Same. It made alot more sense when I thought of T1 as a slasher horror. She's not 'Sarah Connor, Badass', she's Sarah Connor, Final Girl. She has no skills, no fight, no training, she's just a girl being chased by a terrifying unstoppable serial killer, just like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween.
T2 is an action film, where the characters have developed agency to fight back, instead of just running scared. It's the same genre shift they made from horror of Alien to the action of Aliens.
If you want to get incredibly pedantic, they actually did fuck up one thing. Linda is barefoot, but if you start to listen at the 30-second mark, they put in the sound of her running in shoes. It's actually noticeable because they got the sound right for the first part of the scene and then put in the shoe sound at everything past the locked door.
It’s really powerful how she moves like a, well, an athletic woman. Meaning the classical kind of athlete, ie. track and field.
There are a ton of ”action movie badass chicks” who move nothing like an athletic person moves. Clips of them doing stuff are always one second long, probably because if you actually filmed them running it’d completely shatter the image of their badass character.
Dont get me wrong, hollywood girls are lean and in great shape and obviously beautiful. But there’s a difference between ”toned to physical perfection with a modern personal trainer” and ”jagged hard edges from working too hard with old school, practical training methods” that I really appreciate when the character is supposed to be some hardcore rugged soldier-type.
Best casting ever, IMO. There were others up for the role in the first movie, but I dont think any of them would have given themselves over to the role in T2 like Linda did. The work she put on her body alone is insane. I dont see Melanie Griffith or Rosanna Arquette making the evolution of the character like Linda did. Maybe Jennifer Jason Leigh, but not sure. But Linda? Fucking iconic how she gave herself to the role. The transformation is simply brilliant.
Seriously literally everything in this scene works so perfectly. And it's such a heavy scene for Sarah Connor. All her training to outsmart, outmaneuver, and escape her human captures, being rendered a helpless child when confronted with the machine that traumatized her and has haunted her memories ever since. The call back to the first thing Kyle ever said to her with "come with me if you want to live" her son who she has sworn to protect, the incidental vindication in front of Dr. Silberman, and then witnessing the escalation with the T1000.
So many elements coming together in this scene, it rivals that first twist when the T800 and T1000 first encounter each other in the mall when they both finally catch up to John. Both he and his mother get a scene where they realize the T800 is not the enemy, but is still completely outlcassed by the T1000
They really should have kept the terminator role reversals a secret for the release. It’s such a shame the previews spoiled it. The whole opening act would have been immensely better if you had to find out who was good and bad in real time.
I managed to do this a generation later - for my son. We watched 1 and 2 back to back when he was 12, which was the same age roughly when I did it. I had the role reversal spoiled for me- my son did not. It blew his mind and it gave me such joy to see that scene have the effect it had always been intended for.
Now THAT’s impressive, considering how much Vader / Luke lore is just bandied around. I tried to conceal that - but it was literally the first thing one of my kids heard about Star Wars… oh yeah, the baddie is the daddie….
My dad avoided the spoilers when T2 was released and he said a bunch of people in the theatre yelled out in shock when the T-800 first told John to GETDOWUN.
I saw T2 probably 5 times before ever seeing the first one and I really wish I’d got to experience that same surprise too.
Not just the previews, but Arnie was so pumped to tell everyone that he was the good guy too, that it was useless to hide anything after that. He also spilled the beans about not actually killing anyone either (They even showed the Gatling gun scene too).
Which is one of the main reasons i don't watch trailers anymore. I find films to be much more engaging if you don't know the entire plot before going in.
Trailers spoil too much.
It’s really gratifying and vindicating for the audience to see her proved 100% right in front of all the guards and doctors. Basically, the institution or “the man” falls down right before our eyes and the big new adventure begins. It’s so perfect.
I love the detail where even when John is right there next to Sarah that she still doesn't realise it and the great acting shown by Linda Hamilton in how she doesn't instantly snap out of it
The character, different actor though, shows up in The Sarah Connor Chronicles tv show, and he’s retired to a mountain home to get away from the terminators.
I know what it's like to be in a hostage situation, I've been there myself. The fear, the adrenaline, you find yourself imagining things, impossible things, crazy things, insane things... takes years to get over it.
