Crooked Table Podcast: Episode 139 — Josh Bell / Terminator 2: Judgment Day

With the upcoming release of Terminator: Dark Fate, now is the perfect time to reflect on the series. In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day surpassed James Cameron’s original classic and set a new standard for blockbuster cinema.

Josh Bell of the Awesome Movie Year podcast joins the show to talk about how T2 changed the world of cinema forever. We’ll discuss how Cameron was able to successfully build on his own mythos, what the subsequent sequels have missed, and how we hope that Terminator: Dark Fate will finally get the series back on track.

Aside from our Star Wars series, we’ve only covered a few sequels since the format change. But like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Skyfall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day transcends its genre to deliver something far grander.

Come with us if you want to listen.

SYNOPSIS

In this sequel set 11 years after “The Terminator,” young John Connor (Edward Furlong) — the key to civilization’s victory over a future robot uprising — is the target of the shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a Terminator sent from the future to kill him. Another Terminator, the revamped T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), has been sent back to protect the boy. As John and his mother (Linda Hamilton) go on the run with the T-800, the boy forms an unexpected bond with the robot.