Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The entry for "Ludicrous Precision" sort of mocks the movie for not having the Terminator kill any cops and wondering how he was able to not have one single cop car explode when shooting a minigun at them. But in real life, cars DON'T explode when you shoot them, not even a direct hit on the gas tank.

So really, this site is sort of mocking a movie for NOT following a trope.

So, um...why don't you go fix it?

I'm a skeptical squirrel

James Cameron tends to show his work. For example, these movies are usually commended for their realistic uses of weapons.

More Buscemi at http://forum.reelsociety.com/

Terminator 2 is a pretty fucking good movie, though.

Just wanted to say that before this thread probably gets deleted.

Pretty good? I'd say more than that. I'd say it's a show of the academy's incompetence that the Best Picture race wasn't between this and Beauty And The Beast.

The Silence Of The Lambs deserved Best Picture.

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Agreed. I get the Academy wants to honor "artistic merit" and such, which is why literary drama gets the nods over "Blow Shit Up" movies. I don't necessarily disagree.

But T:2 is one of the most influential films of all time and changed the game in the action genre for at least a decade.

It was an honor

I'll admit I didn't see The Silence Of The Lambs until after all the Oscar stuff happened, and that probably colored my expectations going in, but still... I was expecting better. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't fall in love with it either.

T:2, on the other hand, delivered exactly what I was expecting, and is still one of my favorite films of all time.

Jesus saves. Gretzky steals, he scores!

Silence is a bit dated in technical terms (pacing, musical score), and the waves of forensic shows in the states haven't helped. But it's still a hugely original movie. I like Ebert's analysis of it.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

I... preferred the original.

Don't get me wrong. T2 is great. I love that flick and will watch it in an instant. But I prefer the original.

Partially because I am one of the many, many for whom the giant plot twist of T2 was spoiled by the trailers. For 2, I prefer T1 because the stakes feel higher (to me. Yes. Biased opinion). On one hand, you have this robot from the future. You don't fully know all it can do by this point. On the other hand, you have two humans. One way out of her depth, and another who realizes just how bad things are and is flying by the seat of his pants. While in T2, on one hand we've got a new villainous robot, on the other have the robot from the last film, who proved pretty damn hard to stop, and the T-1000's capacities are quickly laid out, along with limitations.

Add in the romance and the parts where Kyle realizes why John gave him a picture of Sarah and why he was chosen to go to the past and it's a touching action movie.

But again, not saying T2 is a bad flick. It's awesome. It's great. I just find the original to be greater.

The first Terminator was an expertly crafted low budget action thriller. It compensated for the lack of big set pieces with taut suspense and tight character drama. What made Terminator 2 be considered such a worthy sequel is that they escalated the action and set pieces without losing focus of the suspense and characters that made the original work.

I remember being terrified watching the steel mill finale when I was 12 and seeing it more than 10 years later I still get chills. The machine shop finale of the first film was also well made but the effects haven't aged as gracefully (Stop Motion aside, the green screen work when they are trying to shut the door on the limping metal skeleton is painfully obvious.

No argument against the SFX having aged, but I'm a fan of old films, so I am quite capable of ignoring that.

I honestly prefer both.

The original is a perfect blend of 80's cyberpunk and typical blow em action. Judgment Day set the prototype for 90's action movies.

They were the best duology until Kill Bill.

It was an honor

For my own sanity I'll pretend you didn't say that.

I loved both of the Terminator movies for different reasons. They managed to create a monster in the first one, and then keep it relevant in the second in spite of the usual sequel escalation. I'll even commit heresy and say that I liked 3 as well even though it's more about the effects and such than the characters.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

Both of these films are perfect examples of movies that've made me scream: "Why won't you just die?!" at the screen (is that a trope btw?)

I still love the Tech Noir scene from the first one (I love the song playing in the background) and to this day, I still applaud the guy who attempted to fight the Terminator (Sarah's friend's boyfriend I believe) with his bare hands. He put up a relatively decent fight all things considered.

"Contests fought between two masters are decided instantly. An invisible battle is now raging between the two of them." Lulu vs Schneizel

And for my own sanity, I refuse to believe they followed up two of the best action movies of all time with a horrendous 3rd installment and a slightly less stupid 4th installment.

Nope, James Cameron made two. The end.

It was an honor

I liked Rise of the Machines, though admittedly not to the same extent as T1 and T2. Salvation, on the other hand... well, it technically still had a good story I suppose, but pull the fucking camera back so we can see what the fuck is going on!

Jesus saves. Gretzky steals, he scores!

3 Was a standard action flick set in the Terminator universe. It's biggest failing was that it gave up on the premise of trying to save the future and avert disaster and instead made things to be per-ordained or something and not able to be changed. It's a huge let down to the first two movies as we went from valiantly fighting the machine to... well it's almost like it's inevitable, the machines are going to kill us.

As for Salvation, eh, I liked the new bots stomping around and the bits with the A-10s. Otherwise I've got no real reason to rewatch it.

"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit

Salvation felt like a thoroughly pointless movie. It was as deep as a puddle on a hot summer's day.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

I almost had totally forgotten about Terminator: Salvation a couple hours after seeing it. That never happens to me.

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Salvation felt like the missed an opportunity. You could cut out John Connor entirely, and the movie would be better for it (And Skynet should not talk. That was F***ing stupid).

Heck, the film opens with Marcus fully accepting that he needs to die for killing his brother. I want to know how that happened. How he got there. Feels like I missed an entire movie! Make the whole film about Marcus, who seemed to be an interesting guy. But rather, we get a film with plotholes so big you can drive a Hunter Killer through, with almost no character development.

And Kill Bill is awesome, but to be fair, it was designed to be a single movie from the ground up. It got split in two fairly late in production. I don't count it as a true duology because it never was really intended to be.

Rise of the Machines was a decent action movie with a few memorable moments that makes it work out okay. With the exception of the final CGI crash that whole opening highway chase was a very nice change of pace after a lot of Hollywood films were indulging in overdone CG like in The Matrix Reloaded (Compare Arnold kicking over the ambulence to the agent jumping on and crushing a car, I'm not opposed to CG but there is something to be said for practical effects). The bathroom fight also had a nice bit of carnage.

What made it lacking was that it generally repeats the same story beats as the second film and it lost a lot of the suspense. One thing that kind of happened in the third film but is more evident in Salvation is that the ruthlessness and efficiency of the killer robots dropped. During the entire first film it was plainly clear that if the T-800 had a clear shot at Sarah or was within reach to tear out her throat it would do so without hesitation. That's the point behind the Ballistic Discount scene and when he killed the elderly Sarah Conner ("Sarah Conner?" "Yes?" [Kick door down, bullet to the head]).

Terminator 2 was equally as efficient and the T-1000 didn't pull any punches when the time came for the kill. The Terminatrix in 3 was fairly efficient (knowing when to kill versus let the police lead her to John), but when the T-800 was reprogrammed to kill John it should have been over the moment he got his hands on him (of course it is supposedly more dramatic to have him be thrown around a bit). Salvation had none of the robots with anywhere near the same level of efficiency. Even the return of the T-800 showed that it was smarter than previous models, but still just tossed John Conner around instead of [grab, tear off head].

The problem I had with the third movie, is that it felt like over long thrill ride. I guess the action was fine, but there was too much of it, whereas James Cameron knew when to slow things down and made me care about the characters more.

Claire Danes made that movie tolerable.

I saw hints of Furlong in Nick Stahl, which probably wasn't intentional, but still a good thing.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

There is a bit of a justification here as the T-800 was suffering from a massive internal conflict at the time thanks to the T-X's reprogramming clashing with its original mission objective.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.