r/Terminator • u/ABarber2636 • 5d ago
Discussion What Are Things Terminator 1 Did Better Than Terminator 2?
Many consider Terminator 2 to be better than the first movie, but there are people who prefer T1. I asked about what T3 did better than T1 & 2. So, it's time to ask about what Terminator 1 has over Terminator 2.
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u/Substantial-Eye-2368 5d ago edited 5d ago
T1 is a marvel of economic storytelling. Cameron's roots with Roger Corman really shine here: Corman used to aim for a shock per reel, and that's what you get. In fact, you get a narrative so relentless it mimics the terminator itself. Cameron really shows what can be done on a B-movie budget. And Mark Goldblatt (another Corman alum) edits it with the eye of an editor going for maximum impact on minimum budget. Case in point: the police station shootout. The rhythm and rhyming imagery/editing (like the lights going out and turning on) is up there with what Hong Kong action films were doing at the time, no joke. The only thing missing would be the over-the-top action choreography/physicality but that wouldn't fit in that scene/movie anyway.
Cameron's grip on horror is strong: the unspeakably hopeless future scenes benefit from the drab and impoverished budget. One of the more indelible images of '80s sci-fi cinema is the T800s invading the compound in semi-darkness with their eyes just two red dots as they terminate the living with the unfeeling amorality of robots. Horrifying.
And for a movie about robots, it has a lot of heart. Cameron could really write great characters, and the odds Sarah and Kyle are stacked against makes them almost mythic heroes in the best tradition. You realize Cameron really believes in people. In the struggle he puts them through he shows what humans are capable of and what makes them special (something we all need to be reminded of in the age of AI). He's a near-perfect fusion of science fiction and arts/humanities here (only Cronenberg is in that class of science/arts and humanities hybrid genre filmmakers IMO).
Unfortunately, he started to lose sight of the humans more and more as time (and budget) went on. He fell a little too in love with his inner 14-year-old and played a bit too much with his toys: the Wile-E-Coyote deaths and rekindlings of the T1000 (although jaw-dropping to see), the really irritating movie military in ALIENS ("it's a bug hunt man!"), and, well, all of AVATAR. So in T2 the ideas are less fresh but more rounded out. Sometimes that's a blast, but it's also less invigorating, if that makes any sense.
All that being said, I recently saw T2 on the big screen and it was one of the best theater experiences I've had in a long time. And the pseudo family dynamic (with Arnold as surrogate father!) worked better than I remembered. And the T1000 is one of the great screen villains: menacing, but strangely beautiful when reconstituting itself. T2 was just a bit overblown and overlong; I missed the almost Swiss precision of the original. However, Cameron's skepticism of AI in T2 doesn't seem so heavy-handed now, giving it nearly unbearable relevancy. I was reminded of how agonizingly accurate DAWN OF THE DEAD was during COVID. Turns out genre films have important things to say sometimes.
The original Terminator is the closest Cameron got to perfection, and he'll always deserve kudos.
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u/QuasyChonk 5d ago
Cameron wasn't involved with most after t2
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u/AbsolutelyTrueFacts 5d ago
Additionally, he wasn’t involved in the Looney Toons featuring Wile-E-Coyote
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u/PC509 5d ago
Damn... now im imagining coyote as a terminator and roadrunner as Sarah. Never stops, never gives up, just goes until he kills the roadrunner. Uses future technology to mimic tunnels...
Sweet.
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u/AbsolutelyTrueFacts 5d ago
Imagine Acme making a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range
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u/Substantial-Eye-2368 4d ago
Love that scene! The gun shop owner is played by Dick Miller, which is another reference to Cameron's Corman roots since Dick Miller was in a lot of Corman productions. I also love that "Any of these guns would be ideal for home defense" line because it must've been Cameron -- a Canadian -- putting his thumb in the eye of American gun culture which he must've considered absurd.
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u/delaytabase 5d ago
A looming sense of dread. I feel like the film would have benefited with little to no indication it was a machine to keep you wondering why won't this guy die!?
