Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Everyone knows it as the rare event when a sequel surpassed the quality of the original, but Terminator 2: Judgment Day particularly made its mark in film history as one of the absolute earliest uses of CGI—perhaps the first movie to prove the technology’s full potential. After James Cameron’s successful use of CGI in The Abyss two years earlier, this felt like the natural next step, and the VFX crew, sure enough, made the most of it. These artists took the time to study the movements of actor Robert Patrick, paint a grid on his body, and use a new laser scanning process on his face so they could replicate him entirely on a computer to animate his character, who was made of liquid metal. 

​Even without this revolutionary digital technology, every single special effects trick imaginable was used in the making of this movie. The opening war scene created the terminator endoskeletons with complex mixtures of puppetry, animatronics, and stop-motion animation. The course of a Los Angeles river was changed so they could film the canal chase. A whole four-story office building was blown up. The main cast went through military combat and weapons training. There’s so much that went into this enormous motion picture that shook up the entire filmmaking industry, and at the end of the day, it still can just be enjoyed simply as a thrill ride that gets better after every repeated visit.

R (DLV)
Sci-fi/Action
2 hr. 17 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to feel HAPPY and AFRAID.