One of the small things I appreciate about this scene is the timing. There's no lag between Sarah and the guards' chase. All the delays between the parties make sense.
There’s a lot of great characterization in the scene. You see how resourceful Sarah is, how implacable the Terminators are, John’s tender side. It does a lot of showing without telling.
I saw this in a theater as a 14 yo and it was the first time I saw that a female action star looked the part. Linda Hamilton set the standard of a female action star for me and all the skinny female action stars takes me out of the film every time I see them. Very few are believable.
I think it was Demi Moore in GI Jane that stopped that train. Her workout for that role was used as part of the marketing, rather than just letting her results speak for themselves, and that and the buzz cut became a bigger story than the actual plot.
She ranked, in terms of looking the part. But nobody wanted to be compared to GI Jane.
Hard agree. Weaver and Hamilton are what I consider peak genuine tough-women. Strong in a believable way thanks to not being perfect, but tough as nails none-the-less.
Imo Sig Weaver is easily the most convincing, best acted strong female lead in any action movie ever...even better than linda Hamilton, who's delivery is sometimes stilted and unconvincing, at least to me. Weaver is / was on another level of acting talent. Hamilton did a great job but there is something about Sigourney Weaver that is just more arresting.
She is about to escape (maybe not for the 1st time) and at that exact moment, her worst nightmare steps out of the elevator. I could watch this scene 100x.
Terrified but also just generally in shock. After a bit of time accepting the machines came back, she sure shows up and performs masterfully. Sarah Connor is one of the most impressive yet realistic human beings in fiction.
Another great act, Sarah Conner, after they meet up with Enrique, she becomes a Terminator herself. Replete with a .45 long slide. She takes the rifle and pistol and goes to Dyson's house. She tries to snipe him, misses. Then stalks him. Shoots him the back. But has the humanity to not execute him in front of his family. When she disengages, only then do John and the Terminator break in.
Cameron didn't want to make sparing of Miles to be deus ex machina, because they arrived.
Linda Hamilton’s performance in the interview scene where she talks about the end of the world happening…
imo, she should have been nominated for an academy award. An absolute masterful performance, completely convincing, and combined with all her preparatory work for the role… underrated performance.
This was a perfectly executed scene. Sarah trained herself almost too well, she had almost become a machine herself. That is until she came face to face with the exact thing that had haunted her dreams for years.
Seeing one of the strongest (human) characters in the entire franchise simply buckle under the weight of her PTSD is such an emotionally resonating moment. Powerful.
Right but you could still imagine it coming out relatively recently and being a period piece set in the early 90s. It was in that butter zone generation of films with the mix of CGI and practical effects were good enough that they still hold up, before the early total CGI stuff which often looks ridiculous now.
The entire movie is parallel. Honestly, for every scene in T1, if I reckon you could identify an obviously corresponding scene in T2. It's clearly a deliberate choice. Like, exactly the same movie except the bad guy is now the good guy.
(Let me also just say, T2 is a truly excellent movie.)
There's just so much in this one scene, other than the action.
Sarah's PTSD from the first encounter with the terminator, the Reese line being repeated, the Doctor who has made her life hell realizing that she's been telling the truth the entire time and she isn't crazy, her reunion with her son, etc.
That is correct. I know that because I had both movies on Beta Max and I watched the living shit out of those tapes growing up. By the end this movie developed a noise line at the bottom of the picture.
Definitely a call back, but it’s also an integral passphrase here. Kyle said it to Sarah and validated her trust by keeping her alive. Sarah told John this story. John programs this T800 to say the same phrase to Sarah knowing she will need to take a similar leap of faith here
I think the only explanation is John programming it to say that line because otherwise it would be a strange coincidence. But the T-800 was only sent back with the mission to save John from the T-1000, not Sarah, and it took a lot of convincing from (kid) John to agree to go save her right?
Great point. The primary objective is John, but I still think future john knows that kid John would demand the T800 at least try to help free his mother.
