Thread by @ATRightMovies

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY was released 33 years ago this week. Acclaimed as one of the great blockbuster action films, and among the best sequels ever made, it remains a hugely spectacular movie with a making of story to match…

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The Terminator had been a huge hit in 1984, taking $78m from a $6.4mbudget. A sequel was stalled though because writer-director James Cameron had fallen out with Hemdale Film Corporation, who owned the rights to the franchise and owed Cameron profits from the first film.

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Hemdale were keen on making their own sequel without involving Cameron. They had spoken to Die Hard’s John McTiernan about directing but in the mid-late 80s, began to hit financial trouble so development on T2 stalled.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger was aware Hemdale had difficulties and convinced Carolco Pictures to buy The Terminator rights, having worked with them on Total Recall. Carolco owner Mario Kassar paid $17m for the rights and $6m to Cameron to write and direct.

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The deal was struck in 1990. Cameron didn’t even have a concept but that didn’t stop Carolco announcing that Terminator 2 would be released in Summer 1991. The announcement came as a trailer, directed by effects legend Stan Winston, that showed a Terminator assembly line.

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Cameron had a problem. He had 1 year to write, direct and edit the film. He called co-writer William Wisher and said “The good news is, we’re making the film; the bad news is, we’re already months behind schedule.” Wisher has a cameo in the film as the photographer, below…

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Arnold Schwarzenegger returned from The Terminator, this time playing the T-800 good guy. A huge star by this point, Schwarzenegger was paid $15m for the role - $21,429 per word. Also, Mario Kassar gave him a Gulfstream II Jet, worth about $14m dollars.

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When Schwarzenegger first read the script, he wasn’t a huge fan. He complained to Cameron about the amount of jokes, and also the fact that the T-800 doesn’t kill anybody in the movie. He said to Cameron “But Jim, I’m the Terminator.”

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10-year-old John Connor is the protagonist of the movie and a child actor called Charlie Korsmo was offered the part. However, he had to turn it down because he’d already committed to What About Bob? co-starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss.

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Casting Director Mali Finn was told by Cameron to look for a streetwise kid. She was struggling with the actors that came in to audition, so went to the Boys Club of Pasadena – a youth development program in California. It was there where she found Edward Furlong.

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Cameron had wanted a Terminator in the first film that would be a liquid metal CGI creation, but the technology didn’t exist. Cameron had experimented with CGI in The Abyss in 1989 so, after that success, he decided the technology was right for what became the T-1000.

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Cameron’s first choice to play the T-1000 was, bizarrely, British-American rock singer Billy Idol. The only reason Idol didn’t do it was that, due to a motorbiking accident, he had to pull out of the production. Cameron had even apparently created some concept art…

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There were a couple of other familiar choices who Cameron seriously considered. One was Michael Biehn – who played Reese in The Terminator. And, at one point, Cameron thought about having Arnold Schwarzenegger play both Terminators.

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Steven Seagal came close, as did Blackie Lawless - singer of heavy metal band WASP. Lawless didn’t get it as he was too tall at 6’4”. Reportedly, Arnold wanted him but Cameron didn’t. Cameron saw Robert Patrick in Die Hard 2, brought him in to audition, and cast him.

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Patrick put in a lot of prep:
- He trained to run breathing only through his nose so he could run without signs of fatigue
- He practiced firing a pistol without blinking
- He studied head movements of the bald eagle
- He studied the pattern movements of Great White Sharks

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Returning from the first film, Linda Hamilton is Sarah Connor. She went through real-life weapons training from an Israeli commando called Uzi Gal. 3 hours a day, 6 days a week for 13 weeks. She learned judo, became an ace markswoman, and learned to pick locks for real.

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Cameron told a story about the action scene in the hospital elevator. The T-1000 begins to stab through the ceiling, hitting Sarah. Filming the scene, Hamilton took her ear plugs out, and the sound of the gunshots made her go permanently deaf in one ear.

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There is a cyclical theme to the narrative:
- Both films open in a future battle
- T1 has a scene where Reese is interrogated by police. There’s a near identical scene in T2 with Sarah
- In T1, Reese says “Come with me if you want to live.” In T2, the T-800 says that too

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The CGI effects were created by ILM. Head of ILM Dennis Muren went through the script and marked each effects scene as Easy, Moderate, Difficult or Miraculous. 50% of them were marked as miraculous. Impressively, everything in the script appears in the finished film.

