Terminator 2: Judgment Day features some of the best action scenes in the sci-fi genre, and one of them was accidentally foreshadowed in The Terminator. James Cameron’s Terminator franchise began in 1984 with the film simply titled The Terminator, following Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) who is chased by a cyborg assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger) that was sent back in time to kill her and thus avoid the existence of her son, John Connor. The film spawned five sequels, including the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate, but only one is regarded as an all-time great action movie.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day followed the time travel plot of the first film, but with a twist (and a more developed story): this time, a reprogrammed Terminator was sent back in time to protect young John Connor (Edward Furlong), while while a more advanced Terminator known as the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) was sent to kill him. There are many action scenes in the film, the most impressive of which occurs in the first act, after John’s first encounter with both Terminators, and mirrors a scene from the first film.
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In the first film, after being chased by the Terminator on a motorcycle and wounding Kyle (Michael Biehn), Sarah knocks him off the motorcycle and loses control of the car, flipping over. The Terminator then hijacks a tanker truck and chases Sarah, trying to run her over, but is stopped (momentarily, of course) by Kyle pulling a pipe bomb onto the truck’s hose, causing it to explode. In Terminator 2, the cyborgs and John Connor come face to face in a shopping mall and John escapes on his motorcycle. The T-1000 then steals a truck and the Terminator pursues them on his motorcycle.
As in the first film, the evil cyborg chases Connor in a truck, although John had a greater advantage than his mother, who had to literally run for her life. There’s another scene in the third act of Terminator 2 where the T-1000 hijacks a truck again, only this time Sarah, John and the Terminator have a car to make the escape easier than before.
These car chase/truck scenes are also a reference to one of James Cameron’s odd jobs prior to becoming a filmmaker. After dropping out of college, Cameron worked as a janitor and truck driver, but kept writing in his free time. Surely, a car chase involving a truck, and with the protagonist in
The downside (whether it’s having to run or ride a motorcycle) is much more severe than that of conventional cars, but it’s also a fun nod to Cameron’s pre-Hollywood life – never forget your roots, they say.
Cameron reportedly quit his job as a truck driver after watching Star Wars in 1977, which gave him the push he needed to pursue a full-time career in filmmaking. He made his directorial debut in 1982 with Piranha 2: The Spawning, and The Terminator came out two years later – and was the only one that could include a chase scene involving a truck, for old times’ sake. Of course, the scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day was better and is considered one of the best fight scenes.