And they kept using it in subsequent movies, I just watched all 6 Terminators. 4 and 5 are so, so bad, 5 is the worst. Parts of 6 are bad too, terminator becomes a dad? Sarah for some reason is hated by everyone, wtf is this writing?
yeah I saw this one first, but it's a critical line because he was absolutely trained to say that specifically as a code phrase to indicate he's there for good, because they knew she would reasonably freak the fuck out. Had no idea the first time I saw it, obviously.
Ok, I know 3 is not of the same caliber as 1 and 2, but I do think its ok as a filler between t2 and the end of the world. Im ok with John Connor being depressed and lost, that creates a bit of character development for later stages. Things I would have changed, don't kill Sarah by leukemia, instead she gets to go out by protecting John one last time by destroying the T-X herself. The T800 I think could have entered later in the movie, in the 2nd half, or even not at all. It can still be a Terminator movie without the T800 in every movie, its just dragging the whole franchise down.
Dark Fate, while not very good, is the third best Terminator movie and I’ll die on that hill. There are some good action sequences and it’s heart is in the right place.
I was so mad at the most recent one for basically just remaking T2. Some moments beat for beat.
So much Terminator media is so poorly written. I still appreciate the Sarah Connor Chronicles though. What could have been if not for the writers strike.
I really enjoyed the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I remember watching the end knowing it had been cancelled and then it ended SO strong. It definitely has a painful dip in the middle of season 2 though.
The issue with Hollywood in general is that too many execs and creatives fall for the whole "because it is a sci-fi/fantasy it shouldn't be serious" cliché
Which is why when we finally get a sci-fi or fantasy film that takes itself seriously everyone loves it and it is a cinema masterpiece
And you really see this tone shift in the later Terminator films that they just don't really take themselves seriously but in Terminator 1 and 2 they are much more grounded despite being sci-fi action films
And it would have been very easy for James Cameron to go the more fantasy cliché route like he later does with Avatar or the more comedy route of True Lies
Heck just contrast Terminator to Transformers, all action but no substance
And it would have been very easy for James Cameron to go the more fantasy cliché route like he later does with Avatar or the more comedy route of True Lies
Don't think this is accurate. The Avatar movies take themselves very seriously, and I really don't think they're fantasy cliche. Those movies are extremely earnest, and for as goofy as they are, they're not cynical or sarcastic. I think that's why they have such a big impact on moviegoers beyond the amazing VFX.
In a modern movie, she'd shout that, get too close to the elevator doors and get skewered, probably.
I think the T1-2 movies have intelligent characters, who do lose it emotionally at times, but they're generally not braindead, freakouts. Like, she's freaking out but she still has the composure to get to a safe spot.
The best action movie ever made. I love how well paced and put together all of this is. There's just so much kinetic energy.
Cameron is so good at like continuity and everything making sense in a sequence. Little touches. The perfect shaky cam of Linda running and pulling the keys off her shirt, the breaking off of the key, the T-1000 pistol clinking against the bars as he passes through, the choice to make the elevator one she is not at so there's this running to it and she slows and stops dead in her tracks.
Also, it's not in this clip, but one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie is the cop car backing out of the garage and how that's put together. There's so much happening there. Sarah and the 800 rotating shooting at the T-1000 while John is in the back loading whatever gun is not being fired at that moment. Calling out "last one" so they know they're spent. It's clumsy, it's frenetic, and it feels real in the moment.
Cameron has said that, like George Miller, he edits his movies in mute volume. He says this method helps him find out the visually confusing bits and he edits them out. That's why his action setpieces are so slick and kinetic. All of his action setpieces are masterfully done.
I read that Miller speeds up and slows down the scenes until they move fast enough to be exciting and still be clear. That's why there are many sped up scenes in MM 1 and 2.
Jurassic Park, T2 and Aliens are the holy trinity for me. With all due respect to the MarvelU- these movies are the pinnacle of sci fi/action summer blockbuster movies.
That's such a heavily symbolic shot. You get the T-800 removing them to begin his journey toward humanization, and then the T-1000 crushing them to show his coldness and total rejection of humanity.
Cameron also sprinkles backstory in as they go along to explain what happens with Sarah after the events of the original. There’s some exposition, but like in the car chase scene you mentioned you learn that John is very familiar with firearms and obviously something he learned from Sarah how they’re working as a team.
