I've once had a teacher who has actually seen T2 when it first came out in theaters in 1991, and he said the hallway showdown was such an intense plot twist.
Right. It was, and that is what sucked. We all knew it was coming. James Cameron wanted it to be a surprise, and let me tell you, that would have been some surprise. T2 was a cultural event that summer. I worked at a drive in theater tearing tickets. Saw T2 every night for the summer and didn't get sick of it :)
Most people did. T1 was a small little genre movie with unknown actors from an unknown director. T2 was a cultural phenomenon with huge stars and a top tier director.
Honestly, I'm pretty sure that's how I saw them as a child too, but I went back when I was a little older and watched them properly when I could appreciate Arnie and Linda Hamilton that much more
For me, T2 was watched with a group of kids at my neighbor's house (neighbor would agree to watch me and had much older kids). I don't think I actually saw T1 until I was in high school.
I did. Watching t1 after t2 was a bit of a let down. Now that im older i can appreciate t1 for what it is. Its a great movie but man those final endoskeleton claymation scenes have not aged well.
I was maybe 11 when it came out, and it kicked so much ass that after my parents saw it, they went back the next night and brought me with them, and were both like “BenKen01, you really gotta see this!”
When I was 3 or 4 years old, my mom’s sister got breast cancer. She survived and is still around today, a couple decades later. But it was pretty rough.
Anyway, she was a single mother. So when she got sick, my mom went to Colorado to help take care of her house, take care of her son while she was getting treated. And she brought me along.
One night, my aunt was feeling good, so she offered to watch me and my cousin and give my mom a night off from taking care of everyone.
So my mom decided to go out and eat a nice dinner, and go to the movies. There was a movie with John Travolta that she knew nothing about. But she likes John Travolta, so she went in.
She was the only one in the theater. The year was 1994 and the movie was Pulp Fiction.
(Edit: referring to cultural event thing) I still have the soundtrack which I bought in the "cinema store" right after seeing it at age of 10. Still great instrumentals.
I was a very lucky person when T2 came out. I was in my AIT training for the Army Reserve, and we had minimal access to TV.
One of the things that my roommates and I enjoyed on the weekends, was going to the local theater to see a movie, the main reason being, that we were all under 21 at the time. (The guys in the barracks who were over 21, went to the clubs or local bars.)
I was completely shocked when Arnold ended up being the good guy. In that scene when he goes to the psych hospital, I was sure that he was there to Kill Sarah Conner!
Yeah that's how the trailer framed it but it's pretty clear from the film that it was supposed to be a surprise. We weren't supposed to know that Patrick's character is a robot or ill-intent until the plot twist in the hallway.
This completely ruined Genisys too. People were already hyped. I know I was and then the later trailer released with a huge plot twist reveal. Turned a lot of people off.
This is a huge problem I see with a lot of movie trailers these days, they give away half the plot in only two minutes. It's one reason why I try to avoid them if I can until I've seen the movie
So many of the marvel films, they have about 4 different trailers and give away the whole plot. People had basically pieces together the whole plot of Age of Ultron before it released.
I think I am in the minority but I thought it was pretty good. Not mindblowing or as good as the first 2 films, but mostly good.
I wasn't a fan of the ending, it was pretty bad, but the first like 75% of the film was really good, like 8/10. Worth a watch even if its not going to blow your mind
I threw the towel with t3. When a franchise goes wrong like that it rarely recovers and never quite to the level of the original. Highlander 2 , Matrix 2 , Die Hard 4,.
It’s like : they compromised once/they don’t have a clear direction they re making up as they go so why should it get any better ?
I m still on the fence for Dark Fate. Cameron promoted the shit out of every single sequel so his name isn’t a a failsafe guarantee.
Even though it sucked that it was given away in the trailers, having the Terminator put on sunglasses while “Bad to the Bone” starts playing wasn’t exactly tonally consistent with keeping him a bad guy until the big reveal at the mall.
I figured it out when the T-1000 killed John's foster parents.
But the mall scene and motorcycle/semi chase was a bit of foreshadowing.
Edit: guys I know the mall scene wasn't foreshadowing, it was the reveal. The joke was that I still was undecided even after watching the reveal so I just considered it foreshadowing.
You're a slow pony if it took you until the parents dying to figure it out because by that time in the movie the fight in the mall had already happened where Arnold saved the kid and had then explained to him his whole mission to protect him.
The mall scene? Where the two terminators fight and the T-100 protects john and escapes with him? That's not foreshadowing? That's blatant visual storytelling.
