#2 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day

(Continuing The James Cameron Project with #2....)

Intro: Wes Craven’s Scream 2 has a self-aware scene in which film students debate the merits of various sequels, struggling to locate one that actually improves on its predecessor. The students dismiss sequels one after another until they reach two films they have no quick answer for. One is The Godfather: Part II, possibly the best sequel ever made. The other is Terminator 2.

Now, I might pick a few nits about Godfather II being better than the original, but I don’t see how anyone can argue against T2. The sequel is a step up in every department, from the miracle screenplay, to the performances, the action, and the pioneering special effects. It’s a near perfect adventure film, has barely aged a day since 1991, and is one of the biggest hits in Cameron’s career.

It’s Judgment Day!

The Movie: (Note: this synopsis is of the extended director’s cut.) It’s been ten years since Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) survived Skynet’s attempt on her life. John Connor (Edward Furlong), alleged future savior of the human race, is a ten-year old delinquent swiping cash from hacked ATMs. To be fair, he’s just acting out because Mom is locked in a looney bin for ranting about killer cyborgs and trying to blow up a computer factory. Sarah, meanwhile, makes the most of her time in the slam. She attends craft time, works on her memoirs, and gets totally stinking ripped.

Once we’re past the exposition, two Terminators arrive -- one sent to kill John, the other to protect him. This time, the cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the good guy, programmed to battle an even more dangerous machine, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick). This new model is constructed from liquid metal, able to shape shift at will and re-form when damaged. The Arnie-bot is clearly outclassed.

Back at the institution, Sarah dreams of John’s father, Reese (Michael Biehn), who warns her that their son is in danger. How he knows is a damned mystery, since he’s equally dead, yet to be born, and a figment of Sarah’s subconscious.

Still, he’s right, and the two Terminators clash over John at a local mall. After a massive chase down a Los Angeles drainage ditch, John discovers he’s the proud owner of a Terminator, programmed to obey his every command. Command #1: No killing. Command #2: Spring mom from the nuthouse.

What follows is an extended chase sequence, as John, Sarah, and Arnold flee the T-1000 at the institution and out of the city, eventually hiding with an old revolutionary acquaintance of Sarah’s. There, John and the Terminator bond, while Sarah dreams of nuclear war and the hell of Judgment Day. Shaken by her dreams, Sarah decides to take action, leaves her son with the robot, and tracks down a scientist named Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), who is on the very edge of launching the Skynet computer that will one day destroy mankind. She plans to terminate him before he does.

John and the Terminator follow, arriving just in time to stop Sarah from murdering Dyson. As a Plan B, Arnie reveals his true nature and recites the tale of Skynet’s war, converting a stunned Dyson to the good guys.

Dyson smuggles the team into his company’s office building, where they destroy any and all material on the Skynet program. The resulting fracas and shenanigans attracts a hundred human cops… and one made of liquid metal. Dyson is killed in all the chaos, but the mission is a success. Skynet is on the ropes.

The T-1000 still has his sights on John, and the ensuing freeway chase eventually crashes into a steel mill. The two Terminators fight amongst the machinery, with the T-1000 briefly taking the advantage before the Arnie-bot blows it up with a grenade launcher. Grenades aren’t fatal to the T-1000, but it stumbles and falls into a vat of molten steel, which for damn sure is. It melts away to nothing, followed by the last of the bits from the Skynet project… and the remaining Terminator, who has decided he must be destroyed for the threat of Skynet to truly end. John cries, Arnie gives the thumbs up, and Sarah lowers the bot into the steel. In the last shot, as a car drives down an open highway to an unknown future, Sarah wonders that if a Terminator can learn the value of human life, can we?

The Scene: Against my better judgment, I’m going with a crowd pleaser. As the freeway chase crashes into the mill, a liquid nitrogen truck explodes, drenching the T-1000. He freezes solid, cracking and breaking all the way.

With a deadpan “Hasta la vista, baby,” Arnie-bot aims, fires a round, and shatters the T-1000 into a million little pieces. Amazingly, the scene gets better. The heat from the molten steel thaws the frozen pieces into little puddles, which then lump back together, allowing the robot to reform completely.

This scene is really cool. It’s also beyond stupid. Why do the good-guys wait until the damn thing has gotten up to start running from it? They just stare, no doubt transfixed by the special effects. In the extended edition, the T-1000 struggles with shape shifting after reforming, but this was cut from the theatrical version. So, literally, there is no reason for the scene except that it looks cool. I usually pick a scene here that really impacts the film, but I have to confess that this piece of eye candy is my first thought when I hear the title Terminator 2.

