26 years ago today was the official release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day! It was the highest grossing movie of 1991 at the box office and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s biggest success in the Terminator franchise to date.
The strong foundations were set with the first movie, while The Terminator (1984) was not an instant hit; the first movie was an underdog movie which attained cult status and became very successful on home release in the good old days of VHS! Anticipation kept on growing for a sequel and when people got it they flew out to their nearest cinema and they were not disappointed.
We had old faces in the form of Schwarzenegger who underwent a huge character transformation as the coolest bad guy in cinema to one of the coolest good guys, if you thought Ripley was badass in Aliens then James Cameron was about to introduce you to his ultimate female heroine with Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, once again a huge transformation of character from her performance in 1984’s The Terminator. Newcomers were perfectly cast by the late Mali Finn- who introduced us to the menacing T-1000 (portrayed by Robert Patrick) a liquid metal messiah which made Schwarzenegger’s T-800 look outmoded in every regard… and Edward Furlong played one of the best child roles in Hollywood as the vulnerable savior of mankind who needed to be protected at all costs for the fate of the world itself. Without this interesting story, great acting and interesting characters Terminator 2 could have failed to capture hearts but Jim did it and firmly kept his place in Hollywood as one of the elite and most sought after Directors of our time.
Quite honestly Terminator 2 transformed a dark horror science fiction film into a more audience friendly vehicle of action spectacle over dark violence, it would be wrong to state that all fans were happy at the time, Terminator 2: Judgment Day did have its detractors back in the day but in what James Cameron termed as the “tightening of the screw” he knew he could ramp up action in such a way that he could be forgiven by the majority of horror hungry fans in much the way he pulled off a similar scenario with Aliens (1986) in which he exchanged horror for over the top action, tension and characters with depth and dimension, and while both Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day are tonally different from their respective predecessors; the movies retained enough identity, story and character to carry the franchises onward and upwards to critical acclaim.
Terminator 2 itself redefined a genre and has become a classic model of movie that Hollywood has tried to emulate for success but it has not really been achieved since,- subsequent Terminator movies have tried and never met the bar T2 set, leaving the franchise in a constant state of turmoil via reboots, re-imaginings and quite frankly PG-13 hell.
Terminator 2 is an award winning movie and was one of the first movies to do a fully CGI driven character which stands 26 years on as a work of art and you cannot say that about many movies at all.
This year fans can re-live the experience of Terminator 2 once again but this time in 3D; thanks to a digital remaster/3D conversion in 4K! Will T23D break more box office records to add to the acclaim of 1991’s success? Time will tell but those fans (who were not old enough or fortunate enough to have seen this in theaters first time around) will be flocking (as will most fans) to buy tickets alongside those who saw the movie in theaters the first time around. With new merchandise to boot and an imminent home release to follow- this new theatrical release should put the Terminator franchise back at the top of its game as we await news on Terminator 6 and hopefully it is the true sequel to Terminator 2 that the fans deserve and have been waiting 26 years to happen.