Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

I forgot how much I actually like this movie. Just a generally very well constructed action movie, even in spite of the sappy relationship between John and the Terminator - but that's not why we're here.

Already, the Terminator/Schwarzenegger character is becoming self-reflexive, with tongue-in-cheek references to the previous film abound. What is interesting however, is how these recontextualized repetitions serve to signify the changed roles: The Terminator takes Reese's line, "Come with me if you want to live," and becomes the protector, while Sarah is the one presented in a video freeze frame of her seemingly insane rants about the future by the dopey Dr. Silberman, now filling the role of crazy person who knows the truth.

The cyclical nature of the franchise is really a defining feature - everything that happens, happens because of actions in the future, which happen because of actions in the past, which happen ... etc. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the new trilogy - if the theme of the original trilogy (or at least the first two films) is that there is no fate, surely the new trilogy must rely on predestination in order to not render the original trilogy logically nonextant. John Connor of the future must send back Kyle Reese in order to be born; must send back the second Terminator to protect his childhood self; Kate Brewster-Connor must send back the third Terminator to protect both herself and the young adult John Connor, who is to be her husband. If the new trilogy strays from this, it will have to create a pretty complex system of rationalization in order to preseve the continuity of the franchise.

A shot of the T-1000 crushing the Terminator's sunglasses with its foot made me think - what is the relationship between film-maker trademarks (in this case, James Cameron and things being crushed by feet) and franchise conventions? Particularly interesting to consider in franchises such as this, or the Indiana Jones films, where the same directors or screenwriters are involved with multiple entries into the canon. I suppose in many cases, elements of the franchise are simply both, or begin as one but eventually become the other. Curious.