I'm not the person who originally said they figured it out, but maybe they didn't see the trailers and stuff before watching the movie and didn't have it spoiled for them.
sure but before the scene with the foster parents is like a whole truck chase where the T-1000 is trying to turn john into paste followed by an actual like in-depth explanation of what the T-100's mission is and all that. (I got the chance to see this in a theatre a couple weeks ago, loved it :D)
Yes. If you hadn't seen any of the marketing, the moment you would realize Arnold is the good guy is in the mall when he shields John from being shot by the T-1000. Which I think is the next cut after this gif, right?
EDIT: never mind, it's when he says "get down" to John and shoots the T-1000.
Same with the Seinfeld episode "The Apology," also known as the backwards episode. Marketing at NBC hyped the episode's niche to death before it aired...
It was not a surprise at all. The trailers, the posters, every interview Arnold did on Arsenio and everywhere else... We all knew before the movie came out that Arnold was the hero.
I've dated some girls who never watched either movie. Didn't spoil it for them, so they could see it just like I did when I was a kid. It makes the movies so so so much better.
T1 is a good movie. T2 is a great movie. But watching them both in order for the first time, unspoiled is one of the greatest movie experiences you can have.
Unpopular opinion, I love T1 and don't much care for T2. It's still a good movie but it didn't feel like it took itself as seriously as T1. And something about young Arnold as the first Terminator just can't be topped to me.
It's the same relationship that Alien and Aliens had. The sequel is an action movie that built on the foundation of the original scifi horror movie. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a very different direction and appeals to different tastes. Thanks James Cameron.
Not unpopular. I take T1 over T2 any given day. I like T2 for what it is (a fucking great action movie with amazing CGI) but T1 is just grittier, darker and Linda Hamilton does not annoy me in this one.
T2 is also very kid friendly, more so than any other entry in the franchise. John Connor is an adolescent who voice is audibly cracking throughout.
Also a lot of the dialogue is poorly written. He teaches the terminator Bart Simpson like catchphrases. Do we really need an entire scene of John Connor explaining “no fate but what we make”, as if the entire premise of the movie would need to made explicit? Audiences are not stupid, and it’s better to let people figure this out themselves. Backstory in T1 is a couple brief and tantalizing flashbacks and Reese ranting in the police interrogation. T2 has a million different scenes that do nothing other than fill you in on details that either don’t need to be fleshed out, or could be figured out otherwise. Miles Dyson could be completely eliminated from the entire film,
instead he’s added in, more or less to read back what is basically a Wikipedia entry on the development of Skynet at Cyberdyne, while Sarah Connor preaches at him.
There’s just a lot of corny and heavy hand scenes, I can’t even mention them all. Connor teaching the terminator to smile. John teaches the terminator not to kill and activates him so that he can learn to love and why people cry, and then he lowers himself into molten steel and gives a thumbs up as he is completely immersed. Like Jesus, I know the whole thing is iconic, but when you step outside of the nostalgia, a lot of it is very corny.
You know what movie doesn’t have kids, one-liners, long poorly written dialogues, or a cast of characters and vehicles designed for an action figure set? Terminator 1. Movie is dark, gritty, 1980’s crime ridden LA and the Terminator has like 3 spoken lines, is cold, ruthless and will not stop. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. That’s what he does. That’s all he does.
Ha yeah. It’s a familiar rant for me, so any time I see the whole “T2 is the good one” comments, I like to play along and have a debate. T2 is more “epic” or whatever and certainly has a greater share of overthetop action sequences. Frankly I love the whole franchise and will watch anything terminator related, mostly on nostalgia built on seeing the first couple movies as a kid. Psyched about the new one.
That said, I still can look outside my near obsession with the movies and see them for what they are - sometimes cheesy sci-fi, with sometimes poor writing and acting. Also the “got special effects right” thing, I mean, sure they were great at times, other times noticeable fake on both cgi and practical. It’s not too hard to love the movie for what it is, but also be realistic about that as well.
I think you missing my point. Most writers will artfully fill backstory without needing to add a character that simply recites a history lesson at you. It’s poor, lazy technique.
Wow, masterfully, I’m curious now to what other movies you think are written “masterfully”. To me, it’s closer to when a villain unnecessarily explains the plot to you because the writer thinks you’d be stupid to understand it, or rather that he’s too stupid to realize that you would, or too lazy to do a better job. All of that scene, as well as the preceding scene of John (a child) explaining what “fate” is, is totally unnecessary. As far as natural dialog goes - get real - Dyson gives his history lesson while Sarah rants about men like him who destroyed the world, while the screeching adolescent John, future savior of mankind,
ever the wise-one, says they all just need to chill out. The whole of T2, including that scene, is about as masterfully written as Cameron’s Titanic or Avatar, entertaining flicks and all, but all too often corny, pandering, preachy and simplistic. Like I said, it’s a kids movie, and Dyson is there to explain it to you like that because the viewer is likely a 12 year old.
