After watching the first Terminator film earlier in the week, eldest and I tried to watch T2 Judgment Day the other night (he saw it once, in his teen years, and maybe just the theatrical version), but my disk had gone bad with the full super-extended cut so I had to order the more recent release/replacement from 2015 or so. Basically this transfer is the best currently for the film (it's the bluray Studio Canal did, I think), it is just missing the few rare additions like when the T-1000 uses his tactile abilities to find John's cache of letters from Sarah hidden in his bedroom. But it still is the regular extended cut, with the chip reprogramming, and the Kyle sequence, and the damage to the T-1000 after it gets shattered, etc. So this is the "best narrative cut" of the film out there in general.
Since we had to wait for it to arrive, we watched Dark Fate (T-6) instead. I think the film was harshed on too much by the critics, because (1) of the opening five minutes which is really frustrating to view and (2) the fact that there have just been too many Terminator films and it is "too little, too late." I consider it a modern retelling of T2, doing some course correction work and trying to wipe 3-5 out of the narrative stream. If T2 did not exist, it would be fairly decent. However, T2 was decent enough that it makes anything else look inferior. So to me Dark Fate is the third best T film, and it did have Cameron's involvement in the story direction.
There's actually some decent action sequences plus cool parallels in the film itself + compared to prior films. My son agrees that Mackenzie Davis (Grace) is the coolest part of the film. Sarah Connor is handled pretty well, I though, and believably so. And despite the shock of the opening sequence, I think the film then takes responsibility to explore what this means and it ENDS with a kind of grace for Sarah in that while maybe she changed her own future so that the Skynet threat no longer existed, she does not become obsolete but actually has value in a person and even a replacement mission / purpose now with value. I like how the film redeems the arcs of the various characters beyond T2 and also makes some adjustments to the mythology to bring it more up to speed with diversity. (I also see the film as a big FU to the last administration, during which this film rolled out. The light it places immigrants in and the decency of the Mexican people in the film really seems positioned purposefully to undermine the US gov stance at the time.)
Anyway, getting back to T2 -- I'm always amazed at how well this film holds up thirty years after release. Even the special effects (some practical, but the big one being the morph CGI which was virtually invented for this film and then suddenly started popping up in PC software within 2 years -- I remember that glut) hold up pretty well despite a little aging. (I.e., the T2 in pure metal form can move a little clunkily, but the morphing itself still seems seamless.) But more than that, this was Cameron in his prime. He was getting bigger budgets but he was pretty meticulous with his story framing. There's a lot of parallel story framing here, throwing back to the first film and even parallels within the film itself.
The other thing is just the logic and consistency of his characters. Cameron (before he devolved a bit by Titanic and Avatar -- those are blockbuster films with more focus on hype and feel and epic-ness) in his early days really excelled with (1) making characters behave sensibly in semi-fantastic scenarios and (2) managing to convey a lot about a character even if not much information is provided about them, i.e., the triumph of the archetypical character that actually feels complex. Some of this is scripting, some might be the directing and acting -- because he typically has a pretty solid cast in his films as well. His skill in this area was really apparent in T2 and Aliens, then slowly began to drop off the more popular he became (and maybe he stopped trying so hard).
But you look at the foster parents, who are pretty generic but by how they talk and act, they stick out, esp the mom. Doc Silverman is memorable despite only being in each film a few minutes. Even the aides are easily recalled (like that sleazebag Dougie). I think one of the best is Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), who you might suspect to be a callous tech creep out for cash and indifferent to the impending death of humanity he was setting up... but Morton plays him as a family-man geek, who sometimes gets swept up in the zone because he loves tech and the process of discovery and creation... yet he still chooses his family when pushed to make a choice, and when he finds out what the last years of his life will lead to, he immediately agrees to destroy his life's work because he can't live with the thought of what will happen. It's not just a pragmatic choice for him, he feels compassion for others. I love also how he remains a bit fearful as they break into Cyberdine and not very talented with weapons or demolitions... and yet he finds courage in himself to do what he has to do. Morton just brings a lot of humanity to the role but also Cameron's angle on the character was unexpected + good. I also appreciate the logic of the T2, how it works, what it can and can't do, and how it starts to break down after being shattered even as it reforms. Even its death throes are poignant, as it reflexively cycles (in what we might view as "horror/anguish") through all of the forms we've seen it take. THe action sequences are just so story-boarded out well, the film makes even more sense (with the T-101 "learning" things) after its chip is reset, and the attempt to show a machine can learn what it means to be human even if it cannot feel things like a human... which is also mirrored in T6.
Cameron has pretty decent story instincts. Even the Reese scene -- I love how it's both a dream and a nightmare, the way it's handled... Biehn plays Reese almost like a spectre coming back to warn/remind Sarah of what she must do, and he maintains a haunted look in his eyes.