The Line: Arnie’s Spanish lesson (see above) is the film’s most famous line, but I think the best is the sneaky message of the entire film – “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” It resonates with us, not just as Reese’s words from the first film, but as the one shining bit of hope in a grimly pessimistic series.

The Production: A sequel to The Terminator was an easy sell to the studio, but it took considerable time to pull together. Schwarzenegger was now a bankable star, and the notoriously career-minded Austrian had vowed to play no more villains (not named Mr. Freeze), while Cameron focused his energies into his ambitious epic, The Abyss. Ironically, although The Abyss severely delayed production, its innovations in computer technology helped bring T2 to life.

Cameron first envisioned a shape shifting, liquid enemy while writing the first film, but the budget and technological limits ruled it out. Then along came the water tentacle from The Abyss, proving that a digitally animated creature can stand up in a live-action film. Suddenly, the T-1000 looked possible.

The triumph of T2 is how high Cameron set the bar, while still sailing over it. If the water tentacle didn’t work, the scene was expendable. If the T-1000 didn’t work, that’s what we call a “$100 million dollar oops”. T2 was the most expensive movie ever filmed at its time, and the entire production hung on whether or not that effect worked. That, and a 10-year old with no acting experience holding his own against Arnold. And the script – written in only six weeks – not totally sucking. And an audience accepting Arnold as another Terminator when he was so clearly destroyed in the first film (that was an actual concern at the time.)

Little wonder, then, that Cameron allowed his stress level spill to over on the set. By this point, there’s no use in listing his crew’s complaints; we’ve heard them all. Instead, I’ll just publish this amusing quote from Bill Wyman at Salon.com: “…a sound man says Cameron, dissatisfied with a strangled scream on the soundtrack, ended up personally providing a presumably more suitable one. It's all told with a sort of forced joviality; but you don't have to listen too closely to get the sense the guy wouldn't have minded inducing the scream from Cameron himself.”

A James Cameron Film: Just as in the first Terminator, the heroes are saved by machinery in a working factory, using tools we control to destroy tools we’ve lost control of. As usual, this seems to suggest that the answer to humanity’s problem isn’t “no technology”, but “technology in balance.” Of course, the theme of nuclear holocaust carries over from the first Terminator. Also, Sarah Connor has now evolved into a more typical Cameron heroine, tough, no-nonsense, driven. A super-mom. Plus, Arnold Schwarzenegger and (in the extended cut) Michael Biehn.

Lasting Impact: The impact of Terminator 2 is still now being felt. Digital characters have advanced far enough to merit Oscar discussion (Andy Serkis as both Gollum and King Kong), but I get the impression that most of the digital critters out there are still trying to replicate the success of the T-1000. The total digital effects in T2 add up to about 3 ½ minutes worth of the 2+ hour film, yet very few digital villains (even those with way more screen time) have approached the same level of awe. A lot of that is Robert Patrick’s note-perfect performance, but credit also belongs to Industrial Light and Magic and the mind of James Cameron. The film is simply a landmark of spectacle cinema, as much a high-water mark as The Matrix would be nearly a decade later.

Reason for Ranking: While critics and fans alike praise the movie for being a near-perfect action film, it’s still only James Cameron’s second best sequel. The top film on this list so clearly earned its place that, for all its merits, T2 could only ever be #2. See you at the finish line, in the future, where no one can hear you scream.

The James Cameron Project:

1. ???

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

3. Titanic

4. True Lies

5. The Terminator

6. The Abyss

7. Ghosts of the Abyss

8. Piranha II: The Spawning

#3 - Titanic

(Continuing The James Cameron Project with #3...)


Intro: I like Titanic. I like it enough to be annoyed I must start a discussion of the film by stating I do, in fact, like it. Titanic is the world’s biggest box office smash; nearly $2 billion in total business, one ticket at a time. The movie dominated its year both financially and critically, but since those crazy days has faced an equal and opposite backlash. Opinion polls call Titanic one of the worst Best Picture winners in history, and occasionally just the worst film… period. To today’s film crowd, any movie loved by so many people so unconditionally just can’t be good. Hating Titanic is an easy way to be different, to plant a flag on one’s own little island while the masses party in Cancun.