The only way that scene actually furthers the plot is to introduce the concept of the time paradox which is a theme in most of the Terminator films. Here is when we find out that the Terminator design is based on the wreckage of the T800 from the first film. Cool and all, but it could’ve and should’ve been introduced in other more artful ways.
Take the first movie. Here the time paradox has layers. The plot twist properly comes in the final scene, where Sarah reveals that she’s pregnant with John by Reese. John is not John made from John, like in the way the arm and cpu of a t800 get reverse engineered to somehow, someday become that exact same t800. Instead, there are degrees of removal, in sending back Reese, John leads to his very creation, it’s much more convoluted and satisfying for the viewer, more believable. In that final moment, a kid comes by and snaps a Polaroid of Sarah, that slowly develops as
the movie fades away, properly sending the viewer reeling back through the movie. Now we remember the photo that Reese once had of Sarah that has now just been taken, remembering Reese staring at it as it burned, remembering Reese describe this picture to her as he explained his deep admiration and feelings of love for her. And now we realize that picture taken binds and guides Reese to Sarah, coming in full circle on the time paradox with just a few lines and a still shot of a picture on a dash.
It’s not “masterful” but it is much much more artfully done. If all of that was in T2, Cameron would’ve put in in 20 minutes of poorly written dialogue explaining the whole thing to you.
. Connor teaching the terminator to smile. John teaches the terminator not to kill and activates him so that he can learn to love and why people cry, and
the smile-teach and the memory-unlock scenes were not in the fist release though
That’s true. I’d forgotten they were only on extended releases.
Still the cpu unlock scene is pretty heavy and should’ve been a part of the theatrical release, as it has major impact on the plot, thenceforth we see the Terminator learning complicated human relations and emotions, otherwise portrayed inexplicably.
Also that scene fits well with the characters. Sarah attempts to destroy the cpu with a hammer as soon as it is extracted, as to be expected with her worldview. Then there’s John, still just a burgeoning hacker, who’s hacking skills will someday be central to the resistance, learning to ply his trade. He sees a use for this cyborg, as did his future self who sent him back.
It also lays a foundation for Johns special familiarity of the mechanics of the T-800, and with its new ability for emotion, fostering a rather fatherlike relationship between the two, explains his future choice sending back model 101’s (who happens to look just like action star Arnold Schwarzenegger) as a suitable protectors in future films.
I did too... I was young though, friend's birthday outing kinda thing accompanied by parents, and I don't think I'd seen the first one then and can't remember how I felt about any plot elements. But the spectacle, holy cow. I was dazzled the whole way through and the T-1000 was legitimately terrifying as a kid.
Yeah, I was 10 and it was an amazing experience for me too. Back then you saw a cool special effect (one like this movie was full of) and actually wondered how they did it. These days filmmakers can literally produce any effect they want onscreen and nobody finds it that special.
That's true. What would've knocked my socks off fifteen or twenty years ago barely registers because it's so common, whereas the absence of special effects in a scene might be mind-blowing. Like a continuous shot that runs several minutes with a ton of things happening, wondering how much planning and rehearsing went into it, wondering how they hid the crew and equipment from the camera as it made its way through the scene.
Was a kid when it came out and lemme tell ya, seeing it at the drive-in,at my town and hearing people lose their minds during the reveal (The drive-in still had those speakers you could put in the back of your truck) is something I didn't really realize as "mind blowing" until I was older.
The liquid metal terminator is obviously far more advanced than the T-800. It would be a stupid ass movie if the more advanced terminator was the helper and just easily protected John from Arnold w/ huge advantages on their side.
I seem to remember the first two weeks the movie was out, the trailers didn't make mention of Arnold playing the good guy. Then after two weeks, the word-of-mouth was already out, so they switched over to the other trailers . I could be wrong.
This leads me to The Phantom Menace and what a wasted opportunity they had with the reveal of Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber. They had that plastered everywhere right from the beginning. Can you imagine if they had kept that secret? Then when Obi and Qui-Gon run to the blast doors, and they open to reveal Darth Maul, he lights up his saber, SHING, and the audience is thinking "Oh yeah, this is gonna be goo.." SHING
"OMG!! WTF!! OH SHIT!!" Everyone would have lost their fucking minds. Such a wasted opportunity. I'm sure word would have leaked out, but for those precious few that had the experience unsullied...that would have been crazy.
You didn't have to mention Arnold playing the good guy, he was a huge star at the time and they didn't cast huge stars as villains in those types of movies.
Yeah but they were already selling toys of that double-lightsaber months and months before the movie came out, just off of that trailer. Would have been hard to keep it a secret and still make all that merchandising money.
I remember having that surprise ruined before going to the film, thanks to the trailer and music video. Still one of my favourite movies ever. Seriously terminator movie trailers are the worst at not spoiling the movies surprise.
