By The Numbers
* Over 1 million feet of film was shot and printed. 11 cameras were used to capture the explosion at Cyberdyne HQ. The film has over 300 effects shots which total almost 16 minutes of running time. The damaged Terminator look in the climax of the film took five hours to apply and an hour to remove.
* After each take of this nightmare sequence, it would take on average two days to set the model up to shoot again. It took three takes to properly capture the helicopter crashing on the freeway. There are around 200 different types of weapons used in the film.
* The Terminator states that 'Skynet' goes on-line on August 4th 1997, and becomes self aware at 0214 EST on August 29th 1997. The movie's line "Hasta la vista, baby." was voted as the #76 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
* Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Sci-Fi" in June 2008. Held the world record for highest opening-weekend gross of an R-rated film (with $52,306,548) until The Matrix Reloaded (2003).
* This is the only 'Terminator' film to win (or be nominated for) an Oscar. It won 4 (and was nominated for 2 others). In 78 years, this is the only sequel to win an Academy Award when the previous movie wasn't even nominated.
* The date of the fictional Judgement Day - 29 August 1997 - is the anniversary of the Soviet Union's first detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949. For all of the mayhem and violence in this movie, 16 (at the most) characters actually die.
Of the people we know get killed, there are three soldiers, the armored truck driver and his gunner, the cop, Lewis the guard, a mall employee, the trucker, Todd and Janelle Voight, a cop on a motorcycle, Dr. Miles Bennett Dyson, and the tanker truck driver.
We're not exactly sure if the police helicopter pilot or the pickup truck driver dies (they both fall from a high place). The T-1000 is directly or indirectly responsible for most of the deaths. Surprisingly, the Terminator never kills anyone, only injures people.
Marketing
* The following products and brands can be seen in the film: Food - Dunkin' Donuts, Miller Lite, Miller High Life, Miller Genuine Draft, Budweiser, Lady Lee Milk (Lady Lee was now-defunct Lucky supermarket's house brand.
In real life, Lady Lee package graphic design was completely changed immediately following this film's release, probably due to the gruesome scene in which the milk appears), Pepsi, Subway, Lays; Video Games - Atari, Bally, Midway (Trog!, Space Invaders), Sega (After Burner), Williams (Hit the Ice); Magazines - Traditional Home, Interior Design, House Beautiful; Vehicles - Chevrolet, Toyota, Freightliner, Mitsubishi, Harley Davidson, Ford; Bands - Public Enemy, Guns & Roses; Other - Pentax, Pacific Bell (now AT&T).
* One of the tag lines for the movie was 'It's nothing personal'. This was a play on many movies from around that time that had the tag line 'This time, it's personal'.
* Despite the film's R rating, numerous children's toys were released based on it.
* On the DVD, by highlighting "Sensory Control" and pressing the right navigation button five times until the words "The Future is Not Set" appear, then selecting the phrase, the menu will alter, offering the Theatrical Version of the film instead of the Special Edition for viewing.
* For the early promotion of the movie, promotional material avoided showing Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, the T-800, together with John Connor (Edward Furlong), in order to hide the fact that Schwarzenegger played a 'good' Terminator this time. Later trailers and pictures would reveal that he did not play the 'bad guy' this time.
* Footage from this movie was used in a 2008 DirecTV commercial.
Scenes in the screenplay but not filmed
* Extended Future War sequence where the resistance won and enter a SkyNet lab where they find the time-portal and a storage facilities of Terminators. You also see Reese talking to John.
* Sarah's ECT where Sarah is fitted for electro-convulsive therapy and voltage is pumped into her.
* Salceda's death sequence. Sal's dog starts barking, Sal goes out and tries to shoot the T-1000 but fails. T-1000 uses the pointed finger/sword trick to Sal's shoulder blades saying "I know this hurts. Where is John Connor".
Sal curses him and his hands search around the ground near some crates that held grenades. He kills himself and hopefully the T-1000 with one. No luck.
T-1000 head falls off but like the little piece in the asylum escape sequence, it oozes back into his boots. Yolanda sees this and hugs the baby as T-1000 steps closer. T-1000 picks up the baby and gets the info from her as where John and others had gone.
