Terminator 2: How the Liquid-Metal T-1000 Took Shape
A burning tow truck seems to have ended the pursuit of John Connor. Then a figure emerges from the flames and resumes its human shape. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T-1000 is made of liquid metal, a construction that lets the machine recover from gunfire and change its appearance. Robert Patrick plays the pursuer, sent back in time to kill the boy who will lead humanity's resistance against Skynet. John has a protector as well: Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator, whose living tissue covers a metal endoskeleton. James Cameron's film puts these different machines on a collision course in Los Angeles.
The pursuit begins with stolen identities and converging searches. The T-1000 kills a police officer and takes his uniform and patrol car, then visits John's foster parents to obtain a photograph. John is at a shopping-mall arcade with his friend Tim when the machines find him. In a hallway, the protector pushes John to safety and fires repeatedly at the approaching assassin. The pursuer recovers, and John escapes on his motorbike. A stolen tow truck follows him into an overflow channel, where the protector pulls him onto a motorcycle. The truck crashes into an overpass and explodes, setting up the emergence from the fire.
Impersonation carries the danger into John's family. When he phones his foster parents, the T-1000 has already killed Janelle and taken her form. It kills Todd during the conversation, while John's protector recognizes the deception and ends the call. John then insists on rescuing his mother, Sarah, from Pescadero State Hospital. During their argument, he discovers that the protector must obey him. He also orders it not to kill people. At the hospital, the assassin assumes a policeman's identity, while Sarah escapes her cell using a stolen paper clip. Mother and son reunite and flee with the protector in a police car.
The chase in Terminator 2 eventually reaches a steel mill after a helicopter pursuit and a collision involving a liquid-nitrogen tanker. Spilled nitrogen freezes the assassin, and gunfire breaks it into shards. Heat inside the mill liquefies those pieces, allowing the machine to re-form and continue hunting John. It takes Sarah's appearance before the real Sarah opens fire. When her ammunition runs out, the protector strikes the pursuer with a grenade launcher, sending it into molten metal. John and Sarah also dispose of remnants of the earlier Terminator there. Sarah then lowers the protector into the molten metal.
Making Terminator 2 began with a compressed writing and preparation schedule. Cameron and William Wisher finished the first screenplay draft in eight weeks, followed by three months of preproduction. Edward Furlong was cast as John less than a month before principal photography began on October 8, 1990. He took acting lessons, trained physically, and learned to ride a motorcycle. Linda Hamilton also worked with a physical trainer before returning as Sarah. Former Israeli commando Uziel Gal trained the cast in fighting and military weapons. More than a thousand crew members worked on the production, which filmed entirely in California, including Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Fontana.
The physical pursuit demanded elaborate stunt work. First and second units worked together for nearly five weeks on the flood-channel sequence. For the motorcycle leap toward a helicopter, stunt performer Bob Brown traveled forty-five feet through the air before a safety harness pulled him off the bike; he landed on stacked cardboard boxes. Schwarzenegger's double, Peter Kent, rehearsed a transfer between vehicles traveling at sixty miles per hour and completed it in three takes. Stunt coordinator Gary Davis prioritized safety. Production designer Joseph Nemec used Cameron's miniature footage, filmed with a thumb-sized camera, to plan spaces around the movement of scenes.
The transformations in Terminator 2 required several kinds of effects work. Stan Winston developed special makeup effects and animatronics, while Industrial Light & Magic handled computer-generated imagery. Miniatures and optical effects came from 4-Ward Productions and Fantasy II Film Effects. Production plans called for 150 visual-effects shots. At ILM, Dennis Muren supervised visual effects, Steve Williams directed animation, Doug Chiang served as visual-effects art director, and Janet Healy produced the visual-effects work. Patrick's performance belonged to a lead character created partly through computer graphics. The liquid-metal body therefore reached the screen through a combination of acting, physical effects, and digital animation.
Michael Biehn returned as a resistance fighter for Terminator 2, appearing in an early trailer, but his cameo was cut from the final edit. The film's release in 1991 brought both commercial success and recognition for its filmmaking. At the Academy Awards, it won for Makeup, Sound, Sound Effects Editing, and Visual Effects, and received nominations for Cinematography and Film Editing. ILM's work also received a BAFTA for special visual effects. By November, reported box-office earnings had passed $200 million, with another $250 million expected overseas. The home-video edition was scheduled to go on sale on December 11, 1991.
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991): American Film Institute Catalog — catalog.afi.com
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day: ILM production archive — www.ilm.com
- Where to begin with James Cameron: British Film Institute — www.bfi.org.uk