History Film / Terminator2JudgmentDay

** Critics have lightly jabbed at the fact that the T-1000 just ''happens'' to hijack a tanker full of liquid nitrogen--one of the few substances that can harm it--and then chases the heroes into a steel mill, one of the few places it could thaw back out so quickly, and one of the few places containing a substance that can kill it.

''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' is a 1991 {{action|Genre}} / ScienceFiction film, the sequel to 1984's ''Film/TheTerminator'' and the second film in the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise. Creator/JamesCameron returned to the director's chair, and both Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Creator/LindaHamilton returned for their roles as the T-800 Model Terminator and Sarah Connor. Similarly to ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', which Cameron directed during the interim between the first two ''Terminator''s, ''Judgement Day'' notably forgoes the horror angle of its predecessor, instead providing [[ActionizedSequel a more action-oriented story]] (with a much bigger budget) that would set a precedent for later films in the franchise.

''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' is the 1991 sequel to 1984's ''Film/TheTerminator'' and the second film in the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise. Creator/JamesCameron returned to the director's chair, and both Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Creator/LindaHamilton returned for their roles as the T-800 Model Terminator and Sarah Connor. Similarly to ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', which Cameron directed during the interim between the first two ''Terminator''s, ''Judgement Day'' notably forgoes the horror angle of its predecessor, instead providing [[ActionizedSequel a more action-oriented story]] (with a much bigger budget) that would set a precedent for later films in the franchise.

The film was initially followed by ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines''. The franchise since has held onto the first film and this film as absolute canon, each new work (''T3'', ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', ''Film/TerminatorGenisys'') doing an {{unreboot}} relative to each other. Due to James Cameron's involvement, the official timeline sequel is now ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate''.

** Subverted later, as the T-800 correctly predicted, the T-1000 anticipated Sarah Conner's assassination attempt on Dyson to prevent Judgement Day; but it arrived ''several hours too late'' and the attack on Cyberdyne was already underway. Had it forecast Sarah's action earlier, it would've copied and killed Dyson (disregarding any [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct time-travel implications]] this would have on Skynet) then targeted Sarah once again to lure out its primary objective: John.

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: What Dougie the orderly [[note]] the one who licked Sarah's face earlier [[/note]] gets from Sarah when she escapes. Sarah beats the hell out of him with a broken broom handle, eventually breaking it in half across the back of his neck.

* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: During her nightmare, Sarah and the other victims have their flesh completely carbonized by the thermal effects of a nuclear bomb and then ripped away from their skeletons by the blast wave. This would only actually happen if you were essentially at ground zero of the detonation -- from the distance Sarah and the others were, they'll all likely have sustained fatal third-degree burns over their entire bodies thanks to them being on an exposed hillside with no shelter, but even that wouldn't have been ''immediately'' fatal, let alone as dramatic as what see. Justified, however, by both RuleOfCool and the fact that Sarah probably isn't all that well-read on the precise effects of nuclear bombs other than that they tend to kill a lot of people.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: As with the first movie, shotguns play a prominent role in this film. The T-800's primary weapon for the first half of the movie is a Remington model 1887 shotgun. Sarah Connor uses a highly customized Remington 870 shotgun to fight the T-1000 in the Steel Mill. As with the first movie, this is [[EnforcedTrope enforced]]: Shotguns are the only things nearby with enough punch to slow down a Terminator. Sarah unloads a police-issue handgun into the T-1000 while it's running full-sprint after their car, and this only barely slows it down.

* LodgedBladeRecyling: There's a fight between the T-800, protector of John Connor, and the T-1000, sent to expunge John Connor. Having knocked the T-800 onto the steel foundry's walkway grating, the T-1000 slams a length of pipe like a spear through the T-800's torso, pinning the older terminator in place. This also drains the T-800's main battery, and it shuts down. However, once the T-1000 goes searching for John Connor, the T-800 activates a reserve power cell, and pulls the pipe all the way through itself. No longer pinned to the grating, the T-800 rejoins the fight.

* PayPhone: John Connor has the T-800 pull over to a pay phone so that John could make a call to his foster mother Janelle to warn her about the T-1000, but as the only money he has on hand are all paper bills, he doesn't have a quarter he could use to make the call. John asks the T-800 if he has a quarter, and the T-800 obliges by smashing open the coin storage compartment of the pay phone with his fist so John could get a quarter to use.

* ShoutOut

** And when the T-800 gets up after being thrown through a shop window, the co-writer William Wisher plays a bystander snapping photographs; the cop attacked by the original Terminator in ''Film/TheTerminator''.

* DelayingAction: The whole plot regarding the T-1000 is a Delaying Action, as no one has the means to truly stop the T-1000 until the very end. The only way to survive is to slow it down enough to escape it.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The storyline for the movie begins with the arrival of the terminators right before dawn on day one, with the climactic showdown hapening in the middle of the night of day two.

