Last week I wrote a Late to the Party instalment about Ikiru, a moving slow-burn of a Kurosawa film with no real action sequences. This week I’ll be talking about pretty much the opposite, with not one but two action-packed 80s and 90s classics – The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. There are a lot of films from this era that have so thoroughly entered mainstream pop culture that it feels like I’ve already gotten the gist of them just from the abundance of discussions, studies, and – yes – memes about them. This in turn has frequently reduced my desire to actually watch them myself. Why would I need to, when I already know so much about what happens? And could they even possibly live up to the hype at this point? As I’ve gotten back into watching movies after an increasing dry spell, I’ve begun to rethink that way of looking at classic films. And that has led me to the Terminator.

Major spoilers for The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day ahead.

I don’t think I need to say too much about the premise of the movies, but just in case I’ll give a quick synopsis. Directed by a little-known up-and-comer named James Cameron, The Terminator was released in 1984 and became a surprise hit. The sci-fi action thriller follows a waitress named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) who learns that she has been targeted for death by a cyborg assassin from the future, a Terminator T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), in order to prevent her unborn son from growing up to become the leader of the resistance against the powerful AI known as Skynet. On the run, she must team up with a member of the resistance (Michael Biehn), also sent back in time, to survive. The second film released in 1991 and takes place years later as Sarah’s pre-teen son John (Edward Furlong) becomes the target of a more advanced Terminator, the liquid metal T-1000 (Robert Patrick), and finds himself under the protection of a reprogrammed T-800. Together with his mother, they set out to stop the rise of Skynet once and for all.

I’ll start by saying that I loved both of these films. The first one is a very tight, well-paced, and largely self-contained story. The way it was filmed almost entirely at night, combined with the relentlessness and durability of the Terminator, almost pushes it into horror territory. The second film takes a little more time out to breathe, particularly in the middle of the movie as they meet up with Sarah’s old friends to plan their next moves, and has more sequences set during the day. This does decrease some of the horror vibes compared to T1, but allows it more space to build on its emotional and thematic core.  In a way these movies remind me of the games Portal and Portal 2; an original that has a smaller scope but does what it needs to and does so flawlessly, and a sequel that builds on almost everything the first one did well without losing anything in the process or making any of the standard sequel mistakes.

I can’t recall watching any of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s films in the past (except possibly Kindergarten Cop), so I’ve never been quite sure where he falls on the good actor/bad actor scale. I still can’t be sure after watching the original Terminator films, but I can say that he is perfect for this role. In T1 he manages to exude such menace while barely saying a word, and has such a great hulking physicality to the way he moves that you can’t help but feel that the T-800 is unstoppable. He also does a great job of coming across as eerily robotic, with something of a blank-eye stare and lack of reaction to things that don’t concern him that almost tips him over into the uncanny valley. This is then turned wonderfully on its head in T2, as Schwarzenegger’s T-800 begins to feel increasingly human the more he interacts with John – to the point where I actually felt moved by his final, “I now know why you cry.”

Despite the relentlessness of Schwarzenegger’s performance in T1 and his smaller stature compared to the body-builder-turned-actor, I ended up finding Robert Patrick’s performance as the T-1000 in T2 even more intimidating and scary. Part of it is how easily he can switch on and off his human façade. The T-1000 seems almost affable when visiting John’s foster parents early in the film, which makes his switch into remorseless killer mode when finally cornering his prey all the more chilling. Patrick also just brings such an intensity to the role that it’s hard not to feel a bit of terror when he starts running toward the screen. It really is an all-time villain role, and one that’s interesting to see as someone who largely knew Patrick before as the stern but moral Agent Doggett on The X-Files. (Speaking of which, I now realize that the eighth season X-Files episode ‘Redrum’ was actually something of a T2 reunion as it guest-starred Joe Morton.)

