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.

This movie pits the ragtag group of John Conner, Sarah Conner, and the Terminator against a much more futuristic Terminator known as the T-1000. The T-1000 is a nearly indestructible robot from further into the future than the original Terminator.

The heroes of the story are trying to stop the global Armageddon that lead to the rise in the machines. They believe that if they can change a few things in the present, then the robots will never be able to rise up against the humans. By the end of the movie they think that they have succeeded. We find out later, in the next movie, that they only moved back the date of the robots taking over.

There is a lot about fate in this movie. Fate and destiny are recurring themes throughout the series. Strangely, there is a lot about changing fate, changing the future. There is a little bit of a modern political argument that can be seen here. Environmentalists say that humans are destroying the planet with pollution, but that we can still change the future and save the planet. This argument may or may not hold water, but what is safe to say is that it is a big topic, and this movie was on top of it a long time before it came into the mainstream of politics.

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.

Everyone treats her like she is nuts. The filmmakers may be trying to say that this is part of the problem with our system. If someone says something that seems outlandish, it must be mental illness. Granted what she was saying did seem very crazy, and maybe they were trying to point out how hard it was to be Sarah Conner and not really saying anything bad about our health care system, but it seems fair that it could be saying something about both.

John Conner is supposed to be the great savior of mankind when he grows up. Yet at the time of this movie he is just a kid who has had a bizarre upbringing and is starting to get into a life of crime (stealing from ATM machines). John doesn't actually know that what his mom has told him is true anymore than the mental health professionals think its true.

It is strange to think that if you take the time travel and the robots out of Terminator 2 - Judgment Day, then you are left with a story of an insane woman, a kid that is being bounced around in the system, and a complete lack of caring or understanding from anyone else in the world. Thankfully for the theater going population the robots do show up and engage in some seriously awesome showdowns for our amusement. But it would be such a sad movie about a lost kid if it weren't for those robots. - 40729

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