Titanic certainly has its faulty rivets, the most prominent being its clunky screenplay. The film’s power is not in the words, however, but the craft. James Cameron put more into Titanic than would be expected, or even reasonable, then not only caught the lightning but sold the bottle over and over and over again. This film is a Hollywood legend and, in spite of its flaws, deserves to be examined honestly and not as an easy punchline to a familiar joke.

The Particulars: We open on hero shots of the Titanic leaving port in 1912 before jaunting to the present-day wreck, where the improbably named Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) leads an elite team of nerds in pursuit of a priceless blue diamond called “The Heart of the Ocean”. The team fails to locate the stone, instead discovering some well-preserved pornography. Jump cut to California where the 101-year old Rose Calvert (Gloria Stuart) sees the porn on TV and boldly declares that the woman in the picture – and wearing the diamond – is her. Lovett flies Rose out to his salvage boat to hear her tale.

In 1912, Ms. Calvert was Rose Dewitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), a 17-year old heiress engaged to the wealthy Cal Hockley (Billy f’n Zane), who made his fortune on Pittsburgh steel and being a dickshaft. She boards the Titanic in ultra first class as Hockley boasts that God himself couldn’t sink the ship. Nearby, a penniless drifter named Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) wins a steerage ticket on a lucky hand of poker, races to jump on board, and quickly declares he’s the king of the world.

Once the ship hits open sea, Rose has a battle with depression. She feels trapped by her future and contemplates leaping off the back of the ship, a plan narrowly averted by Jack.

(Jack, here’s a hint. Don’t hit on a girl in the midst of a suicide attempt! It’s, like, the number one warning sign!)

Hockley rewards Jack’s heroism with a humiliating invite to dine in first class with the “gentlemen” the next evening. After suffering through that gauntlet, Jack shows Rose a real party by taking her below decks for some raucous Irish dancing. Their budding flirtations are quickly halted, however, when Hockley discovers Rose’s actions and becomes abusive. Rose cuts it off with Jack. (Fickle, Jack. Fickle! Another warning sign!)

Jack refuses to give up, and eventually Rose agrees to run away with him. She asks Jack to draw her portrait, wearing only the giant diamond Hockley bought for her. Jack obliges, and the pair soon steam up the back of a locked car. Love is great! Love is grand! Hey, is that an iceberg?

CRRRUNNCH.

The movie really shifts into gear as the boat begins to sink. Jack and Rose and Hockley play out their love triangle amidst the chaos of the collapsing vessel. Morality plays break out all over the ship. The crew locks third class passengers in steerage, so that the wealthy can get first pick at the lifeboats. Violence breaks out on the top deck. Children are used as bartering chips. Jack and Rose finally escape Hockley, but with no boats left they are forced to cling to the ship as it finally goes under. They become just two of the 1500 flailing, screaming survivors. Jack helps Rose onto a piece of driftwood, but with no way to save himself he makes Rose promise to live each day to the fullest, then promptly freezes to death. (Told ya, Jack.) When one boat finally does return, Rose drops Jack’s dead weight and gets herself rescued. She wraps up her story by arriving in New York, slipping past Hockley and living out the rest of her happy, full life.

What she neglects to tell Kurt Vanderjack Brock Lovett is that she kept the diamond. After the crew goes to sleep, old Rose slips out onto the deck of the ship, tosses the priceless, inhumanly valuable diamond into the water. She then dies in her sleep and her soul returns to Titanic, where she is cursed to spend a hellish afterlife with the rest of the damned and prideful victims who dared challenge the power of a vengeful God.

Er, I mean she has a romantic reunion with her long lost love.

The Scene: It’s tough to pick one single scene, so I’m going to point to the entire last hour of the film. Even if he’s awkward with staging a believable love story, James Cameron can sink shit real good. As he stated when pitching the film, “The Titanic story is like a great novel that really happened.” The ship was going too fast. Rescuers ignored calls for help. A class war played itself out over the course of a terrifying hour, and rich and poor alike froze to death in the North Atlantic. The real story is so compelling that throwing a fictional romance on top could have been overkill, but instead catapulted the film to another level. And it’s all because the movie didn’t skimp on the goods. Want to watch a boat sink? This is how it’s done.

The Line: It’s fitting that in a movie with a famously weak script, the best piece of dialogue is an ad-lib. Forget that “king of the world” crap. When Jack and Rose are rising out of the ocean on the back of the world’s biggest sinking ocean liner, moments from the vessel cracking in two, Rose turns to Jack and says – “Jack… this is where we first met.” It’s a cheese-free, touching moment between the two of them, and it was suggested by Winslet as an on-set improv.

