History Film / Terminator2JudgmentDay

** The T-1000 does this during the mall shootout with T-800. As it continues firing, it pulls a spare magazine from its gunbelt so as to be ready to reload as soon as it runs out of ammo. Even so, it fires more bullets from its Beretta than that gun is capable of carrying.

** The sign for the Pescadero State Hospital says it is a “criminally disordered” retention facility.

* SpannerInTheWorks: When Sarah attempts to escape from Pescadero by taking Dr. Silberman hostage, she fails to account for a guard she missed, which scarpers her original plan.

--->'''T-800:''' [[JustAFleshWound He'll live.]]

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'', ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'') doing an {{unreboot}} relative to each other.

* EveryCarIsAPinto: The T-1000's tow truck 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..

-->'''John:''' We still have to stop this from happening, dont we?\\

** The T-800, reprogammed to protect John Conner, quickly acquires a Winchester 1887 lever-action shotgun and a M1911 pistol from the biker bar, both "good" guns hinting at his new alignment. Later, he uses a Vietnam-era M79 single shot grenade launcher as his signature weapon for the film's third act. While normally explosive firepower like that is a "bad" gun trait, its justified given what they're up against. He also uses an M134 Minigun to destroy the police cars surrounding the Cyberdyne building. Again, MoreDakka is typically a "bad" trait but him using a handheld GatlingGood weapon like that falls under RuleOfCool.

** The T-1000 initially inverts it, taking the appearance and gun of the police officer investigating the disturbance of his arrival, a Beretta 92FS. He later takes a Browning Hi-Power, a black semi-auto handgun, off the security guard he kills in the mental asylum. During the helicopter chase, he uses a police-issue H&K [=MP5K=], which, despite it's law enforcement usage, tends to pop up more as a "bad" gun due to its size and rate of fire.

* MakeTheBearAngryAgain: The T-800 reveals that Skynet started Judgment Day by attacking Russia, since they would be forced to retailiate.

** John's reaction when he realizes that Sarah has gone off to try and kill [=SkyNet=]'s principal creator, Miles Dyson, in an effort to avert Judegment Day.

* RefugeInAudacity: The T-800 walks into a [[BadGuyBar biker bar]] stark naked, then demands that a mean-looking biker hand over his clothes, his boots, and his motorcyle.

* ViewersAreMorons: In a clear SeriesContinuityError, dogs do not display a hostile reacton to the T-800, whereas in the first movie the future resistance is shown [[EvilDetectingDog using dogs]] to help identify infiltrator Terminators. James Cameron has said he was well aware of the discrepancy while filming, and made the decision because he felt audiences would be "confused" by the hero upsetting dogs with his mere presence.

[[caption-width-right:300:It's nothing personal.]]

* WritersCannotDoMath: More or less averted, as with most of James Cameron's films. The first movie's police station rampage is mentioned when Dr. Silberman states the original Terminator "killed 17 officers that night". If one was to watch the previous movie's police station shootout, frame-by-frame, there is ''indeed'' around 17 onscreen casualties, give or take a few - a bespectacled officer crushed by a car (1), three officers in a hallway (2 - 4), three officers in three separate cubicles (5 - 7, the latter two behind their desks), another gunned down a first-person perspective via night vision (8), a fleeing officer shotgunned from behind (9), around five more in the dark after the Terminator killed the lights (10 - 14), officers Traxler and Vukovich (15 - 16) and a dead cop in another part of the station (17) when Kyle and Sarah escapes.

** The Terminator for most of film, with fully intact flesh over metal endoskeleton, is just that, an infiltrator machine, a clever forgery of a man. Later on, as it learns about humanity, half his face ends up shot and ripped off from battle damage. When the camera focuses on his metal skull, and his human-side, its implying he's no longer just a reprogrammed cyborg, but something now [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming becoming self aware]].

* KillItWithIce: The T-1000 is frozen solid by liquid nitrogen and the T-800 blows him to pieces. This trope is subverted when the heat of the factory melts the pieces and they reform.[[note]]In the Extended Edition though, it's shown that this act, while it doesn't kill him, has damaged it enough that it [[GlamourFailure visibly glitches]] for the rest of the film.

* AMoltenDateWithDeath: The film concludes with both its heroic and villainous TerminatorTwosome being destroyed by a vat of molten steel. Which provides a sense of irony in the case of the [[BlobMonster T-1000]], as a creature of liquid metal being killed by ''actual'' liquid metal. The image of the heroic T-800 giving a thumbs up as he sinks has become a SignatureScene iconic to the franchise.