* FieryCoverup: A benevolent version. Sarah, John, Dyson, and the T-800 destroy all the equipment and records at the Cyberdyne lab to prevent the creation of Skynet and the subsequent nuclear war that kills three billion people.

-->'''John:''' We still have to stop this from happening, dont we?
-->'''Tarissa:''' Aren't you changing things right now?

* HistoryRepeats: It falls to Sarah to once again [[spoiler:push a button to destroy a Terminator. This time however, she's solemn and remorseful - given that she's complying with the machine's desire to self-terminate. That she's destroying her son's (and her) savior, their protector from the future, who learned the value of human life.]]

* OnlyAFleshWound: Sarah is shot in the leg and impaled in the shoulder, yet she keeps on going. The T-800 shoots a large number of people in the knee and they're not seriously hurt.
* OnlyICanKillHim: It becomes immediately obvious to the viewer that only the T-800 can hope to fight the terrifying T-1000 hand-to-hand or in close combat, any human would be dead.

* ParentalSubstitute: The T-800 Terminator serves as a father-figure for John Connor. Lampshaded when Sarah Connor notes that the killing machine is a better father for John than any of her old "boyfriends".

* ShapeShifterSwanSong: As the T-1000 burns in the molten iron, it changes into all the forms it had take prior... and then they start melding together.

* UnableToCry: Moments before it destroys itself, the T-800 becomes self-aware. It understands exactly why people cry, and why John is sobbing at its coming demise ("''I know now why you cry...''") It just can't express or convey the same sorrow with its eyes, even though ''it wants to'' ("''...but it is something I can never do''").

* UnconventionalVehicleChase: The Connors and the T-800 flee in an extremely slow pickup truck as the T-1000 pursues in a 16-wheeler carrying a tank of liquid nitrogen. And that was after they switched vehicles: the Connors in a SWAT van, the T-1000 in a police helicopter.

*** Also the weapons that each acquires from the outset; the protector uses a shotgun as their first weapon while the robotic assassin uses a pistol. In the first film, the T-800 mainly uses the .45 caliber pistol until the first encounter with Kyle Reese, who acquired a shotgun. Here, the T-1000 takes a pistol from the cop he kills while the T-800 steals a shotgun.

* AssholeVictim: John's foster parents Janelle and Todd, who are introduced as having an antagonistic relationship with him but Todd especially seems rather deadbeat. John calls in and notices something is wrong because [[SomethingTheyWouldNeverSay Janelle is acting nice]], which is the [[SpottingTheThread clue to the reveal]] she was replaced by T-1000. John feels a little sorrow for a few seconds after the T-800 breaks the news to him but quickly forgets about them.

* DownLADrain: When the T-800 first encounters and rescues John Connor from the T-1000.

** John gets a massive one in the back hallway of the Galleria while running from the T-1000 (disguised as a cop). The moment he sees the T-800 pull out its shotgun, he knows exactly what it is and why it's there. It gets even worse when he sees both Terminators aim right at him. Only the T-800's command of "Get down!" snaps him out of it.

** T-800's Fat Boy motorcycle was provided specifically for the movie by Harley Davidson.

* RailingKill: After taking a grenade in the gut, the T-1000 falls over a chain rail on the platform into the vat of molten iron underneath.

* EveryCarIsAPinto: The T-1000's semi explodes after slamming into a bridge. Diesel fuel doesn't actaully explode, but half-credit for explicitly showing it spewing from the ruptured tank and being zapped by dangling electronics..

* FreeWheel: After the T-1000's hijacked semi crashes and explodes. Doubles as a CatScare because our heroes fully expect it to be the T-1000 walking out of the flames in a CallBack to the first film. (It does exactly that, but only after they drive off.)

** The T-1000 also does this to the T-800 another way. Early in the film in the first real action sequence, the T-1000 chases John on his minibake and eventually commandeers a semi-truck, which the T-800 blows up. In the first film, a similar explosion destroyed the T-800's flesh and damaged it so it couldn't walk. The T-1000, on the other hand, [[OutOfTheInferno walks out of the flames]], reforms its human disguise, and looks perfectly fine. This is a signal that it will be far harder to kill than the original T-800 was.

* PracticalEffects: In scenes that called for two Sarah Connors to be on-screen simultaneously (a deleted scene featuring a mirror, and the finale when the T-1000 copied Sarah's appearance), Linda Hamilton's twin sister Leslie was called in to play the second Sarah. This was done as well in the scene where the security guard Lewis, played by Don Stanton, is stabbed in the face by the T1000, played by his twin brother Dan.

* PracticalEffects: In scenes that called for two Sarah Connors to be on-screen simultaneously (a deleted scene featuring a mirror, and the finale when the T-1000 copied Sarah's appearance), Linda Hamilton's twin sister Leslie was called in to play the second Sarah. This was done as well in the scene where the the security guard Lewis, played by Don Stanton, is stabbed in the face by the T1000, played by his twin brother Dan.