Hello, all!
I remember watching Liquid Television on MTV once upon a time, in part because they were airing brief clips of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. Much as I enjoy animated series like Aeon Flux or one-offs like the unforgettable “Jac Mac and Rad Boy Go!,” I couldn’t get enough of the little cinematic nuggets that were dropped prior to the film’s release. Usually, when I’m as excited about a film’s release as I was for this one, it never quite reaches those expectations. This one far surpassed them.
The fact that the Terminator franchise has gone about as far off the rails as possible since this film was released is a shame, but at least the first two films in the series are good, with the sequel being terrific.
There was an episode of the 20th Century with Mike Wallace where they examined the relationship between violence in society and that which is depicted in movies and on TV. That’s a discussion all its own; but, in the episode, they basically said that films with violence tend to ratchet it up from one sequel to the next. By the same token, when you’ve got a movie villain, it seems that the trend is to stretch that villain’s abilities by a factor of ten with each new iteration. While that made movie villains like Jason Voorhees little more than caricatures, the significant villain “upgrade” works very well from The Governator’s T-800 to Robert Patrick’s T-1000. There are several cases where the sequel takes expectations rooted in the original film and flips them on their head, and to fantastic effect, at that. For example, just looking at Schwarzenegger and Patrick, you’d think that the T-800 would just rip the T-1000 to bits. Also, given the source material, you’d be tempted to think that the T-800 is the bad guy, whereas the T-1000 is more akin to the Reese character played by Michael Biehn in the original. Cameron really toys with audience expectations in all the right ways here, creating one satisfying surprise after another thanks to some clever scriptwriting.
Everything about this film clicks, building upon or expanding upon the original in ways that never feel forced. From the Future War sequence to the really jarring “No Fate” sequence that folks on-set said kinda rattled them. I’ve embedded it below and suspect you’ll see why:
Obviously, the film knows when to go for the jugular. It also knows when to establish a more playful mood, often provided vis-à-vis the interactions between Edward Furlong’s John Connor and Arnold’s T-800 character. There’s just really nothing substantially wrong with this one, which is why it gets a thumbs-up from me.
Enjoy!
Other films recommended:
[Day 1 - THE DARK KNIGHT; Day 2 - DESPERADO; Day 3 - THE ROAD WARRIOR; Day 4 - X2: X-MEN UNITED]
I remember watching Liquid Television on MTV once upon a time, in part because they were airing brief clips of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. Much as I enjoy animated series like Aeon Flux or one-offs like the unforgettable “Jac Mac and Rad Boy Go!,” I couldn’t get enough of the little cinematic nuggets that were dropped prior to the film’s release. Usually, when I’m as excited about a film’s release as I was for this one, it never quite reaches those expectations. This one far surpassed them.
The fact that the Terminator franchise has gone about as far off the rails as possible since this film was released is a shame, but at least the first two films in the series are good, with the sequel being terrific.
There was an episode of the 20th Century with Mike Wallace where they examined the relationship between violence in society and that which is depicted in movies and on TV. That’s a discussion all its own; but, in the episode, they basically said that films with violence tend to ratchet it up from one sequel to the next. By the same token, when you’ve got a movie villain, it seems that the trend is to stretch that villain’s abilities by a factor of ten with each new iteration. While that made movie villains like Jason Voorhees little more than caricatures, the significant villain “upgrade” works very well from The Governator’s T-800 to Robert Patrick’s T-1000. There are several cases where the sequel takes expectations rooted in the original film and flips them on their head, and to fantastic effect, at that. For example, just looking at Schwarzenegger and Patrick, you’d think that the T-800 would just rip the T-1000 to bits. Also, given the source material, you’d be tempted to think that the T-800 is the bad guy, whereas the T-1000 is more akin to the Reese character played by Michael Biehn in the original. Cameron really toys with audience expectations in all the right ways here, creating one satisfying surprise after another thanks to some clever scriptwriting.
Everything about this film clicks, building upon or expanding upon the original in ways that never feel forced. From the Future War sequence to the really jarring “No Fate” sequence that folks on-set said kinda rattled them. I’ve embedded it below and suspect you’ll see why:
Obviously, the film knows when to go for the jugular. It also knows when to establish a more playful mood, often provided vis-à-vis the interactions between Edward Furlong’s John Connor and Arnold’s T-800 character. There’s just really nothing substantially wrong with this one, which is why it gets a thumbs-up from me.
Enjoy!
Other films recommended:
[Day 1 - THE DARK KNIGHT; Day 2 - DESPERADO; Day 3 - THE ROAD WARRIOR; Day 4 - X2: X-MEN UNITED]
