History YMMV / Terminator2JudgmentDay

** In yet anther example of CGI being too ambitious for on-set work - The T-800's jump into the ravine on his motorcycle is very clearly wirework despite the wires and rigging being digitally removed. A large part of this has to do with the trajectory of the bike and how it lands on the ground with nothing more than a soft thud. The slow motion used in this shot doesn't help.

* MoralEventHorizon: If murdering John Connor's foster parents didn't send the T-1000 over, then torturing Sarah Connor as bait for John did. The T-1000 is a special case, because unlike other Terminators, the T-1000 is a fast-learning model both sentient and fully capable of human emotion, to the point where [[EvenEvilHasStandards even Skynet was scared away from mass-producing it]].

** Likewise, the above scene has also garnered jokes that the T-800 should have thrown off John's "foster mom" by telling her that "John" is going to Mt. Everest/the Arctic/Chernobyl/some other faroff, remote, and deadly location or that he's going to kill himself or that he's not going to be home for an hour to stall it while the T-1000 proceeds to do house chores (including cooking that stew) in the meantime. Another joke from the same scene is what if John's foster dad wanted to [[CoitusEnsues get it on]] with his "wife" in the kitchen.

* CatharsisFactor: The T-1000, being the utterly unrelenting, cold, murderous, ruthless and seemingly unstoppable machine he is, being melted down in the molten lava is pure satisfaction incarnate.

** While driving away on the damaged cop car after the first encounter with the T-1000, the [[rear-projected environment outside the vehicle DrivingADesk]] is rather obvious.

* AcceptableTargets: In his first scene, the T-800 beats up a few bikers and robs one of his clothes and his motorcycle, but it's partially PlayedForLaughs.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: That shot of the helicopter flying under an underpass was done for real with no special effects.

* AwardSnub: Creator/JamesCameron was so impressed with Creator/LindaHamilton's performance and her dedication to the role (she lost twelve pounds during filming because of her aggressive training regimen) that he campaigned for her to get an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward nomination for Best Actress. He was unsuccessful.

* When the T-1000 impales the truck driver, there's a telltale vertical rip visible on the actor's shirt from where the blade flipped outward from a sort of back plate.

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: [[Film/TheTerminator The first film]] may have been his StarMakingRole, but this was really where Arnold Schwarzengger started winning people over with the idea that he was more than just a body-builder-turned-action-hero-movie-star, but an ''actual actor''. Carrying the bulk of the film with the same restrained, machinelike, UncannyValley-invoking performance he gave in the first film, delivering several important expository speeches, and gradually adapting and evolving to more effectively mimic humanity, and perhaps even ''gain humanity'' in some small measure by the end. For all the fantastic action setpieces, many of the film's most memorable moments are its emotional ones, many of which hinge on the characters' and/or audience's emotional connection to the cyborg killing machine played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. A connection that simply wouldn't exist believably if Schwarzengger wasn't a capable actor.

** "THE GALLERIA?" for the T-1000's [[UncannyValley confused reaction]] to the girls telling him that John went to the mall.

** The T-1000's wide-eyed confusion to the girls telling him that John went to the Galleria seems a bit narmy for how weird he reacts, but it makes sense since UncannyValley is his CharacterTic (especially since his true nature isn't revealed until a little later), and a deleted scene that continues from there has him ask the girls where the Galleria is since he doesn't know.

* {{Adorkable}}: The T-800's every attempt at mimicking human emotions has it come across as an enthusiastic but naive ManChild; the stiff and literally parroted "I swear I won't kill anybody" scene in particular is an amusing example of this. Even more amusing when you remember [[Skelebot9000 what he looks like without his skin]].

-->''"The Terminator films are not really about the human race getting killed off by future machines. They're about us losing touch with our own humanity and becoming machines, which allows us to kill and brutalise each other. Cops think of all non-cops as less than they are, stupid, weak, and evil. They dehumanise the people they are sworn to protect and desensitize themselves in order to do that job."''

** The practical effects, too, are praiseworthy. Of particular note is how Linda Hamilton's twin sister, Leslie, contributed to many key scenes such as Sarah's nightmare (she portrayed the alternate version of Sarah in the dream sequence), a cut scene where Sarah is working on the Terminator (a fake mirror was set up with Linda and Arnie in the "reflection" while Leslie mimed her sister on a fake head), and the final battle (Leslie portrayed the T-1000 mimicing Sarah).
* TheWoobie: Try, just try, not to feel even remotely bad for Miles Dyson. A nice and loving family man, Miles was hoping to use the discovered technology from the previous T-800's remains to create a better life for humanity. He's nearly murdered in front of his family by an unstable WellIntentionedExtremist who has a misandrist attitude towards him, and then receives an extra GutPunch when he immediately discovers that the technology he creates will, rather than help life like he was hoping, end up causing the worst case of human genocide in history. Then he does his best to help the T-800 and Sarah destroy all traces of his work to ensure the threat of that scale never happens, and [[RedemptionEqualsDeath ends up getting killed for it]]. And if you take any of the sequels into account, it means his sacrifice still ended up being for nothing.

** Whatever unease Sarah's Judgment Day nightmare brings often gets lost whenever any sort of reaction or explosion meme uses this scene to compliment it.

!!YMMV for the [[''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' film]]:

!!YMMV for the film:

** [[ActionHeroBabysitter The Terminator]]--second Cyberdyne Model T-101 introduced--was captured by John Connor and the Resistance in the future and reprogrammed before then being sent back to protect John as a young boy. First tracking John to his foster parents' house and then to the local mall, the Terminator smuggles his shotgun in through a box of roses, counters the T-1000's first attempt on John there and then rescues him again in a high-speed chase. The Terminator then [[BluffTheImposter tricks the T-1000]] into giving away that he's murdered John's foster parents and is imitating his foster mother and tells John that he can't help him save his mother Sarah because [[PragmaticHero the T-1000 will get to him easily]]. Pledging [[ThouShallNotKill not to kill anyone]] and helping save Sarah anyway, the Terminator then helps blow Cyberdyne up so as to undo Skynet's existence while also wounding or attacking an army of cops all without causing any deaths. After finally destroying the T-1000, the Terminator [[HeroicSacrifice has himself sacrificed]] as another means of preserving the future, proving to Sarah he developed compassion for humans that she didn't think a killing machine could have.

* MisaimedFandom:
** Sarah's transformation into an ActionGirl in this film was shown at several points to be a result of her PTSD after the first film, she became a domestic terrorist put into a mental hospital, and had John taken away from her. Her breakout from the hospital is especially violent and shows some [[StrawFeminist misandric attitudes]] talking with Dyson. But seeing that transformation into a badass falls right into escapist fantasies, plus her CassandraTruth, which helped create Sarah as an iconic female action hero all while ignoring just how fundamentally unstable she is.

* ToughActToFollow: ''None'' of the movies that followed ''Terminator 2'' were as well received and successful. Even its canonical sequel, ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'', produced by James Cameron himself, while receiving higher ratings than the previous sequels, is still considered inferior.

* Of course John doesn't like Todd, he [[Series/TheMentalist killed Patrick Jane's family]].

* {{Woolseyism}}: The famous line "Hasta la vista, baby!" became [[KeepItForeign "Sayonara, baby!"]] in the Castilian Spanish dub. It became just as popular in Spain as the original in America.