I saw Terminator 2: Judgment Day last night for the first time. Only eighteen years after it was released. And despite it being eighteen years later, it was one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Let’s break it down into five points:
- Plot
Like most people who know at least a reasonable amount about computers, I had a moment several years ago where I freaked the fuck out about the Singularity. The idea that technology is advancing toward a point of self-awareness and sentience, after which it will attempt to claim dominance over humanity, is one that’s both pretty believable and genuinely terrifying. And waaaay back before 1984, when the first Terminator film came out, James Cameron was already freaking out about it. Unlike moon creatures or zombies, this is a sci-fi plot device that will not only continue to have relevance, but probably actually get more unsettling as time goes by.
So on the macro level, looming in the future, we have a nuclear holocaust coming in 1997 (the predominant fear of the latter half of the 20th century) brought about by the Singularity (probably the predominant fear of the latter half of the 21st century, who knows). Which for me at least, was such a terrifying, salient, urgent set up. And then to bring it down to the micro level, we have the age old story of a mother, locked in a mental ward, being terrified for her son, who is in great danger from which she is unable to protect him. There’s the old “which Terminator is the evil Terminator,” (I was fooled for the appropriate length of time), and just in general a lot of tension and small amounts of resolution that keep the story moving forward, which brings us to… - Pacing & Tone
The version that I saw was two and a half hours long. I usually start feeling antsy about after an hour, but it took two full hours for me to start wondering when this was going to end. Each scene, each piece of plot that unfolds, leads us directly into the next while maintaining that sense of urgency. And there is a wonderful balance and continual sense of subversion with tone– lots of scenes take place in daylight early 90s SoCal, with mullets and flannel and mopeds and brightly colored arcade games. And then there are scenes at night, races, terrible shootings, the inside of a mental hospital, the denouement in the inside of a steel factory. You never feel unnecessarily stuck or claustrophobic with one location, but at the same time you are still always wanting to see what is happening next, where are they going. - Characterization
Sarah Connor’s character’s transformation from the first film to this one is probably one of the greatest in cinematic history, and one of the most believable. Just as remarkable is The Terminator’s, from terrifying, inescapable villain to indispensable bodyguard and aid. The three main characters (them + John Connor) form a triad that is beautifully balanced, each fulfilling their roles in a way that’s satisfying without being predictable. And the villain, T1000, is the perfect stuff of nightmares– inescapable and unstoppable. - Score
The score was incredible as well– not until more than halfway through did I pick up on the subtle synthesized descending portamento that indicated that T1000 was approaching, just enough to spark a small sense of dread in my stomach. I realized that a synthesized score might irritate some people, but here in a world full of machines and computers, it seemed the perfect bridge between digital and emotional. It matched the tone of the film so well– a sense of melancholy and despair, punctuated by the need for action. - Dense intertexuality
This is what makes the Terminator franchise truly great. There were so many references to the first film, and so many references to this, I’m sure, in the future Terminator films. They’re built around the plot device of time travel, so characters are continually referencing moments in both their pasts and their futures, over and over again. The layers of familiarity draw the audience closer into the experience and make each reference ripple back and forward in time with salience.
I think one of the things that makes Terminator 2 great is that it could be described as a female story wrapped in a male story. It’s about identity and the family unit, the treatment of a woman with her own truth in a male world, and the search for the possibility of redemption, disguised as a coming of age action blockbuster. Just as it is an action blockbuster carrying all of these elements inside of itself, like young quippy John Connor, carrying the future revolution and human resistance inside of himself, alongside his deep love both for his Terminator and his mother.
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