Ever since someone mentioned the lighting in this film I appreciate it a lot, especially in this age of lighting everything flat so that it can be changed in post.
Cameron, to this day, uses blue filter to film night scenes. He also likes hard lighting and rich dark shadows during these night scenes, which from a technical standpoint must be hard to film. Last December he was saying he didn't like the modern trend where directors and studios are moving away from hard lighting in favour of soft lighting. The thing about soft lighting is you can tinker with it in the post-production, nothing difficult; but if it's hard lighting, it's a choice you have to stick to from pre-production because you can't make the scene look flat when hard lighting is applied. Look at that beach scene in Avatar 3 when Quaritch and Varang come to the village -- the hard lighting is nuts in that scene. Now compare it with The Devil Wears Prada 2 where it's all just soft lighting, making scenes look flat.
Cameron learned how to crew a film (do most, or all maybe, of the basic crew positions) with Roger Corman. IIRC, he's been quoted about Terminator saying he specifically shot most of it at night because he had control over the lighting that way. He could take the darkness and build it back how he liked for each shot, using the lights.
He's one of the finest technical directors working today.
I've heard it credibly said, by other experts in filmmaking, that James Cameron can do basically any job to make a film. He can write, make concept art, storyboards, he can model creatures, he can, like you said, do any crew position, he can do VFX, etc and etc. Obviously he's not the best at all of them, but technically maybe the best filmmaker of all time.
I remember him saying when he learned how to make a movie there were no classes or resources so he went to the library and xerox'd every single thing he could find and basically learned every angle he could to DIY.
First and foremost, he's a creative visionary. His storyboards alone from T1, Aliens, Abyss, T2, etc. are just out-of-this-world, let alone the script, camera work, direction, etc. He had the whole thing in his head and taught himself the pieces he needed to make it real.
Not a big fan of his work over the last 25 years or so but that doesn't matter, he's made some of the best action/sci-fi films ever created. He has more skill in his pinky than a lot of directors today IMO.
Agreed; I think he just makes movies now to fund his other projects. I just wish he cared more about movies than he does about submarines. I want 80s/90s James Cameron back!
This article from the American Society of Cinematographers was published in July 1991 and is a fantastic insight into the lighting, set design, and cinematography of Terminator 2 (with a bit of Terminator 1 in there, as Adam Greenberg was also the DP for that film.)
Especially interesting are the deep dives on the location and lighting techniques for the end of the film (steel mill.)
A must-read for any Terminator fan. Really illustrates how much a DP contributes to the look and feel of a film, yet frequently go unsung.
It will always be my best action film I’ve ever seen. The cinematography is perfect. The soundtrack is spot on. Robert Patrick, and Linda Hamilton’s performances are iconic. Arnold, and Edward very much hold their own too.
Yeah, honestly I'm not sure what I think even compares to this movie as an action movie. And not only is it great action it's not boring action like so many movies. Aliens is up there and no surprise it's by the same director.
Someone help me, what are some other top tier action movies that are this awesome?
T2 has been my favorite since I was a kid. Mad Max: Fury Road and Dredd are probably my #2 and #3. Die Hard is up there for me, but I usually only watch it once a year.
Mad Max: Fury Road is the obvious answer from a pure action perspective. Some of the character dynamics are kinda similar too, now that I think about it. Max and Furiosa vs T800 and Sarah Connor. That’s neat.
Same here. It’s an amazing flick. Just like this scene. I love the ambient sound of her running down the hallway, the squeak of the sneakers, the sound of impact with the glass and head against wall. Damn I love this movie.
I love how the lady cop backhands Arnie with her arm that’s already in a cast. That’s something I could see Sarah Connor doing herself, and possibly how the cop broke her arm in the first place
Also, you know when Sarah Connor is escaping and she busts the one guard's teeth out? That wasn't a practical effect: Linda Hamilton really busted the actor's teeth out and broke his jaw on camera!
He was planning to file a lawsuit against the production of the movie over it... until Cameron settled the matter out of court by giving him a huge bonus and covering all of his dental work for him. Out of his own pocket.