Of course, it would be very difficult to discuss these films without talking about Sarah Connor. It actually is quite cool to watch both films nearly one after another and witness Sarah’s full arc. Seeing her go from nearly helpless in the face of her would-be assassin in the first film to a badass unloading round after round from her shotgun into the chest of the T-1000 at the end of the second film is certainly awesome, but also a testament to everything she’s gone through. She’s suddenly found herself marked for death, lost her best friend and her lover in quick succession, gone through hell to train her son to be a leader, had her son taken away from her, been imprisoned in a psychiatric ward with little hope of escape, and found herself inches away from murdering a man in front of his family for things he hadn’t even done yet or even thought were possible. Her resilience and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of humanity shines through in Linda Hamilton’s excellent portrayal.

One thing that stood out to me thematically, particularly during T2, was the emphasis on humanity. Sarah and the T-800, partway into the film, discuss how they think humans are doomed to kill and destroy each other. But as Sarah notes in her ending monologue, it is the T-800 itself that ultimately refutes this line of thought. In T1, the T-800 is a merciless killing machine that doesn’t hesitate to murder anyone who stands in its way. Looking back over T2, I can’t recall a single time that film’s T-800 actually killed anyone. They obviously made a point of that when John ordered him not do so over the T-800’s objections, but even before that the cyborg resorted to less lethal ways to deal with obstacles. Just compare the opening scenes of the two films – in T1, the T-800 kills the punks that he comes across just to take their clothes. In T2, in contrast, he uses just enough force to make his point known to the bar customers without mortally wounding anyone. He even lets the guy who threatened him with a shotgun go without a scratch. It’s an interesting thing to think about: if even an assassin programmed solely to kill can learn to go against his programming, why can’t humanity? Maybe a bit optimistic (an understatement for sure), but it’s a message that’s nice to see in such an action-heavy series like this. It’s also just kind of refreshing to see a big budget science fiction action film where none of the protagonists actually kill anyone outside of the main antagonist.

The action sequences are all pretty uniformly thrilling across the two films. Although I was getting a little bit tired of ‘the Terminator steals a large truck and chases after the protagonists’ by the end of the second film, there were two instances – with the oil tanker near the end of the first film and the truck/motorcycle chase near the beginning of T2 – that really had me on the edge of my seat. Probably the most impressive scene from the standpoint of how dangerous it was to film was the T-1000 piloting the helicopter under the overpass, which was not a special effect – they actually flew a helicopter under an overpass, something that is insane to contemplate. And in terms of pure tension, it is hard to beat the final sequence from T1 of the badly damaged T-800 skeleton dragging itself after an injured Sarah. But I think my favorite action sequence has to be the escape from the psychiatric hospital in T2. It works very well as an illustration of how much Sarah has changed since the first film; although she is briefly overcome by PTSD at the sight of the T-800 (a great bit of acting from Linda Hamilton), upon realizing what is going on she immediately gets to work and helps the T-800 battle the T-1000 from inside the elevator. It also works as a terrifying showcase of just how relentless, versatile, and advanced this new liquid metal Terminator is.

There are some dodgy special effects here and there in both movies – the stop-motion walking of the T-800’s skeleton in the final fight from T1 looks a little out of place, as do the puppets of Arnold’s head used whenever they needed to show the unveiled robotic eye moving – but overall they’ve withstood the test of time in my view. This is due to the same reason that Jurassic Park looks so good today – the sparing use of CGI (especially in T2) combined with complex practical effects. The liquid metal aspects of the T-1000 in particular have held up surprisingly well. There is also a general attention to detail that makes the movies feel alive. The T-1000 phasing through the bars in the hospital, only to briefly get his gun stuck because he forgot that it wouldn’t phase with him, is a very short moment but it drives home that despite all of his advancements he’s not entirely unbeatable.

I’m glad I finally took the opportunity to watch these two films. They are truly excellent and fun blockbusters – especially T2 – and it’s easy to see why they became the classics that they are.

Header image courtesy of The Loft Cinema.