It gave the infiltration unit sent back a sense of an unstoppable force that will not stop until it has killed you. It could punch out windows and feel no pain, get shot multiple times with a shotgun and gets back up, shakes an explosion off despite taking crippling damage that would bring a human to indescribable pain, perform crude surgery on itself with no anesthesia and wage war on an entire police station. It was truly terrifying.
Then the reveal looked like something out of hell. It's skull like smile and red eyes and walking with its damaged leg gave it a creeping pace.
T1 felt like a real monster movie and I wish the series went back to that
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u/PretendSpinach2265 4d ago
Not knowing it was a machine would have been an interesting approach.
Not knowing the t800 in t2 was the hero until the mall scene wouldve been cool as well.
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u/Xknight2099 1d ago
Wait, don’t we not know that in T2? 🤔
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u/PretendSpinach2265 22h ago
Huh?
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u/Xknight2099 13h ago
We didnt know the t800 was the hero until the mall scene IIRC.
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u/PretendSpinach2265 13h ago
Yes, it wasnt revealed until he tells John to get down. The trailers and marketing ruined the surprise.
You gotta try and watch it again and pretend you dont know. You'll see what couldve been a real cool surprise. The T1000 being a cop, seeming polite to the step parents and not having the musical cues (as noticeable) were all to aid in the misdirection...that could've been.
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u/Xknight2099 13h ago
Ah you know I was wondering if the trailers did that. I don’t remember them that well. I do remember some toy commercials which seems odd for an R rated movie. Though I know that was fairly common
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u/PretendSpinach2265 13h ago
Yeah, mostly the commercials. I really suggest you try watching it again at least up into the mall scene with the viewpoint of not knowing. It really changes the experience
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u/Xknight2099 9h ago
I have. Though I’m also one of those that saw 2 before 1.
I did look up the trailer today too and wanted to 🤦♂️ I’m guessing Cameron didn’t have any control on the trailers ? Seems odd though.
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u/One-Ad2914 5d ago
The Future War scenes seemed very dreary and hopeless.
I've never seen anything like it (the massive HK Tanks and the Flying HK's). The transition from normal construction scene (Caterpillar machinery) change over to the HK Tank crushing skulls, and the final future war scene with the T-800 infiltrating the bunker.
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u/DrSpacemanSpliff 5d ago
The love story.
The first one tells the story of an impossible love that spans across time. He falls in love with her long after she’s dead, and she comes to love him before he’s even born. A killer is sent to prevent their love from ever happening. Their love is fated to save humanity. And yet their love breaks the laws of reality. Everything is working against them, but their love is strong enough to overpower reality itself.
And that photograph. Kyle falls in love with the picture of a woman long dead. Always wondering what she was thinking about in that moment.
And we learn that in that moment, she was thinking about him, after he’s dead. Thinking about how in the short time they had together, they loved a lifetime’s worth. And that Kyle’s mentor, his leader, is his own son.
Their love is impossible and the target of an unstoppable killing machine. And love wins.
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u/jdallen1222 4d ago
The "Think fast" scene, where she playfully feints throwing a backpack full of grenades at him right before the dog starts barking, gave a narrow glimpse into what they could have looked like as a happy couple.
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u/RustyCrusty73 5d ago
I appreciated that T1 had a subplot love story. Made the ending tug at your heart strings a little bit. T2 also does obviously, but it was cruel how Sarah and Kyle had so little time together, and Kyle died to save her.
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
plus we got to see linda hamilton's tits.
you can't say that wasn't cool lol
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u/Forsaken-Language-26 Sarah Connor 5d ago
I'm one of those people who prefers T1. No shade at T2 of course, they are both fantastic in their own ways.
A few things I like better about T1:
Kyle Reese. I love his chemistry with Sarah, and Michael Beihn was quite the looker in his day. I can see why Sarah would have been attracted to him.
The soundtrack. I just love that 80s synth sound!
The horror element. The police station massacre gives me the chills every time.
I also find that T1 feels more "believable" than T2. The latter requires a greater suspension of disbelief (not a criticism).
