Scenes We Love: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Great scene and bringing it up is just making me more excited for Salvation.

Reply

God I love this film. This is the greatest action film of all time in my eyes.

Reply

What a great choice. It's perfect, the music, the stunts, the action, and the EFFECTS. In case you were too young to see this in the theater...you gotta remember this was 1991...the dawning of digital effect. They freaking melted your brain. You had never seen anything like it before. I can't really explain what it was like to be in the theater seeing this for the first time. I distinctly remember looking down the aisle when the chrome CG Robert Patrick emerges from the fire and seeing mouths hanging open.

"...the rest of the movie isn't pitched at this level of intensity"

Because if it was, the movie would pull out your brain stem by going through your ass, swing it around like a T-shirt at a baseball game and hurl it into the neighbor's yard.

Reply

It's ironic that you mention this scene this morning, as late last night a friend and I were discussing last night (over pancakes and coffee at Denny's, no less) that Terminator 2: Judgement Day is quite possibly the best action movie of the last 20 years. I agrued that this particular chase scene is the best chase scene (of it's kind) within the same period.

With predecessors like the truck chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the climactic tanker showdown from The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2), this scene took it up a notch, taking the action out of a secluded, relatively safe setting and putting it right in the thick of Los Angeles.

The menace of the T-1000 is carried across so effectively with the visual device of the hulking, seemingly unstoppable tow truck. This scene, in a way, acts as a metaphor for the rest of the film, with John Connor, small and exposed on his dirtbike; the T-800, more formidable on his Harley, but still puny next to the juggernaut of the T-1000 in the truck; and all of them trapped in this channel, with one direction to go: forward.

The moment where John stops to look back and see if he is still being pursued and the whole scene goes into slow motion to watch this insane moment as the truck blows through the guardrail and comes down into the drainage channel is one of the most striking moments ever captured in any action film. Although the focus at the time tended to be on the special effects (mainly the groundbreaking CGI), when I first saw this film in theaters, this was the moment when I went, "You've gotta be frickin' kidding!"

Reply

I found this movie on sale at borders for 9 bucks for the blu-ray version. I freaked out...nearly bought the whole shelves worth until I realized I couldn't only watch one at a time.

Reply

God my fav moment is during that last truck chase when Arnold is in the bed of the little gray truck grabs the assault rifle of the dashboard and goes from the back of the truck, climbs up to the hood of the Big rig. Drops to one knee and just blows Robert Patrick away. when he runs out of ammo he just drops the gun, jumps down and grabs the wheel from him and flips the Big Rig on it's side. Masterful!

Reply

Ok, two other observations, after watching this again:

* James Cameron does an amazing thing here by setting up that the T1000 is obviously indestructible, then perfectly illustrates the awesome power of a Peterbuilt truck in the middle of the sequence. Finally merging the two into something ridiculously dangerous.

* Robert Patrick trained himself to run like a hunting animal, like a lion or a cheetah...head perfectly still and trained on the prey...and it is incredibly menacing and creepy.

Reply

Salute Your Shorts rocked!

Reply

Great movie and scene.

"So go here to watch a tragically pan-and-scanned version of the full sequence"

The movie was actually filmed in Super 35. The letterboxed version actually was created by cropping the top and bottom off of the frame. Kind of the opposite of the usual case where the fullscreen version is lacking compared to the widescreen version.

In the YouTube clips, compare 2:56 in the fullscreen version to 0:33 in the letterboxed. The framing works in either aspect, but the 4:3 actually is showing more of the action.

Reply

I totally loved Salute Your Shorts! I seriously thought I was the only one who remembered it. Most people I've asked about it haven't heard of it!

Reply

Can't argue with any of Cameron's greatness.... but, there is a continuity problem. In this scene, the windshield on the big rig is shattered and missing in one scene, then a few seconds later - it's back, unscathed. Please keep in mind, I'm not bashing T2 or Cameron in any way - I'm just a big enough nerd and fan to have watched it enough to notice this. :)

Reply

It's interesting that you call the 4:3 version a "pan and scan". For Terminator 2, that's not entirely accurate. The movie was actually shot full frame, then each shot was individually cropped for both aspect ratios.

On the 4:3 print, you actually see parts of the frame that would be behind the letterbox matte in the widescreen version.

Reply