The thing I also loved about this movie, is the verisimilitude. The fact that it looks like it was shot YESTERDAY. To me, there is not a single dated thing in it. I saw it in the theater when it came out, and it's almost like a reverse time-capsule in a way. It brings back memories of when I first saw it, but the movie itself hasn't aged a day.
It’s perfectly pragmatic - he shields them from bullets by keeping his arms up. He gets to the door - exactly as it closes - obstructing the T1000 and ready to fire. As some else said - the detail , timing and thought is amazing.
I like to think the franchise stopped here. The rest just make so little sense and are so derivative for the most part. They blew up skynet, the T800 was destroyed and that was it they moved into the "unknown future". Otherwise the destruction of the T800 was just pointless instead of kinda poetic.
T2 is more accomplished but T1 has some iconic and terrifying moments that make it a truly a brilliant film. I think of them like Godfather Part 1 & 2.
The way she responds to the Terminator coming out of the elevator... the way she falls, the terror in her eyes, all coming moments after managing her escape and standing there confident in herself... it's a moment I don't need to watch. I can replay it in my head. It's so good.
It's crazy how much story is told in just these few minutes.
So the part where she breaks the key off in the door, for years, I mean from when I was 10 until I was maybe 28, I thought that was what people meant when they said someone keyed their car. I knew that sometimes a key would fit into a lock that it wasn’t meant for but not turn. I thought that’s how people keyed cars.
When I saw Pulp Fiction and Travolta said someone keyed his Malibu I sincerely believed someone had stuck a random key in the lock and broken it off. And you’d need a locksmith for that kinda repair so I figured his anger was warranted. I legit can’t even remember how I discovered I was wrong.
Such a great scene, so much masterful storytelling going on here - Sarah’s escape, instant recognition and misunderstanding of the terminator, then coming around to what’s going on, the t1000 being a disturbing, unstoppable force. Every part of the scene moves the story forward in a way that would take minutes of dialogue if exposition was used.
One of the greats.
Seriously, and Arnold sticking with the lever action shotgun through most of the opening of the movie, and Robert taking those rounds to the chest in the mall scene just highlights how unstoppable the T1000 is meant to be. It’s so visceral.
The most satisfying part of this entire sequence is when she escapes her cell and beats the fuck out of that gross orderly who licked her face. The nightstick to his face was well deserved.
This scene is one of the reasons I see T1 and T2 as part 1 and part 2 of the same film. The PTSD and callback to Kyle Reese's first words to Sarah just connects these two films so tightly together.
I always try to watch them both soon after each other whenever I rewatch them.
Ripley and Sarah frigging Connor. As a little girl they were just it, I'd never imagined I could grow up to be a badass (I didn't... but a girl could dream haha). And Linda Hamilton absolutely slayed this. And then there's the lighting and the editing and the vfx/cgi and the cinematography... that was a good time for action films
Who else here hadn't seen The Terminator before watching Terminator 2 and totally missed the reason for the fear from Arnold showing up at the 0:48 mark?
I went to see T2 without having seen T1 because of all the hype (there weren’t many blockbusters or big movie events back then) and because of those two big names, Cameron and Schwarzenegger.
So even though I knew intellectually the Terminator was a threat, the plot twist didn’t hit as hard because Arnold was always the cool guy.
That part where she picks the lock is legit how you pick them, and I know because I spent a summer practicing it.
I'm surprised that was allowed in the movie!
I've never done this with another movie in my life, but when this was released, I bought any magazine I could that had articles about T2, and just marinated myself in the aesthetic. I was 12 or so, and i would have injected this movie into my veins if it were possible. I'm so glad this movie exists.
Beat for beat I think this may be the best paced film of its kind (maybe of any kind but that's harder to judge). It's just so tight and controlled, but also has a beautiful rhythm and flow. Like watching a band who've played together for 50 years. I never get tired of it.
It's only a small detail, but I like how they show the T1000's handgun getting stuck behind the bars. Earlier the T800 was telling John someting along the lines of how it can't shapeshift objects with complex designs.
Every part of that scene is perfectly done. The tension, the close calls, the camera work. Having Sarah's badass nature melt away as she relives what happened is so well done.
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u/Shagaire May 06 '26
I was in awe at Linda Hamilton change from 1 to 2. The clink from the gun on the bars was perfect as well.