Terminator 2 came out when I was 11.
It had two key things for 11 year-old me: futuristic robots and time travel. Here are just a few reasons why this is probably my favourite movie of this genre:
Eddie Furlong gets his own robot
I’ve always wanted a robot. Not exactly sure what the robot would do but it would be so cool.
Well, in this movie, the kid gets a robot from the future who does anything he wants. He could go rob banks, which he might do if he wasn’t running for his life from another more advanced robot.
What does he do first?
Teaches the robot, a killing machine, that he doesn’t have to kill everyone.
Humans are not disposable.
Next he teaches him cool things like how to say “hasta la vista, baby”, which I probably used for 10 years after that.
1984 terminator concept gets totally flipped
Of course Skynet would keep improving their terminator models and eventually come up with some crazy new technology like liquid metal.
Dude can look like anyone.
Well, it turns out the resistance has been learning too.
So they stole the terminator model from the 1984 movie, reprogrammed him and sent him back to the past to do the exact opposite thing he was programmed to do.
Seems obvious now, right? But can we really trust this guy? Imagine you see someone kill 100s of people in front of you and now he says: “I’ve changed.”
A million time travel questions
So the original terminator tried to kill Sarah in 1984.
Why didn’t they just keep sending them back to 1984 until they succeeded?
Is the best time to send someone to kill John Connor when he’s 10 years old – not earlier when he’s a baby?
Why not send Robert Patrick’s liquid metal model to 1984 to help out?
Shouldn’t they travel way back in time to kill Sarah’s parents instead?
Why not time travel to a key time and impersonate the US president, or all the world leaders and take over the world?
Will judgement day always happen in one way or another?
Do Sarah and John Connor really matter that much or will someone else just take over? etc. etc. etc.
Such is time travel paradox.
Sarah Connor’s character
Sarah goes a bit nuts after the first movie.
She ends up getting arrested and institutionalized.
Imagine believing more than anything that you have to protect your son and prepare for judgement day but not have anyone believe you.
And then one day, the terminator that tries to kill you, shows up with your son, but now he’s here to protect you?
And there’s a worse terminator after all 3 of you?
You trust no one, but you have to trust this robot, but you know that the robot is just like all the rest of them.
What a nightmare it must be inside her head.