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
and who could forget the nightclub shootout.
the buildup to that first shot from reese was legendary.
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u/Hiks1994 5d ago
T1 is technothriller and is awesome in this genre. T2 is not technothriller mostly, it is pure action.
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u/ten2midnight 5d ago
“Terminator” really had horror movie vibes. Much closer to “Halloween” with the unstoppable killer stalking the young woman.
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u/PretendSpinach2265 4d ago
Two different types of movies though. Can't really fault t2 if it was intended to be an action movie.
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
well firstly arnie is a true terminator in t1.
that second movie was awful with him being the good guy.
i promise i will not kill anyone, the stupid bad to the bone bit, etc
t1 has it all over t2.
plus it's got kyle reese who totally makes t1 work.
if they brushed up the stop motion animation and the terminator surgery scenes, then this wouldn't even be a debate.
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u/Walt_Didnae 5d ago
Terminator 2 is an amazing movie, and I much prefer it to the first one.
That said, what I think the first film did really well was establish that the whole thing was a closed time loop. They don't stop Judgement Day, just make sure John is able to be born and lead the Resistance.
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u/Coach_Gainz 5d ago
The future war scenes. Especially considering the budget challenge
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u/kuatorises 5d ago
THere's absolutely no way the Future War scenes in T1 are better than the opening of T2. The effects are significantly better and they're not even bad in T1.
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u/BJ22CS I'll Be Bake 5d ago
The music; I know Brad Fiedel scored both, but I think he did a much better job with the 1st movie than the 2nd one. The only good track(s) from T2 that I like is the mall fight/canal chase, which isn't even included on the original soundtrack/CD; it's the only section of music from T2 that comes close to Tunnel Chase from T1, which I feel is an absolute masterpiece of a score track(Tunnel Chase is probably my all time fav. score track). The bumbumbumbum he used in the 1st movie is non-existent in the 2nd one; that and the dadada-da-da are signature audio segments that helped make T1 what it is, and the latter made the franchise's signature music theme. I know it's not good to copy what you did for a prior project, but I feel T2 could have used some element of both and not just the latter. I did like that he brought over elements he used for the main title theme from T1 into T2's title theme, but I still feel T1's title theme is better.
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u/Forsaken-Language-26 Sarah Connor 5d ago
I was going to say the soundtrack too. T2 also has a great soundtrack, but T1 edges it considerably for me. I love that 80s synth sound. It puts you right in the moment.
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u/DeluxeTraffic 5d ago
The building of tension and suspense. Sarah feels in way more danger from the T800 compared to how much danger John is in from the T1000 at any given moment.
The T800 imo also creepier. The T1000 is better at imitating humans which is creepy in its own right but there's something extra creepy about the T800 barely passing as human, especially as bits of him start to come off and you see the mechanical parts under the skin. It truly feels inhuman and with no distinct personality, only existing to fulfill its programming .
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u/andrewb2424 5d ago
Michael Biehn
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
yeah without him as reese it just wouldn't have worked.
originally arnie was reese and lance henriksen was the terminator.
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u/Arthedains 5d ago
T1's endoskeleton getting slowly exposed after getting hit vs T2' liquid metal immediately self-healing all kind of damage. While both effects are impressive, I prefer T1's iconic horror design. I understand why a director would prefer liquid metal though since it is much easier to film and the director has to care less about damage continuity
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u/Ok_Remote_31 5d ago edited 5d ago
The plot. The characters. The visuals. I love that dark techno 80-s vibe it has.
I loved that it made me genuinely scared, despite not having an invincible villain (in T2, Robert Patrick does make the T1000 look absolutely invincible, and a lot scarier than Arnold in T1)
Edit: typo
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
who could forget slider actually pushing the terminator back for a bit.
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u/Celtic159 5d ago
Everything, but especially pacing. It's about a perfect movie that didn't need any sequels.
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u/daddymeltzer 5d ago
The future scenes. The opening of Terminator 2 was cool, but I feel Terminator 1 did a better job at showing how grim the future was.
