Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Breaking Down the emotional ending to the best sequel ever

Last Updated on October 12, 2023

What’s your favorite movie sequel of all time? For some of us, it’s the Godfather Part II, for others it’s The Empire Strikes Back, or maybe you’re into Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. In any case, one of the greatest sequels of all time has to be Terminator 2: Judgement Day. T2 is James Cameron’s 1991 masterpiece that follows up the original 80’s blockbuster. The movie was originally meant to be the end of the road for the Terminator franchise and as such, the ending of the movie serves as a definitive ending to the iconic story. The final confrontation involves the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) taking on the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) who has been hunting the Conner family in order to terminate them once and for all. 

In the scene, the T-1000 is subdued by way of a grenade launcher and subsequently dropped into a vat of molten steel. However, in order to save the future and take SkyNet down, the T-800 must sacrifice himself to assure the world’s salvation. It’s definitely a heavy scene emotionally, but one thing that stands out upon each viewing is the slightly off line delivery from Edward Furlong as John Conner. Furlong was approaching puberty at the time filming for the movie began, but by the time the production wrapped he was already mostly passed puberty. This resulted in him having to dub almost all of his lines which makes the tonal shift between the other characters’ lines and Furlong’s a bit jarring. Schwarzenegger, however, does an incredible job once again as the intimidating titular terminator. According to the filmmakers, Arnold’s salary had increased significantly for the second film and he was even given a private plane as a signing bonus from the film’s producer, Mario Kassar.

The scene also features incredible VFX and Special effects work from Industrial Light and Magic as-well-as iconic character design by Stan Winston. Winston stated that it took about five hours to get Arnold’s battle-damaged look for the scene. The effects hold up and look especially clean and crisp in the 4K version of the film. It’s safe to say this movie holds up, and this scene is definitely one of the reasons it does, as we’re going to dig into it in this week’s Scene Breakdown.