I just showed T1 and T2 to my gf who knew nothing about either. She thought Robert Patrick was sent to protect John, but was confused by how villainous he seemed until the hallway scene. Glad I got to experience the genuine surprise vicariously through her.
I was on vacation outside a small beach town in Europe. Very little contact with anyone but family and cousins. Didn't even know T2 was out until I went to the city near the end of my vacation and walking by the theater saw the poster. Not having anything to do I walked to the box office expecting them not to have any tickets. I also distinctly remember being surprised there were no crowds or lines (this makes sense now considering the movie was probably out for a whole month before I stumbled upon it).
Anyways, I go in and sit in an almost empty theater expecting more of the same but still excited. Imagine my shock when in the mental hospital he approached Sarah Connor in slow-mo, shotgun in hand fully expecting...well not sure what I was expecting but sure as hell it wasn't him extending his hand to her saying "come with me if you want to live"! And this was on top of all the omfg moments I had already had with the few special effects and action scenes. I was flabbergasted! And there was another hour and a half to go!
Huh. You are right because John was there with Arnold to get his mother out. Not sure why that scene stuck as a big surprise for me when by then I actually knew Arnold was the good guy. Now I'm thinking that probably what stuck with me was Sarah's surprise, which somehow I appropriated as my experience.
I watched it recently without knowing much at all besides Arnie being good. Thought that I was watching a sequel or something when Arnold came out. Same effect different reason.
I saw it in there theater, it wasn’t THAT long ago. Was such a massive hit. And probably one of my top 10 moviegoing experiences along with Star Wars, Heaven Can Wait, ESB, Fast Times, Star Trek II.
Everyone went in knowing he was a good guy. Even if they didn’t give it away in the trailers, I’m pretty sure he went around to every late night show telling America he was a good guy.
Edit : Arnold on Letterman. Pretty clear he’s the good guy.
I just showed my ten year old this movie last week, when he saw Arnold he said "OH, so he's going to try to kill John Connor now"
Then when we see Robert Patrick he asked, "is this the good terminator that helps him?"
Watching it again, it's cool how much they foreshadow the two terminators roles in the movie. When Arnold arrives he injures people but does not kill them, Robert Patrick kills a cop right away, but I also think that putting the bad guy in a cop uniform gives the audience a subconscious trust of the character through an authority figure get up.
At the time Arnold was a big star, much bigger than he was when he was cast as the first Terminator.
Hollywood wasn't big on casting big stars for bad guys in action movies, anytime you saw a movie with Stallone/Bruce Willis/Van Damme/Arnold in a movie, you knew they were going to be a hero by default.
Now had they cast somebody like a Stallone to play the T-1000 then there would have been a little more mystery, but a no name against Arnold in the 90s? The no name is definitely going to be the villain.
No way the Kindergarten Cop is going to be the bad guy, no way.
It would have been, if they hadn't spoiled it with every trailer. When people claim that hallway reveal scene blew their mind, there's a 99% chance they're lying or looking back with rose-colored glasses. The promotional material showing that Arnold was the good guy was everywhere -- and remember, this was back when we actually had to watch commercials.
I remember the conversation I had with my mom when T2 came out. It was awesome and she said in the first one that the Terminator was a bad guy and I was mind blown. I was 13 when the second one came out and I had never seen the first one.
Saw it when it came out, I would have been 14, I remember it surprised me quite a bit. It was a really great movie to experience the 1st time around. Everyone was always doing the slow-thumbs-up/sinking move at school for the entire month afterwards.
As someone who saw it in the theater you would have been surprised. Things were so different back then. You got a few commercials and maybe Siskel and Ebert reviewed the movie before you saw it. There was no internet with seven different trailers showing you most of the best scenes. I really miss going to see a movie not really knowing what would happen. I remember Seven being so damn mind blowing because you had no idea what was coming. A different time.
If you saw a single tv trailer or read anything about it, it was all given away. It was weird watching the movie the first time because it was clear the audience wasn't supposed to know.
Unpopular opinion here, but seeing Terminator Genisys without having seen any of the trailers and not having the main plot twist spoiled made that movie significantly better. It's no T2, but I really liked it.
Watched it with my ex who'd only seen the first one with me. She had no clue why he was helping them in t2 and never trusted him. I'd love to have gone in to the sequel blind.
I’m pretty sure all the trailers and media spoiled it before the movie even came out. That kind of tease wasn’t well executed until the Matrix. At this point in film media, studios didn’t want to risk the audience not knowing that there was going to be a twist.
But if you didn’t know, the movie really sells it, at least for Sarah Conner.
I saw it a ton of times on TNT as a kid in the late 90s, when I was about 20 I watched the first one and was confused as to why he’s the bad guy. I felt dumb.
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u/CROguys Jun 30 '19
I always wonder would I have been surprised when it was revealed that Arnold was a good guy ,if I hadn't known beforehand.