The Production: Reams have been written about the terror of filming Titanic. A book on the making of the film actually spent time on the best-sellers list, the most successful movie tie-in book of its kind. The words “militaristic” and “tyrannical” came up multiple times in my research and, just as in The Abyss, both lead actors have suggested they wouldn’t work with Cameron again in the future.

Cameron became obsessed with the wreck after visiting it to collect footage for a pitch. He eventually got two studios to split the costs and the distribution rights. Good thing, because by the time Cameron was done, the budget for the film was a whopping $200 million dollars, an astronomical sum in 1997.

Cameron’s visit to the wreck flipped a switch in his brain. He became utterly obsessed with not only the story, but with getting every detail exactly and painstakingly correct. Every prop and set is so close to the real thing that it IS the real thing, right down to the White Star logo on the dinnerware. Cameron even built a full-scale replica of the ship, accurate down to the rivets, minus one side and some redundant deck sections. The filming took place in a 17 million gallon tank in Mexico, but moved to a smaller tank – “only” five million gallons – to sink the interiors. The shoot lasted nearly six months, with Cameron acting as his usual charming self. One disgruntled employee took revenge by lacing the cast and crew’s chowder with PCP, sending several to the hospital. He was never caught.

Meanwhile, the reputation of the film was sinking. The media loves a Hollywood bust, and Titanic looked like a big one. Delays in production pushed the film from its planned July opening into December, and Cameron’s obsessions seemed like overpriced indulgence. The critics smelled blood. Titanic was considered, no question, a sure bet to bomb. The film opened at #1, barely, with $28 million and pundits warned it had no chance to recoup its costs. And then the insanity began. Kids who don’t remember the Titanic winter have nothing to compare it to. It was a phenomenon, like Star Wars had been decades earlier. Sell-outs were common, even a month after its release. The film rode this wave of success to the Oscars, netting 11, including Cameron’s only Best Director and Best Picture wins. When Cameron raised his Oscar at the awards, he shouted that he was “king of the world.” After surviving this ordeal, I’m sure he felt like exactly that.

…A James Cameron Film: By now, we’ve established Cameron’s technological themes. He exposes the dangers of relying solely on technology, while saluting its use as a tool. There has never been a story that sums up this theme as completly as that of the Titanic. The sheer arrogance of the owners and builders of that ship, and the dramatic irony that brings about their deaths, is ripe for Cameron’s brand of storytelling, and he plays it to perfection. His Titanic is an observation of how the human spirit breaks down when our technology collapses from underneath us, and how we are slaves to our tools, whether they be real (the ship) or imaginary (the social ladders we use to define “us” from “them.”) Combine that with the ocean setting, his strong female hero, and the presence of Bill Paxton and you have an essential James Cameron work.

Lasting Impact: Two blights upon America, courtesy of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor knock-off and Celine Dion’s ridiculous song, “My Heart Will Go On.”

Beyond that? The film launched Leonardo DiCaprio into superstardom, much to his everlasting anger. After being dragged against his will through tween publications like Tiger Beat and Cute Boy Giggle Book, Leo hid away in a cave and gradually rebuilt a solid, respectable career. Kate Winslet likewise hid away in the UK for a while and has become a strong, fearless actress. While they each owe their celebrity to this film, they struggled for years to distance themselves from it, to be taken seriously as actors instead of stars lucking into the biggest movie hit in history. Sadly, coupled with the public backlash I mentioned earlier, that appears to be the film’s biggest legacy – people trying to survive the film’s reputation and forge ahead without it.

Reason for Ranking: The decision in front of me is whether I look at Titanic as a story, or as a film. Can I separate the script from the accomplishment? Cameron is responsible for both, so it was a tough, tough choice. My final verdict is that the love story in the script is creaky, no question, but the filmmaking is so far ahead of the game that Titanic overcomes this flaw. There is passion and craft hanging on every frame, and the monumental achievement in bringing this film to life cannot be overlooked. I won’t allow some awkward dialogue to detract from Cameron’s victory – this film should have been impossible, was destined to sink its studio, and yet did much, much more than succeed. It conquered. As an accomplishment, it cracks the top three, but the script keeps it from rising any further.

The James Cameron Project:

1. ???

2. ???

3. Titanic

4. True Lies

5. The Terminator

6. The Abyss

7. Ghosts of the Abyss

8. Piranha II: The Spawning