* LodgedBladeRecycling: 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.

* KillItWithIce: The T-1000 is frozen solid by liquid nitrogen and the T-800 blows him to pieces. This trope is subverted when the heat of the factory melts the pieces and they reform.

* TheCameo: In the Director's Cut, Michael Biehn shows up as Kyle Reese in a DreamSequence turned nightmare.

* TheDreaded: The T-800, as usual. Beautifully done in the hospital escape, where we've just watched Sarah tear through half a dozen burly male orderlies like they're nothing, threatening to pump a man full of acid just so she can escape... and then when the T-800 emerges from the elevator in front of her, [[DramaticIrony not knowing it's on her side]], she falls to her knees in ''[[OOCIsSeriousBusiness terror]]''. The T-800 also has this reputation with the general public. After just his first major appearance in public, police identify him and understandably assume him to be the same man that shot up the Technoir nightclub and slaughtered his way through an LA police station eleven years prior.

** The therapist who exploits Sarah so he can get on TV and be in medical journals eventually becomes the only member of the hospital staff alive who knows exactly what's going on. After years of telling Sarah she's insane for having a similar experience, who would believe him? In the third movie, he appears to have convinced himself it didn't really happen.

* {{Novelization}}: The film was novelised by Randall Frakes.

* 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.

* HappyEndingOverride: Not that the ending of the first film was particularly happy, but it ended on a hopeful note. A toughened and pregnant Sarah, aware of what is coming, setting out so John will have the skills to defeat Skynet. ''Terminator 2'' shows Sarah institutionalized after she tried to blow up Cyberdyne systems and still considered a person of interest by the cops in regard to the police station massacre. Also one of the orderlies at the psychiatric hospital is a creep. Compounding this, even John (who is now in foster care) thinks she's crazy and that her ravings of time traveling robots are nothing but a delusion.

* HappyEndingOverride: Not that the ending of the first film was particularly happy, but it ended on a hopeful note. A toughened and pregnant Sarah, aware of what is coming, setting out so John will have the skills to defeat Skynet. ''Terminator 2'' shows Sarah institutionalized after she tried to blow up Cyberdyne systems and still a person of interest from the cop in regard to the police station massacre. Also one of the orderlies at the psychiatric hospital is a creep. Compounding this, even John thinks she's crazy and that her ravings of time traveling robots are nothing but a delusion.

* HappyEndingOverride: Not that the ending of the first film was particularly happy, but it ended on a hopeful note. A toughened and pregnant Sarah, aware of what is coming, setting out so John will have the skills to defeat Skynet. ''Terminator 2'' shows Sarah institutionalized after she tried to blow up Cyberdyne systems and still a person of interest from the cop in regard to the police station massacre. Also one of the orderlies at the psychiatric hospital is a creep. Compounding this even John thinks she's crazy and that her ravings of time traveling robots are nothing but a delusion.

*** There are a few elements that border on RewatchBonus that further hint of each time traveler's allegiance. The T-800 is never seen looking up John's personal address, while the T-1000 has to look it up on a Police Database - because the former is sent by John himself and thus knows John's hangouts, while the later does not. In fact the T-800 happens upon John as he's driving to the Galleria - it at first viewing looks like chance, but it's in actuality because he knows where John is going and is watching the path John's likely to take. This continues at the Galleria - the T-1000 has to ask people where to find John. The T-800 meanwhile goes straight for the Arcade's back exit. This subtly calls back to the first film, where the villainous Terminator has to kill his way through all the Sarah Connors in the phonebook, while the Hero, Kyle, knows where to find Sarah from info John gave him.

** The moment the T-1000 spots John his otherwise emotive façade drains and he begins tossing kids out of the way to get to John without saying a word in a rather robotic fashion. His true nature as a Terminator is revealed in the confrontation with the T-800 a few seconds later.

** The first part uses the past film to play up the idea that Arnold's T-800 is the villain and Patrick plays another member of John's resistance sent back to stop him, with even Sarah's narration at the beginning stating two warriors were sent back in time -- one to kill John and one to protect him -- and not giving a hint as to which is which. Throughout the first act, the film runs with this for all it's worth, until the moment the T-1000 and the T-800 both have guns aimed towards John, and the T-800 tells him to get down. Only ''then'' does the film reveal that this time the T-800 is the good guy. A notable element is that the T-1000 actually emotes, unlike the T-800, which helps fool viewers into thinking it is human, and not a Terminator.