Blu-ray Review – Terminator 2: Judgment Day

There’s not much arm-twisting required to get me to watch this film… again. It’s an all-time favourite of mine and never seems to age.

In a total transformation from her character in the first film, this Sarah Connor is a total badass (bravo Linda Hamilton): fierce, determined and taking no prisoners. The evil terminator gets to be, well, not evil and there’s a more advanced bad guy on hand to blend creepy with oddly amusing. Oh and John is all grown up and figuring his way through his teenage rebellion stage.

So, what would possess me to check out a whole new version for this fully restored new home cinema release? Simple. Bonus features!

A lot of features that are on there are ones you may already know about as they came with the previous home cinema release. There is feature commentary with cast and crew such as Linda Hamilton and Robert Patrick; another feature commentary with James Cameron and co-author William Wisher; trailers and much more. Added to the mix, though, is a new documentary about the making of the film: a documentary that contains interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron, Edward Furlong and more.

And when you’re as familiar with a film as many film-fans no doubt are with this one, getting that little extra insight only adds to the magic. You get to see how props and puppetry were combined with special effects, hear how Linda Hamilton felt about her character and get insider info on casting choices (the two versions of the coffee cup guy were actually twins). Fans can also hear about last-minute changes to a scene, like when Schwarzenegger persuaded Cameron to let him actually say ‘I need a vacation’ when the note came originally from a piece of direction in the script not dialogue. And prepare to feel the pain of the poor guy who put his heart and soul into making a certain prop which – once it had been used – would then be rendered junk.

So let the hours run away with you as you join Sarah and John and the Terminator as they struggle to save the world, speak the lingo and learn about the meaning of life and why it’s just not OK to go around killing people – even if they do get their kicks licking your face. And then find out how they did it.

It’s been a quarter of a century since this film first came out and there’s still so much to learn about it – and so much fun to be had by revisiting it.

And if you’re fortunate enough to have a 3D TV – there’s that possibility, too!

The fully restored formats are released on Monday 4th December.