Subverted Expectations
Netflix released a short teaser for its upcoming Terminator: The Anime Series this past November. “Coming Soon” was all we got in the way of a release date, but I guess it’s safe to assume it will drop at some point in 2024. Showrunner and writer Mattson Tomlin said the Netflix series will “[break] conventions, [subvert] expectations, and [have] real guts”. I couldn’t help but groan when I read this, because I can’t can’t remember the last time a writer said they were going to subvert the audience’s expectations and it actually turned out well.
The pre fight shit talking is one thing. For some people, it works. For others, not so much. But the odds aren’t in Tomlin’s favor. First of all, there hasn’t been a worthwhile Terminator…anything since Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Second, and probably more important, filling James Cameron’s boots is no small feat. Not only does James Cameron seem to be the only filmmaker capable of making a great Terminator movie, the man knows a thing or two about subverting expectations.
The irony of this film is that Arnold is a better mother than I am, and I’m a better Terminator than he is.
-Linda Hamilton
Between the release of the original film in 1984 and its sequel in 1991, Arnold Schwarzenegger had become the biggest action star on the planet — arguably the biggest action star in film history. So it shouldn’t have been a big shocker that the big guy would play one of the good guys — even in a Terminator sequel. But even if you’ve never seen T2, you know that somehow Arnie’s killer cyborg has switched sides and is now playing for the humans. Considering Arnold’s star status, I don’t know if that took any guts on the part of James Cameron or if it was just the obvious thing to do at the time, but having the hulking bodybuilder switch roles with Linda Hamilton’s formerly soft, innocent Sarah Connor is probably not something most people saw coming.
According to Cameron, the idea of a reprogrammed Terminator came about as he was trying to crack the character of John Connor. Where did his strong sense of morality come from? How did he become the leader and symbol he was meant to become–especially while his mother, Sarah Connor, was locked away in a mental hospital? Cameron couldn’t resist the irony of the idea that it would come from John’s interactions with a Terminator.
The beauty of turning a killing machine into a babysitter though, is that it actually makes sense when you think about it. It’s not subversion for subversion’s sake. It’s not played as a gotcha! to the audience. And why shouldn’t John, the future leader of the remnants of humanity, value human life — all human life? But if that makes sense, the John we are first introduced to probably isn’t what most of us had in mind when Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese explains to Sarah that she is the mother of this vaunted future leader. At this point, though, it’s hard to consider anything other than the rebellious juvenile delinquent Edward Furlong in T2.
So far we’ve got a Terminator that doesn’t terminate and a leader who doesn’t seem to have his own life together. And then there’s Sarah. Gone is the quiet, sweet natured Sarah that Linda Hamilton played to perfection in the first film, and in her place has grown a hardened, shredded paramilitary soldier who might even be crazy. There’s no mistaking from the moment we see her that Sarah has changed, but the subtler bit of subversion that takes place here is the swap that happens between Sarah and the T-800. As the Terminator begins to fall into his role as protector and non-Terminator, Sarah takes on the role of killer — a human Terminator hell bent on wiping out the man responsible for Judgment Day.
It would have been easy for James Cameron to turn Miles Dyson into a cartoon mad scientist, a bad guy working as a defense contractor. A character that we could despise. Someone who’s death we could get behind. But that’s not what we get. Cameron and co-writer Wisher don’t take the easy way out. And we get another bit of subversion: Dyson is likable, a loving family man. We don’t want him to die.
I don’t know what Cameron was hoping for when he cast the role for Miles Dyson. I don’t know what advice he gave the actor for getting to the heart of that character and what makes him tick. What I do know is that Joe Morton pulls off a performance that is so believable and makes the character so sympathetic that we as the audience can’t root for his death. There has to be a better way to ensure Judgment Day is stopped, that Skynet is crushed before it ever even gets started. And by playing against the type, by not making Dyson into a trope, Cameron and Wisher create another great moment of drama and a chance for Linda Hamilton’s Sarah to once again grow, a chance for her to learn from her son the value of human life. Sarah’s breakdown in Dyson’s house is a great moment in the film.