* Gant Ranch. This section was a longer version of Sal's and refers to Travis Gant, "crazy ex-Green Beret" that John mentions his mother seeing before she was caught.
Longer and has romantic notions between the two. After Sarah, John and the Terminator left, T-1000 kills Gant as he did like with John's "Mom". Disguised as Gant's lover, he easily stepped up to him and tortured him for answers before killing him.
* Dyson's Vision Sequence. Dyson, the creator of the new processor had a dream sequence before he died and dropped the device on the trigger. In it he saw a picture of his family before a nuclear explosion turned it to ash. He sees his family running and then a scene of the sun as it pulls back to reveal Dyson's dying eye before he closes it and drops the book.
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James Cameron
* Director James Cameron fought over the ending with executive producer Mario Kassar. Cameron wanted to end the film with the alternate Coda Ending (the older Sarah in future) as a bookend, but Kassar wanted to end the film in an another way (as a measure for possible sequels). He eventually relented when test audiences and Kassar himself reacted negatively over the coda ending, and he went the existing one.
* James Cameron asked special effects creator Stan Winston to direct a teaser-trailer. Cameron didn't want the trailer to just be early footage, and so with a budget of $150,000, Winston created a trailer that showed a futuristic assembly line churning out copies of Terminators, all of which looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cameron was pleased with this trailer, as he had fears about audience reactions to trailers showing Schwarzenegger returning as a Terminator (after the Terminator in the first film was clearly destroyed).
* After the release of The Abyss (featuring the infamous pseudo-pod scene), James Cameron felt he was ready to start working on this film. However, he knew that half of the film's rights was owned by Hemdale (produced the first film) - ultimately went bankrupt - and the lack of funding prevented him from working. While working on Total Recall with Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, Arnold Schwarzenegger learned of Cameron's intention to work on the film and it was him who urged Kassar and Vajna to buy the rights from Hemdale. Finally, they bought it in February 1990 and Cameron would only start work the following month.
* James Cameron once owned a dog named "Wolfie", short for Beowulf.
Director Trademarks: Feet Don't Fail me now . . .
* When the Terminator and the T1000 meet for the first time, the Terminator takes the gun out of the flower box and walks over the roses. After donning the leather gear, the Terminator's feet are the first thing shown.
* When Sarah, John and the Terminator are chased by the T1000 through the psychiatric clinic, the T1000 walks over the sunglasses that the Terminator had discarded. The terminator in the future crushes a skull with its foot.
Cinema Tricks of the Trade
* The original script did not call for the top of the truck to be ripped off during the chase through the storm drain beside/beneath the freeway, but when they arrived on location they found that the cab wouldn't fit under the overpass so director James Cameron decided that the roof was going to have to come off.
* For Sarah's nightmare of the nuclear holocaust, some of the materials used in the miniature Los Angeles model that mimicked all the destroyed masonry were Matzos crackers and Shredded Wheat.
* To get the van to crash into the Cyberdyne lobby, they sprayed adhesive on the floor to stop the van from skidding too much.
* The explosive ("polydichloric euthimal") used to destroy the Cyberdyne building shares this name with a powerful hallucinogenic drug featured in Outland (1981).
* The artificial substance used instead of melted steel (which would've been far too dangerous to use, sometimes impossible) actually needed to be kept pretty cool to maintain the right density. This meant that the temperature on set was really quite cold, so the actors had to be sprayed with fake sweat in between takes.
* The wind sounds in the opening sequence began through the crack of an open door and were completed in the main mix room at Skywalker Sound by Gary Rydstrom using a Synclavier keyboard.
* According to sound supervisor Gloria S. Borders, approximately 70% of the dialog, and most of the breathing, is ADR (Automated Dialog Replacement/Dubbing). General rule of thumb: the more action in a movie, the more ADR and Foley processing.
* So extensive is the Foley teamwork in T2, just about every incidental movement on screen is replaced: the creaks of the Terminator's leather jacket, his buckle clinks and footsteps. The entire sequence where Sarah escapes from her hospital bed using a paper clip to pick the strap buckle and door lock was nothing but Foley and music.