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We only see 3 and a half minutes of CGI on the screen, but it was still a huge task to pull off. ILM’s CGI department had to grow from 6 people to 36 to take on T2. And if one person had done all of the work themselves it would’ve taken 25 years.

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The Stan Winston Studio did the practical effects work. The T-1000 bullet wounds were remote controlled squibs. On pressing a button, the squib would open up on Robert Patrick’s suit like a flower. ILM then used CGI to have the wound close and heal itself.

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The Terminator endoskeleton was an animatronic built by Winston and his team, controlled by a team of 12 puppeteers. They operated it with cables and radio controls. Some controlled the leg, some the waist, some were on the neck, and others on the head and eye movements.

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Several times, the T-1000 takes on the form of a person. Cameron used twins to get the original character and T-1000 in the same shot. The security guard in the scene below was played by twins called Dan and Don Stanton.

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And in the steel mill, when we see two Sarah Connor’s on screen at the same time – that was Linda Hamilton and her twin, Leslie.

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The Director of Photography was Adam Greenberg, returning from the first film. He and Cameron some of the most recognisable action blockbuster scenes ever created.

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James Cameron has a reputation for being a taskmaster on his movie sets. He reportedly upset the crew on T2 so much that they had t-shirts mocked up that said: “Terminator 3? Not With Me”.

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When the budget started to balloon, the studio asked Cameron to remove the biker scene. A studio executive spoke to Schwarzenegger and asked him to talk to Cameron on their behalf but Arnold turned them down and said: “Only a studio guy would cut out a scene like that.”

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The scene was filmed at The Corral Bar in California. During filming, a woman wandered in, thinking it was open, and was confronted by Arnold wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts. He said “It’s male stripper night”and she made a hasty exit.

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The bike chase was shot in a storm drain in San Fernando Valley. The crew realised the truck was too high to pass beneath one of the bridges. This was relayed to Cameron, who just said “Well, the f***ing roof’s going to have to come off then!”

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In the chase, Arnold spins his shotgun with one hand to cock it, a technique which took weeks of practice. In doing so, Arnold tore some skin from his hands. A doctor had a look and said they should stop but, with tight timescales, Cameron said they had to keep going.

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Furlong was 13 at the time. The shoot was 8 months so some earlier scenes had to be re-dubbed in because his voice had broken by the end. And filming the final scenes, Furlong had to stand in a hole to keep the same height difference with Hamilton as earlier scenes.

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Linda Hamilton said because Furlong had grown up without a father figure, and Hamilton would hear Arnold giving Furlong advice about women. She later said: “I think Arnold and Edward got along so well together because they were emotionally the same age.”

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Skynet scientist Miles Dyson is played by Joe Morton. Cameron, though, originally wanted Denzel Washington to play the part. Washington turned it down, though, and said: “No offense to Jim but when I read it, I thought: All he does is look scared and sweat. I passed.”

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The film starts in the dystopian future of Los Angeles, 2029. It’s a huge opening and to create the first 3 minutes of Terminator 2 cost more than the entire budget of The Terminator.

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Cameron did a lot of research for the nuclear apocalypse sequence. He hired experts on nuclear warfare to act as consultants and afterwards, Cameron received a letter from a nuclear laboratory thanking him for “The most realistic depiction of a nuclear bomb ever”

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The effects teams used a combination of scale models, rear projection and CGI to create apocalyptic explosion.

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Sarah Connor plays a similar role to the one played by Kyle Reese in the first film - the only person who knows the future that’s in store for mankind. Cameron marks this visually by dressing Sarah in a grey trench coat, like Reese wears in the first film.

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The shot below where the T-800's eyes flicker to life wasn’t in the script. It was filmed later, actually on Christmas Day. Arnold Schwarzenegger was furious with Cameron because he’d planned to spend Christmas with Bruce Willis, and was forced to cancel his plans.

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Cameron went to the nth degree in displaying the differences between the two machines visually. Having organic skin, we see sweat glistening on the T-800 in this steel mill sequence. On the T-1000 though, no sweat is visible.

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Cameron’s first drafts ended with an older Sarah sitting in the park with John and his child. At a test screening though, the audience said it was too positive compared to the rest of the movie. So Cameron changed it to Sarah’s monologue.

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T2 was a mega hit at the box office. Taking approximately $520m globally, it was the third-highest grossing movie ever made at the time. On Rotten Tomatoes today, it has 93% from critics and 94% from audiences. And on IMDb, a huge 8.5/10 – 36th on the IMDb all time list.

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To finish, some great behind the scenes pics from TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY…

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