Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Skynet sends the liquid metal T-1000 back in time to kill the young John Connor, and the human resistance sends a reprogrammed T-800 (credited as The Terminator) to protect him. The setup begins in 2029, when the machines of Skynet and the human resistance are locked in a war that has devastated Earth.

The T-800 and the T-1000 arrive in a world that has moved on from the events of the first film. John's mother, Sarah Connor, is locked in a psychiatric hospital because she keeps trying to stop the nuclear war she knows is coming. John, living with foster parents, believes her warnings are delusions. The T-1000 tracks him to a shopping mall, and the T-800 reaches him just in time to help him escape. From that chase onward the film becomes a three way pursuit, with a mother, a son and a machine on one side and a relentless shape changer on the other.

If you are new to the saga, the setup stands on its own, although the film assumes you know what the first Terminator did.

In the full plot of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T-800 saves John Connor from the T-1000, the group frees Sarah Connor and destroys Cyberdyne's research, and the T-1000 is finally destroyed in molten steel at a steel mill. The story runs in four movements: the rescue, the breakout, the attack on Cyberdyne and the steel mill finale, and everything below reveals the story after the opening act.

After the T-800 rescues John from the T-1000 at the mall, John orders it not to kill people and to help free his mother. They break Sarah out of the hospital and flee the T-1000. The T-800 then explains that Miles Dyson, an engineer at Cyberdyne, is developing the technology that will lead to Skynet. Sarah goes to kill Dyson but cannot bring herself to do it, and the group wins him over instead.

Dyson realizes his work is based on parts of the first Terminator, and he helps the group break into Cyberdyne to take those parts and set explosives. Police shoot Dyson, but he sets off the explosives as he dies. The T-1000 corners the group in a steel mill, where it disables the T-800 and imitates Sarah to lure John out of hiding.

Sarah and the reactivated T-800 push the T-1000 into the molten steel, where it is destroyed. John then throws the old Terminator's arm and chip into the steel as well.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in US theaters on July 3, 1991, with no separate premiere date, city or venue confirmed. The US date comes from Box Office Mojo and is confirmed.

The UK release followed on August 16, 1991 and the Australian release on September 5, 1991, both as reported by TMDB. Box Office Mojo and TMDB list no premiere event, so the theatrical openings are the starting points for the film's run.

The film's commercial run is covered on the franchise Terminator box office page.

The ending of Terminator 2 destroys both Terminators and the Cyberdyne research, but it never confirms that Judgment Day has been prevented. That distinction is the whole point of the final scene.

In the steel mill, Sarah and the reactivated T-800 push the T-1000 into the molten steel, and the leftover Terminator parts are thrown in after it. John throws in the old Terminator's arm and chip himself. The T-800 then argues that it must also be destroyed so its technology can never help build Skynet, even though John is in tears and does not want to lose it. Sarah lowers it into the vat, and it gives a thumbs up as it sinks.

The ending removes every physical piece of evidence that could feed Skynet's creation: the chip, the arm and the Cyberdyne research. The sequence is built in order. Dyson realizes his work is based on parts of the first Terminator, he helps the group take those parts and set explosives at Cyberdyne, and he sets them off as police shoot him. The mill then finishes what Cyberdyne started. In my opinion, that makes the heroes act on the cause rather than the symptom, which is a careful piece of plotting for the series.

The last shot still refuses to promise success. Sarah drives down a highway with John and feels hope for an unknown future, which leaves the future open instead of fixed. That is a sharper question than the one the first film closed on, because the sequel's characters now choose to change events instead of only surviving them.

The choice to destroy the T-800 carries the emotional weight. It is the same machine John ordered not to kill people, and its last act is to insist on its own destruction, with a thumbs up as the steel closes over it. Whether that was enough is left to the next film, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

If you want to see where the story began, watch The Terminator.

Terminator 2 was filmed mostly in the Los Angeles area of California, with several well known locations across the region.

The T-1000 channel chase was shot at the Bull Creek spillway in North Hills. The mall sequence used two sites: the interior was filmed at Santa Monica Place in Santa Monica, and the exteriors at the Northridge Fashion Center in Northridge. The steel mill finale was filmed at the Kaiser Steel mill in Fontana.

The 2029 war scenes, with their ruined landscape, were shot at steel mill ruins in Oxnard. The highway chase was filmed on the Terminal Island Freeway in Long Beach.

Those six locations cover the film's biggest set pieces, from the mall escape to the molten steel showdown. Two of them are steel mills, one a working setting for the finale and the other a ruin standing in for the war-torn future, so the film's beginning in 2029 and its end in the mill both rest on the same kind of industrial landscape.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day had a $102 million budget according to Box Office Mojo, and was reported to be the most expensive film made up to that time, according to Wikipedia.

Carolco Pictures bought the rights to the franchise in 1990 for about $17 million, which puts the budget in context: the sequel cost many times what the rights did.

At the box office, the film took about $207 million domestically and about $312 million internationally, for roughly $519 million worldwide according to Box Office Mojo. That is more than five times its budget.