984 until 1994. T2 is also the rare film that doesn’t feature a traditional love story. Finally, what makes this film interesting is that although it discusses the evils of relying too much technology, the film itself uses a lot of special effects.

The plot is fairly simple for a movie with such an extended running time. Two terminators are sent back this time. The one played by Schwarzanegger is sent to protect John Conner, who is played by Edward Furlong. The other is played by Robert Patrick and his mission is to kill young John. John’s mother, Sarah Conner, played by Linda Hamiltion, is stuck in a mental hospital for much of the first half of the film. It is a race against time as Sarah, John, and the “good” Terminator must preserve the future from a nuclear holocaust and a complete takeover by the machines.

In the first Terminator, the story was carried by Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese’s relationship. A case could be made that they had one of the better love stories told on film since their one and only night together produced the future leader of the human race. Things could have gone better if Reese had actually lived and Sarah didn’t go coo-coo for nuclear holocaust, but if everything had gone perfectly there would be no reason for a sequel.

The second film erases all traces of Kyle Reese’s character. This is different kind of story altogether. It’s what I like to call a family love story. John clearly cares about his mom and the robot that he considers a father figure. Sarah loves his son a great deal. No one is trying to find their one true love. It’s more about self-preservation. It’s why this “family” travels to Mexico in an attempt to get away from the other Terminator at first instead of staying to fight.

What’s also interesting is that the young Conner starts out with foster family. I never get the sense that they were bad parents necessarily, but Conner treated them like leeches. What does it say when a woman from a mental hospital and a robot generate more respect in the young Conner than the foster parents? John needs his real mother since she is the only one who understands him. And the robot is the first father figure to actively take an interest in John’s life.

Multiple scenes show John Conner teaching the Terminator how be more human. The young Conner and the robot converse about fear and why humans cry. These are discussions you may not hear in an 80s action film, movies known more for explosions and cheesy one-liners then substantive plots. One of the more powerful moments takes place in the Mexico sequence as two children are using toy guns to shoot each other. John Conner responds by asking the Terminator “We’re not going to make it, are we?” There is no response.

While kids in movies tend to irritate me because they’re either too smart for their own good or just plain annoying, Cameron tends to use kids very well. Aliens is an excellent example with Carrie Penn playing Rebecca Jorden. Jorden was an eight-year-old survivor of who serves a similar purpose as young John. She provided an emotional balace to Ripley, and made her more human like Conner does with the robot.

T2 features Edward Furlong, with only a couple examples of over-acting, playing his role very well. A great example of showing restraint is the point at which he is in the car with the robot and his mom driving away from the mental hospital. Sarah chastises his son for even trying to rescue his mom. Instead of balling and getting really emotional, he shed a couple of tears, but almost immediately ready to move on. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the point at which the Terminator must be melted. While I think being emotional is okay, believability is stretched when he shouts and screams with such veracity. At certain points, Conner does show himself to be a great leader, but at others he’s just a kid crying out for his mother.

The layoff between the two Terminator movies witnessed the end of “The Cold War,” which by all rights should have ended any threat of the world being ended with nuclear weapons. Russia and the United States became more concerned pointing pens toward treaties then guns in third world countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan. At times, it seemed this cold war would become hot. This is likely why Cameron had a running theme through many of his films in the 80s and 90s.

While the “war” between the two countries ended, the nuclear warheads remained. The United States still retains enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over. And more countries have acquired or would like to acquire nuclear weapons. Society’s need for technology, an issue Cameron clearly sees as important in T2, is an even greater concern in 2008. Sometimes it seems our lives are run and dictated by computers. It would be a very different world if suddenly e-mail, DVDs, cell phones, and computers stopped working. People have become addicted to texting on their cell phones or e-mailing people that they can’t even have a phone conversation anymore. Also, I know people who incessantly check their e-mail. Being one of them certainly helps. Finally, just look at DVD sales and all the long list of collections so many people seem to have these days.

The irony is even greater when you consider that at the time, this was the most expensive movie ever filmed, coming in at just over 100 million dollars. While it might seem commonplace for all movies to be hyper-expensive and loaded with special effects, this film was an exception. The use of computers and the amount of work likely put into T-1000 alone earned T2 four Academy Awards for make-up, sound mixing, sound editing, and visual effects.

T2 defies a lot of what we know from 80s action films. Arnold Schwarzenegger is supposed to kill a ton of people, yet in this film he kills no one. Kids are supposed to be smart for their own good, but here John Conner spends much of the film acting his age. Whether it’s because of bored stars and bored directors or expectations running too high, sequels usually are never as good as the originals. Because of the work of Cameron, the actors involved, and everyone who worked on the visual effects, T2 turned action genre filmmaking into something more than a series of one-liners and cheesy explosions. Terminator II far exceed the original, the third, and especially the lame television series.