Terminator 2 opens with a series of dissonant shots.
asserted
Terminator → open → shots
The first sequence, backed by a down-tuned techno drone, is a shot of Los Angeles rush hour traffic.
asserted
sequence → back → traffic
The present, or at least close to the present of 1991, when the film was released.
asserted
film → release → 1991
Heat lines bake off the pavement.
asserted
lines → bake → pavement
People scurry across the street.
asserted
People → scurry → street
Kids swing on a playground overlooking the city and the swinging goes into slow motion and the screen’s exposure … goes … white.
Cut to an eerie silence.
asserted
exposure → swing → silence
It’s now 2029, nighttime, and the only word for what we see is devastation.
asserted
we → ’ → what
The playground shattered.
asserted
playground → shatter → ?
Skulls litter the ground, stacked almost too neatly.
asserted
Skulls → litter → ground
“Three billion human lives ended on August 29, 1997.
asserted
lives → end → August
The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day.”
asserted
survivors → call → war
These are the words of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), and her voiceover efficiently sets the stakes for those who happened to miss James Cameron’s 1984 classic, The Terminator.
asserted
who → set → classic
This is the world we’ve been thrust into.
asserted
we → thrust → ?
The world of The Terminator and T2: Judgment Day is nominally about the terror of technology: the oncoming, unstoppable future unleashing manmade horrors beyond comprehension.
asserted
world → unleash → comprehension
In The Terminator, this horror is not a robot that looks like a man but nuclear annihilation, an all-too-real fear for the people living in 1984 under the shadow of thousands of nukes ready to launch at a moment’s notice.
asserted
that → look → notice
By 1991, the tech has evolved and there’s an inkling of the difficulties presented by computers, neural networks, learning machines, and such.
asserted
tech → evolve → computers
The people who build the machines, the people whose politics lead inexorably to self-annihilation, even the kids who shoot at each other with toy guns.
asserted
who → build → guns
“We’re not gonna make it, are we?” John Connor (Edward Furlong) asks his Terminator protector (Arnold Schwarzenegger) while watching those playfully murderous scamps in T2.
asserted
Connor → go → T2
The cyborg frowns.
asserted
cyborg → frown → ?
“It is in your nature to destroy yourselves.”
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a perfect movie—expertly blending action, comedy, and visual fluidity in a way that keeps the film moving while probing questions beyond the depth of the average blockbuster—and since it’s now thirty-five years old, it doesn’t exactly need a review.
asserted
it → destroy → review
If you’ve never seen it, you should.
asserted
you → see → it
Even if you can’t really see the movie as it was released any longer.
asserted
it → see → movie
There’s a superficial irony in Hollywood’s premier auteur of future-terror being the most tech-forward filmmaker: No one alive has done more than James Cameron to push the frontiers of filmmaking.
asserted
one → ’ → filmmaking
From digital filming to CGI to 3D to high frame rate, Cameron believes in using all tools available to push forward the state of filmmaking, to bring audiences the most epic sights and sounds imaginable, to pull them into the screen.
asserted
Cameron → believe → screen
And yes, this includes advances tied to artificial intelligence, which has led to near-infinite versions of the same joke being deployed on social media: “James Cameron wants to use AI?
asserted
Cameron → include → AI
Hasn’t he even seen the Terminator films?”
asserted
he → see → films
The use of AI in filmmaking and the fine distinctions between generative AI, AI-assisted machine learning, and what amounts to gussied-up CGI, are beyond the scope of this essay; suffice to say that the point of the Terminator films is not that AI, per se, is bad, but that humans are poor stewards of any sufficiently advanced technology, from nuclear weapons to autonomous machines designed to deliver them.
asserted
humans → assist → them
“No fate but what we make” isn’t a line about launch codes; it’s a line about people.
asserted
it → make → people
And Terminator 2 is absolutely a film that demonstrates the peril of people given too much technology to play with.
asserted
that → demonstrate → technology
Cameron is an inveterate tinkerer, and over the years a variety of tools have been developed that allow him to fidget with his films.
asserted
him → develop → films
Physical media collectors (guilty, your honor) are more aware of Cameron’s predilection than most, because we spend a great deal of time kvetching about all the ways he’s mucked with his movies over the years.
asserted
he → spend → years
Sometimes this tinkering works out nicely; The Abyss is one of the best-looking 4K UHD discs I’ve ever seen, an immaculate restoration with little of Cameron’s usual futzing.
asserted
I → work → futzing
The 4K of The Terminator was a bit more controversial, at least in part because there seems to have been some reduction of the film grain, but I thought it looked fine.
asserted
it → seem → grain
The real crime was True Lies, which used and abused AI in a way that made actors we know and love like Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis, and, uh, Tom Arnold, look like Uncanny Valley recreations.
asserted
we → use → recreations
The 4K transfer of T2 (which is, reportedly, the version playing in theaters this weekend; I have not seen it, though, so I cannot say this for certain) is a fascinating bundle of technological contradictions.
uncertain
I → play → contradictions
On the one hand, Cameron was able to use CGI to make some fixes that have, clearly, bothered him for years, like replacing Arnold’s double’s face in a couple of motorcycle stunts with Arnold’s actual face.
asserted
that → use → face
The contrast and color grading look great, if a little bluer than the original release.
asserted
contrast → look → release
And this is because his technological wizards turned the noise reduction up to 11.
asserted
wizards → turn → 11
Without getting tediously technical, film is a physical product and the process of creating the moving image whizzing by your eyeballs at twenty-four frames per second introduces random imperfections.
asserted
process → get → imperfections
James Cameron hates film grain.
asserted
Cameron → hat → grain
…and 22 more, not listed.