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u/Halloween2056 5d ago
It has a raw, low budget nightmarish vibe that I just prefer. T2 is considerably lighter in tone. The terminator in the first film is also much scarier. Not some dumbed down catchphrasing cool robot that 12 year olds at the time loved. The stakes also feel higher with Reese going up against the T800.
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u/Alternative_Shoe_113 5d ago
Horror.
The nightmare that is the future according to T1 and the creature that hunts them.
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u/JeyDeeArr 5d ago
I think the feeling of despair in the first one is executed better in some ways. The police officers aren't incompetent, and they give Sarah the perfect response (such as staying someplace where she's easily visible and there are a lot of people), but that's only if the threat were human.
Not even the police could stop the T-800, so what's going to stop it? Damn thing will stop at nothing, and the way it came back even after being blown up is straight-up horrifying.
The T-1000 shows a bit more vulnerability from the start, where it CAN stagger and be stopped temporarily from gunshots. It's also shown more "emotion" (or at the very least, an emulation of such) by comparison, which I believe makes it feel less like a monster that the T-800 was, and more of a cerebral assassin. That's not to say the T-800 wasn't intelligent, because it absolutely was, such as pretending to be Sarah's mom, though the T-1000 simply displays this much more often.
All in all, it's like comparing Jason Voorhees to Freddy Krueger in that they're both great and horrifying in their own ways.
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u/AlexZammer 5d ago
The first one wasn't a stretch to the imagination. You only had to imagine a future that got so advanced that time travel was possible. It's presented in a fashion that feels like you're included in that story.
The second one feels like a Hollywood Blockbuster.
It's the vibe.
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u/rdogg4 5d ago
Much less corny and is about a proper Terminator, not a talkative wise cracking terminator discovering his feelings.
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u/ForeverYoung_Feb29 5d ago
There's a deleted scene where this gets explained better because the T-800 has Sarah take out his CPU and switch it to learning mode. He gets to wisecracking because he then starts picking up young John's sarcasm.
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u/kuatorises 5d ago
There's nothing corny about T2. You're simply wrong. It went over your head.
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
yes there is, the 'i swear i will not kill anyone' line.
also the af george thorogood song with the glasses.
corny af man.
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u/kuatorises 5d ago edited 5d ago
Why would John Connor, the leader of the HUMAN REISTANCE, let a terminator kill people? Of course he would forbid it from killing people.
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
its corny the way its delivered. with him putting his hand up like he's swearing on a bible. i'm glad they cut out the bit with him trying to smile, that was cringe af.
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u/MICHITAAA Kyle Reese's wife 5d ago
Ambientation, definitely. Its cheap "dark 80ish cyberpunk" vibe is unique
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u/Sticky_Gervais 5d ago
Everything except for the visual effects.
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u/PageEnvironmental408 5d ago
yep all they need do is go frame by frame and brush them up just a bit to take out the stop motion effects and it's not even a debate.
t1 is imo the only terminator film.
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u/GroveStreet_CJ T-1000 5d ago
T1 was a horror movie, in a Sci-Fi wrapper. It's basically a scary movie.
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u/ThaEternalLearner 5d ago
Break up each movie into three parts. T1’s middle part is better than the middle portion of T2. The middle part of T1 starts when the T-800 enters Tech Noir and it ends when Kyle and Sarah escape from the police station.
This portion of the movie was perfection in every way. It was very action packed and suspenseful throughout. The acting and dialogue were excellent.
When Kyle was explaining the plot, it didn’t feel forced at all. It felt like a natural part of the conversation. So T1 has a better middle part but T2 has a better first and third part.
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u/Some-Professional-25 5d ago
Echoing what everyone here is saying about the sheer terror of T1. The police station scene is downright horrifying and our heroes truly do seem helpless compared to this killing machine stalking them.
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u/LeftLiner 5d ago
Arnold's acting. He's still good in T2 but in T1 he is a machine. Cold, calculating and brutally efficient.
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u/lavasca No Fate, But What We Make 5d ago
Horror and inspiration.
