When I started taking the DVD case out of the metal case, I immediately understood what they were aiming to do.. I hope you do too.. although it's sometimes hard to notice just from pictures. 1 2 3 4
Let me tell you why I love this movie. I watched James Cameron's 1991 Terminator 2: Judgement Day when i was 7 years old.. (even though I probably wasn't supposed to..). My grandparents brought a bootlegged VHS copy of Terminator 2 to Canada with them when they came over from Hong Kong. I must have played that VHS tape and watched the whole movie from beginning to end.. over 10 times since I had little to do as a child. I even remember looking through a calendar, looking for the day when Judgement Day will come.
A few weeks ago, after reading IGN's Top 25 Action Movies of All-Time and noticing that T2 came in to be #4, I decided it's time I own a legit copy of it. I should, at the very least, catch up with technology, to own the DVD so I can add to my collection of DVDs, to pay my respects to (in my opinion), the greatest movie of all time. So I did some research. There's something called the Ultimate Edition DVD and then there's also the Extreme Edition DVD. The Ultimate Edition DVD came out first, and it has a lot of extras. A little while later, they came out with the Extreme Edition DVD.. which is digitally mastered from a brand-new 1080p high-definition digital telecine transfer, which simply means.. it has even greater video quality than the Ultimate Edition DVD, with new extras. None of the Extras overlap, so the Extreme Edition DVD doesn't really replace the Ultimate Edition DVD.
Although I didn't understand 'everything' when I watched it as a child, the story made enough sense for me to understand what was going on. The action was what really got me pumped. What's 'not' to understand when a liquid-metal shape shifting robot from the future is targetting you for termination..? Everything was blowing up so fast, and the special effects were (and still are) impressive. There are so many action scenes, all of which are just spectacular, and it's not all about the graphics/action. For example, John Conor made The Terminator swear not to kill anyone even though The Terminator didn't understand why since the only thing on his mind was to protect John and he'd do anything to accomplish that, even if it means killing people. In the scene where police cars surround the building they're in, The Terminator takes his minigun and grenade launcher and shoots at the police and the cars they're hiding behind, for a good few minutes.. When he's done, his scanner shows: Human Casualties: 0.0
I can't say I have a favourite action scene, they're all my favourite. This movie is DEEP. As I got older, I understood more of the concepts and the story.
Here's a quote by Sarah Conor (John Conor's mother) to show you what I mean:
"Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator would never stop -- it would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there, and it would die to protect him."
Even by today's standards, there's some real great acting in this movie. This is the movie that everyone refers to when they talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger as an actor. There are countless memorable quotes by him from this movie. The fact that he plays a 'less-say, more-killing' robot makes this shine even more. Linda Hamilton (Sarah Conor) acts like a psychopath like she should be and Edward Furlong (John Conor) plays a perfectly wild and adventurous child who teaches the Terminator a few lessons about life. The more I watch it, the more I admired everything about it. Beware, the ending.. can be quite emotional. All good movies have great endings to them, and T2 is no exception. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take aim at T-1000's head while he's still frozen in liquid nitrogen. Astalavista, baby.