* All the electrical cabling meant to light the five-mile section of freeway during the liquid nitrogen truck chase was stolen. Not having enough time to replace all of it, the company had to rent or borrow every wire connected to the lighting on the freeway.
* One of the main percussive sounds of Brad Fiedel's score - the metallic beats of the Terminator theme - is not created by a synthesizer. It's Fiedel striking one of his cast-iron frying pans.
* The T101's bike jump into the storm drain was performed by stuntman Peter Kent. The motorbike was supported by one-inch cables, so that when they hit the ground, the bike and rider only weighed 180 pounds. The cables were later digitally erased.
* Special F/X guru Stan Winston and his crew studied hours of nuclear test footage in order to make Sarah Connor's "nuclear nightmare" scene as real as possible. In late 1991, members of several U.S. federal nuclear testing labs unofficially declared it "the most accurate depiction of a nuclear blast ever created for a fictional motion picture".
* The Cyberdyne building in the movie is in fact a two-story structure in Fremont, CA. A phony third floor was constructed on top for the movie. Much of the structure was rebuilt after the filming and the building exists to this day.
* In the ATM scene, John uses an Atari Portfolio hand held computer.
* The steel mill effects were so convincing, some former workers from the plant (which had been closed for over 10 years) thought it was up and running again.
* Due to the tight schedules, there were three editors involved - Mark Goldblatt, Conrad Buff IV and Richard A. Harris - who all worked on separate segments of the film.
* SPOILER: In the fight scene in the steel mill between the two Terminators, the set was liberally dressed with rubber so the actors wouldn't hurt themselves when being flung around.
Miscellaneous
* Identical twins Don Stanton and Dan Stanton played the hospital security guard and the T1000.
* The mall scenes were spread out over two malls. The scenes shot outside the mall were filmed outside of the Northridge Fashion Center in Northridge California. This mall was closed for months after the Northridge earthquake destroyed much of it in 1994. Parts of the parking garage in the movie were destroyed in that earthquake.
* A segment showing the design of the Time Displacement Machine which sent the Terminator and Kyle Reese back in the time in the first film was rejected for the sequel as it was too complicated and not necessary for plot development. The design ultimately resurfaced in 1997 as Jodie Foster's space traveling device in Contact (1997).
* Local residents in Lakeview Terrace held a protest outside the Medical Center when it was dressed to be the Pescadero State Hospital for the Criminally Disordered. They quickly realized it was in fact only a film set.
* The address given in the movie for the Cyberdyne Building is 2144 Kramer Street. This is likely a reference to Joel Kramer, the stunt coordinator for the film.
* The pumps in the gas station forecourt, shown prior to the chip surgery scene, display the "Benthic Petroleum" logo. Benthic Petroleum was the company that owned the submersible drilling rig in one of James Cameron's other movies The Abyss (1989).
* The world famous phrase "Hasta la Vista, Baby" is translated to "Sayonara, Baby" in the Spanish version of the film.
* John Connor's legal guardians (Todd and Janelle Voight) live at 19828 S. Almond Ave., Reseda, CA.
* Cameo: [William Wisher Jr.] Co-writer Wisher is the man taking pictures of the Terminator as it was thrown through the glass window in the galleria. Wisher also had a cameo as a cop who is violently robbed from his car in The Terminator (1984) (hence his look of recognition as he sees the Terminator get up).
* Cameo: [Van Ling] The DVD producer and FX Coordinator appears as Dyson's assistant in the lab.
* In one scene, Miles Dyson's son is seen wearing a Minnesota Twins cap. The Twins won their first World Series in 1987, and the pitch that retired the St. Louis Cardinals in the ninth inning of the seventh and final game was thrown by relief pitcher Jeff Reardon - whose nickname was "The Terminator."
* The idea to destroy the Cyberdyne Systems building to prevent the future war was in the first Terminator movie but was cut from the final release (you can see it in the deleted scenes section of The Terminator (1984) DVD.) James Cameron said it was lucky that he chose to cut that scene in 1984 as it forms the "nucleus" of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
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