FILM · 1991 · FRANCE
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- Directed by
- James Cameron
- Runtime
- 137 min
- Studio
- Carolco Pictures, Pacific Western, Lightstorm Entertainment
34 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Ten years after the events of the original, a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to protect young John Connor from the shape-shifting T-1000. Together with his mother Sarah, he fights to stop Skynet from triggering a nuclear apocalypse.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (34)
- #001
Robert Patrick followed a strict running regimen to appear like a cyborg capable of running at high speeds without showing fatigue, and he tried to breathe only through his nose. He trained so hard that he could easily keep up with Edward Furlong on a dirt bike.
- #002
The production ran long enough that Edward Furlong's growth forced the crew to make adjustments during filming. He looks noticeably younger in the desert scene than in the others. His voice began to crack and had to be pitch-adjusted in post-production. He had also grown considerably taller over the months, and in a scene shot late in the schedule he had to stand in a hole in the ground to maintain continuity with Linda Hamilton's height difference.
- #003
Linda Hamilton's twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Gearren, was used as a double in scenes featuring two "Sarah Connors" (for example, when the T-1000 impersonates her) and as Linda's mirror image in a scene not included in the theatrical release (but present on the DVD).
- #004
There were concerns about how realistic the CGI would look when it came to the helicopter passing under the bridge, so the pilot actually did it.
- #005
According to director James Cameron, Linda Hamilton suffered permanent hearing damage in one ear because she took out her earplugs between takes during the elevator fight and did not put them back in.
- #006
Stunt pilot Charles A. Tamburro, who played the unfortunate pilot forced to jump from his helicopter by the T-1000, also performed the stunt in the final chase scene in which the helicopter flies under an overpass. A camera car was to bring a Steadicam operator close to the helicopter for close-ups, but the camera crew refused to film it because of the high risk involved. Director James Cameron shot the take himself twice: once with the camera car traveling behind the helicopter and once in front of it.
- #007
Linda Hamilton learned to pick locks for the mental hospital scene and did it entirely with a paper clip.
- #008
Because his voice changed during filming, most of Edward Furlong's dialogue had to be re-recorded by Furlong in post-production. His younger voice was left intact only in the scene where he and the Terminator talk about why people cry, because James Cameron wanted it to be dramatic and thought the original voice was better.
- #009
Producer Mario Kassar gave Arnold Schwarzenegger a lightly used Gulfstream III jet (worth about 14 million US dollars) to accept the role in this film.
- #010
Industrial Light & Magic's computer graphics department had to grow from six artists to nearly thirty-six to handle all the work needed to bring the T-1000 to life; it cost 5.5 million US dollars and took eight months to produce, ultimately amounting to 3.5 minutes of screen time.
- #011
A woman passing by walked toward the biker bar set, convinced it was real, even though she passed all the location trucks, cameras and lights. Seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger standing in the bar in only boxer shorts, she finally asked what was going on, and Schwarzenegger replied that it was male stripper night. Coincidentally or not, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), the Terminator (again played by Schwarzenegger) actually enters a bar on male stripper night.
- #012
Michael Biehn was the first choice for the role of the T-1000, with the roles completely reversed from Arnold Schwarzenegger, now a hero. The idea was abandoned, however, because it was seen as too confusing for audiences.
- #013
The T-1000's freezing and shattering effect was achieved by filming an amputee wearing a prosthesis and Robert Patrick with his real limbs buried beneath the set. Clever editing makes the effect appear almost seamless.
- #014
After hearing a simple plot outline from James Cameron, Linda Hamilton turned down a role in another film. Her only condition was that the character of Sarah Connor be developed so that she was no longer a meek, weak waitress; she wanted her to "be crazy."
- #015
This was the first film to gross more than 300 million dollars at the international box office.
- #016
Eleven cameras were used to capture the explosion at the Cyberdyne headquarters. The camera crew later made a funny video about accidentally forgetting to film the crowd of onlookers watching the explosion in awe.