But you can’t have a Terminator film without an actual Terminator, and so we come to the film’s antagonist. Robert Patrick’s lean T-1000 is quite different from Schwarzenegger’s hulking T-800 and the other Terminator we see in Reese’s flashback scene. Not only is the T-1000 of smaller stature, this Terminator uses adaptability as opposed to brute strength to get the job done. Whatever we were expecting as a worthy foe for Arnold’s T-800, it wasn’t Robert Patrick. But it works. And all too often in movies, the tendency is to go bigger. But that doesn’t always translate to more interesting. Patrick’s Terminator is smart and agile and, despite his size difference, frightening.
People have made the argument that T2 probably shouldn’t even exist. For most writers, as subsequent films have proven, the story of the Terminator doesn’t lend itself to multiple sequels and expanded storytelling. The first film is nearly a perfect film on its own. If we knew nothing else once those credits rolled up, that would be fine. Nothing more is needed to make it a great film. But somehow Cameron managed to continue the story and make another great Terminator movie. A Terminator movie that many argue is better than the original. If Cameron had played it safe, if he’d give the audience everything that they would have expected if he hadn’t subverted our expectations, T2 would be just another soulless cashgrab sequel rather than arguably the best sequel ever made.
What Terminator 2 Means to Us
When I was a kid we had a VHS tape that was jammed with some of the best sci-fi films available to us. These were Aliens, Escape From New York and Terminator – probably recorded off of cable – and we played it so often that it wore out, and the films ended up as scrolling lines of static that no amount of “tracking adustment” could fix. Terminator was the first to go. When Terminator 2 was announced I remember thinking that the guy who made two of the films on that tape could do no wrong. Maybe I was a little optimistic about his future films, but I wasn’t wrong about T2. It was amazing, awesome, action-filled. It was everything I wanted in a sequel to Terminator, and even made the whole “good terminator” thing work – one of the two things I remember being ‘iffy’ about. The other was Robert Patrick. I just wasn’t sold on this skinny guy taking on ARNIE. I should have trusted in Cameron, because holy crap was Patrick terrifying as the T1000. I even remember shouting at the screen “he’s on the damn car!” in the chase from the mental asylum. Only I didn’t say “damn.” And Linda Hamilton was incredible – a better haunted badass than even Michael Biehn in the first film. And Joe Morton as Miles Bennet… I think it might be the only time I’ve felt so bad for a guy who is (Was? Will be?) responsible for humanity being almost wiped out.
For the longest time I thought James Cameron was the only big named director who could make sequels to amazing films that were as good, if not better, than the originals. Maybe not so much now, but damn if Aliens and T2 aren’t topping that list. I think I need to go watch both of ’em, right now.
–Bob Cram Jr
Terminator 2 was one of the first experiences I can remember of seeing an absolute badass woman kicking ass on film. Sure I was a dedicated fan of She-Ra fan when I was little, and Wonder Woman, too. But there was nothing quite like watching Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor just wrecking people en masse. As a tomboy-ish 10-year-old girl growing up at a time when the female characters offered up in media were mostly lauded for a level of femininity I couldn’t relate to at all, Sarah Connor was a role model I could connect with. Is she a little crazy? Maybe. Does she make all the right choices? Probably not. But she’s burdened with knowledge of the future that would crush most people into oblivion, and rather than just collapse into a sniveling mess and wait for someone else to fix it, she does what she believes needs to be done to save her son, herself, and the future of humanity. Thirty years later, it is still just as exhilarating to watch as it was that first time.
The rest of the cast is incredible in their roles, and for an early 90s action movie, the performances are impressively visceral and relatable. Edward Furlong plays punk teen with a heart to perfection; Arnold is peak Arnold; and Joe Morton and Robert Patrick bring delightfully unexpected nuance to their roles. It’s a movie I could watch a thousand times and never get tired of, and while everyone is great, Linda Hamilton will always be my favorite part.
–R.J. Mathews
Let’s continue discussing Terminator 2 down in the comments!
