Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Watch The Film Terminator 2: Judgment Day

By Naomi Gilliam

Terminator 2 - Judgment Day is one of the best action/sci-fi movies that has ever been put to screen. Though it may not seem like it has much to say about the human condition, it actually has a few things to say. Add to that a little bit of campy dialog and action and some wonderful cinematography and you are left with a very charming movie.

The story takes a small group of people, the Conners and the original Terminator, and pits them against a much more powerful force. The T-1000 is as indestructible to the original Terminator as he was to the Conners when he first showed up in the first movie.

The heroes in the story are trying to stop a global Armageddon that is going to have the machines taking over the world. There is a thought that occurs to Sarah about halfway through the movie that she is going to be able to stop this impending doom of the human race. We find out in the next movie that, though they seem to succeed in this movie, they only managed to move the date back of this take over.

There are many aspects of fate to consider in this movie. Sarah was fated to be the mother of the savior of the human race. John was meant to be that savior. They never were given a choice in this. Sarah wasn't even pregnant yet when the first Terminator showed up, so she clearly had no idea what was in store for her.

There is also the issue of the status of the mental health system in America. Even though the audience knows that she is not crazy, and that the future really is going to be dominated by robots in the future, the people in the present are all too quick to throw Sarah into a mental health lock-up because of her wild claims.

Yet everyone treats her like she is a completely insane woman. Are the filmmakers trying to say that, at the time this movie came out, mental health providers aren't much more than professional guessers when it comes to mental illness? That if they don't believe something than it must be a problem with the other person? They don't go into this too much, so much of this has to be inferred, but there might be something there.

The major issue of fate is that of John Conner. He is supposed to be this great savior of mankind, and yet he isn't even really sure that he believes it. He is just a kid trying to get by and living with a mother who is probably crazy. He has no idea what to believe, and yet the audience knows what to believe - he's going to kick some robot butt when he gets older.

The strange thing about Terminator 2 - Judgment Day is that if we take the time-traveling robots out of the equation, then we see a completely different story. Without them showing up, John is being raised by a series of foster parents and a crazy woman. He is being told crazy things that really don't make a lot of sense. And it's all coming from the mind of a very seriously mentally ill woman. Fortunately, the robots do so up, so instead of a story about a horribly dysfunctional family, we are instead treated to a story with some of the most amazing action sequences ever put on film. - 40732

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