- #017
The original script did not require the top of the heavy truck to be removed during the chase in the flood channel. When they arrived on location, however, they realized the cab would not fit under a single overpass, and director James Cameron decided the roof had to come off.
- #018
For some of his scenes, Robert Patrick imitated the head movements of the American bald eagle as the T-1000.
- #019
Adjusted for inflation, Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the second highest-grossing R-rated action film in domestic ticket revenue, behind Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).
- #020
(At about 1 hour 5 minutes) For the scene in which the Terminator explains Miles Dyson and Skynet's history to Sarah Connor, Arnold Schwarzenegger read his lines from a card taped to the car's windshield.
- #021
Director James Cameron asked Stan Winston to direct a promotional trailer. Cameron did not want the trailer to consist only of early footage, so with a budget of $150,000 Winston created a trailer showing a futuristic assembly line producing copies of the Terminator, all resembling Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cameron was pleased with the trailer because he was afraid of how audiences would react to trailers showing Schwarzenegger returning as the Terminator (after the Terminator in the first film was clearly destroyed). The teaser was released a year before T2's release and was shown before another Schwarzenegger hit, Total Recall (1990).
- #022
The metallic strikes of the Terminator theme, one of the main percussion sounds in Brad Fiedel's score, were not created by a synthesizer or taken from recorded sound archives. Fiedel hits one of his cast-iron pans.
- #023
Until The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), this was the only Oscar-winning sequel whose predecessor(s) had not been nominated. That is, the only such film of the 20th century.
- #024
(At about the 27th minute) Co-writer Wisher is the photographer during the mall fight when the Terminator is thrown through the gallery window. Wisher also played the police officer whose car is violently carjacked in The Terminator (1984) (hence the recognizable look he gives while taking the Terminator's photograph).
- #025
Linda Hamilton's son Dalton, then twenty months old, played baby John Connor in a playground dream scene.
- #026
The Terminators seen at the beginning of the film were fully operational animatronic models.
- #027
Applying the damaged Terminator look at the film's climax took five hours, and removing it took one hour.
- #028
For the film's early promotion, media materials avoided showing Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, the T-800, together with John Connor (Edward Furlong) in order to conceal the fact that Schwarzenegger played a "good" Terminator this time. Later trailers and images would reveal that he would not be playing the "bad guy" this time.
- #029
The scene in which the Terminator is rebooted after being "shut down" by the T-1000 was not in the script and was added only during editing because director James Cameron thought the audience would not understand how the Terminator came back to deliver the final blow to the T-1000. According to Arnold Schwarzenegger's book "The Life and Times," Cameron contacted Schwarzenegger, who was going to visit his friend Bruce Willis at Christmas, to come back and shoot the key scene. In the end Schwarzenegger had to cancel his plans and film it. The scene in which the Terminator pulls out the metal rod impaling him was shot on Christmas Day.
- #030
(At about 16 minutes) [Special Edition only] The "forced medication" scene had to be reshot several times because Ken Gibbel could not properly hit Linda Hamilton with the nightstick. The scene was physically very demanding, and Hamilton was very angry with Gibbel because he failed to do it repeatedly. She got her revenge in a later scene and beat Gibbel with a broken broom handle, as some of the blows were real.
- #031
The idea of destroying the Cyberdyne Systems building to prevent the future war was in the first Terminator film but was cut from the final version (it can be seen in the deleted scenes section of The Terminator (1984) DVD). Director James Cameron said it was lucky he chose to cut this scene in 1984, since it formed the "nucleus" of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
- #032
This film surpassed the entire gross of its predecessor The Terminator (1984) just four days after its release.
- #033
The sound used for Arnold Schwarzenegger's shotgun was actually two cannons.
- #034
In the audio commentary, James Cameron said the biker bar scene was shot on the street across from the site of Rodney King's famous beating, and that the production was also shooting on the night of the beating. Cameron got the idea for Strange Days (1995) after the verdict of April 29, 1992.
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