Terminator 2 Review Part 5: The Writers Won’t Wrap Up the Movie

I’m never a fan of the whole “the robots can become like us” trope, but Schwarzenegger's facial expressions and timing in this movie are spot on

Last time, we saw that Sarah Connor had rushed off to the kill a man named Miles Dyson because he is responsible for the future technology that will bring humanity to the brink of extinction. She holds the man at gunpoint but, in the end, can’t bring herself to commit coldblooded murder. Thus, when John and the Terminator arrive, Dyson learns the astonishing reason for the attempted murder. He agrees to help them destroy his research, which is being kept in a nearby lab.

The next scene is straightforward. The group reaches the lab and eventually destroys it, but not before the cops arrive. At that point, there’s a massive shootout, fitting for a Nineties film climax.

It is followed by Dyson sacrificing himself to blow up the lab entirely, completely wiping out his life’s work.

Honestly, this should’ve been the climax for the entire movie

The T-1000 arrives at the lab during the shootout, and so this scene would’ve been the best time for the T-1000 and the original Terminator to have their big showdown. The likely reason the writers did not script that is that they needed to destroy the chip and robotic hand of the Terminator in the first film. The way they eventually destroy these items was contrived, and I’ll get to that later.

They should have brought some kind of incinerator inside the lab into the story. That would make sense because a laboratory likely needs a place to eliminate toxic waste and similar items. Instead, the Terminator deals with the cops. Because he’s been ordered not to kill them, the way he dispatches them is quite entertaining.

Then he, John, and Sarah drive off. However, before Dyson destroys the lab, the T-1000, for reasons I don’t really understand, drives into the building with a motorcycle, then runs the motorcycle through a window so it can leap onto a helicopter and fly it instead. He would’ve had an easier time using the motorcycle to go after his prey, but the stunt is cool, and this is the Nineties.

What follows is yet another chase scene, where the T-1000 crashes his helicopter and ends up driving a semi-truck filled with liquid nitrogen, which crashes as well, and the leaking nitrogen causes the gooey robot to freeze in place so the Terminator can shoot it, causing it to shatter like a porcelain pot.

But the Terminator shoots the T-1000 after the trio has driven into a factory, which just so happens to have a bunch of tanks filled with molten metal that they can use to destroy the robotic hand and chip. But this factory filled with tubs of molten metal is hot enough to cause the T-1000 to melt.

That allows him to put himself back together like Humpty Dumpty — wait, Humpty Dumpty couldn’t put himself back together again but…

Too many contrivances

This chase scene is as entertaining as it gets, but it’s filled with contrivance after contrivance. The sequence is something an eight-year-old would love, but it causes a critic’s head to spin.

And for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why John, Sarah, and the Terminator didn’t take the pieces of the T-1000 and throw them into the giant tubs of molten metal before it reassembled! We’ve had two climaxes already. Enough is enough! But the movie wants to go on, so John, Sarah, and the Terminator run further into the factory, while the T-1000 repairs itself and starts after them again.

What follows is a robot fight, where the Terminator gets its arm caught in a cog for a minute, and in the meantime, the T-1000 attacks Sarah. But the Terminator returns, and the robots fight again.

The T-1000 defeats the Terminator a second time, then pretends to be Sarah, hoping to kill John. But John sees through the ruse, and while he and the T-1000 are standing near the edge of some metal grating, Sarah is able to fire several shotgun rounds into the gooey robot, trying to knock it into one of the tubs of molten metal below. However, she runs out of ammo, and it looks like all is lost, but the Terminator reappears, riding another metal cog that seems to have no practical purpose, and fires an explosive into the T-1000, which causes it to blow up and fall into the metal tub below. It dies horribly, which is satisfying, and then John throws the robotic hand and the chip into the tub.

John believes all is well, but the Terminator informs him that only one piece of Skynet’s technology remains. Himself. And as long as he exists, someone will be able to bring on the apocalypse. So, after John begs him not to do it—a scene that is heart-wrenching to say the least—the Terminator has Sarah lower him into the tub of molten metal using a crane. As the robot is slowly destroyed, the Terminator gives John a thumbs up before being consumed by the molten metal.

I’m not sure if this makes sense. For one thing, how could anyone working with Dyson ever find John and Sarah? They’d have no idea where to look. There’s a risk, sure, and maybe that’s enough, but it’s not a guarantee, and the robot’s orders were to protect John. How can it do that if it’s destroyed? But even though this scene might not make sense, man, is it cool! It’s one of the most iconic scenes in cinema.

The problem is that after the Terminator is destroyed, the movie just ends. There’s no falling action, which is a real problem. One of the remaining questions in the film is whether or not John and Sarah are going to make it as a family unit. With no apocalypse to unite them, can they survive? The movie doesn’t address this question, which is a real shame. The ending scene feels very abrupt, and I think it weakened the film. There needed to be some kind of promise or hint about Sarah and John’s future.

A science fiction classic for a reason

I’ve gone after this film pretty hard, but I meant what I said in the first review. I really do love it. It’s a science fiction classic for a reason. Save for the bar scene and the ending, the writing is pretty tight when the writers aren’t preaching. And Edward Furlong steals the show. I don’t know if the kid had performed before this film, but man, can he act! His portrayal of John makes this movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger is at his best as well. I’m never a fan of the whole “the robots can become like us” trope, but his facial expressions and timing in this movie are spot on. And Linda Hamilton does an excellent job as well. When the writers aren’t using her as a surrogate for politics, she’s the perfect combination of strong and vulnerable, and her character is up there with Ripley as one of cinema’s most iconic female action heroes for a reason.