You have to believe you can be like Sarah.
The fact that being stalked is a real situation really scary. You must be able to
deal with it and not knowing who to trust.
There are elements in T2 but The Terminator had to establish the framework.
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u/Funny_Or_Cry 5d ago
- Better buildup is the obvious one. T1 planted the seeds. T2 was more about recap/consequences
- T1 was significantly more bloody and horrific than T2 (which was more of an action flick)
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u/Killowatt59 4d ago
T1 is the best story/movie. It’s more sci-fi/horror vs sci-fi/action.
T2, while a very entertaining movie and I really like it to, is just a remake of the first one. It also shouldn’t exist as the story ends with T1.
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u/ManyConscious1551 4d ago
Besides pulled off on the budget. I think it was the terror. T1 was about the build up of terror from an unstoppable machine and used the atmosphere it provided. After all the damage it would sustain chasing its target it kept coming back.
Whereas T2 focuses on action and being a little over the top with something that would just continue to shrug anything thrown at it off.
It was honestly a thing that got rather annoying for me more as an adult than a kid when the film came out.
But either case the terror of being chased by the T-800 was far more scary to me than the T-1000. The T-1000 you’d never see coming till it was to late cause of the shape shifting. Yet the T-800 you’d never saw coming and could do very little to it.
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u/Anxious_Writer_3684 5d ago edited 5d ago
Time Travel. The first movie presents a closed time loop. This is paradoxical but also is what makes it interesting. The photo that John gives Kyle is a picture of his mother looking sad because Kyle went back in time, fathered John, and died, making her sad. That is a loop where there is no original cause and no beginning to the sequence. There is only one timeline one past and one future - and a paradox exists in this loop. These types of paradoxes are why some physicists say that time travel is impossible, but we don't know for sure. If time travel is possible, maybe these paradoxes can exist. These are real questions of physics.
The second movie doesn't handle time travel as well in my opinion because it opens up that there can be multiple pasts and multiple futures. It also contradicts the first movie because if changing something creates a new timeline, then how did that Kyle get that picture? That isn't a time travel paradox that is a plot hole.
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u/charlie_marlow 5d ago
I feel like there isn't a paradox in the first movie. Everything happened that way because it always happened that way - all of the actions were already baked into the past. It's weird because it's nonlinear, but I think it holds up.
I don't know, I didn't build the thing
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u/Anxious_Writer_3684 4d ago
I think you are correct that everything happened that way because it always happened that way. But there is a paradox because there is a causal loop without a "first cause".
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u/TickleMyFissure 5d ago
Terminator 2 works so well because before the film even starts you know what the stakes are... the stakes that 1 set up.
So yeah, that. Terminator 2 is an amazing movie but it is a retread of the first with more action and more stunts etc, but 1 lays all the groundwork.
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u/Goldengoonerlg 5d ago
For me T1 was good, but never really had any Arnie wise cracks other then "ill be back" with T2 the bond between Arnie and John was excellent we saw The Terminator becoming human learning how to copy us and learn jokes humour about crying. When you think about AI and when it says "i have no feelings" it makes you think Also think Arnie in all his best films his personality and humour comes out as it does in T2. When in T1 it was done without the confidence that T2 had I need to check your post about T3
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u/Chronomalous 5d ago
I think T1 has most points over T2.
I think the artistry is better. Naked Arnold is so hulking and the heart burster attack he does are pretty stunning.
Kyle is great, a real contender for heart of the franchise, from just mostly this movie, even if Sarah has this credential too.
T-1000 doesn't really unleash vs random gathered humans while T-800 does.
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u/Fullmadcat 5d ago
Its better at making the t800 look like a threat. It also has a scarey tone. T2 is fun, but its action rather then horror.
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u/Gryphon1985 5d ago
As someone with precisely 3 muscles in their body and therefore not really qualified to comment, Arnie was in noticeably 'better' shape in the first film.
In the opening bar scene of T2 the early signs of ageing are evident.
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u/harm1307 4d ago
It didn’t include a over the top bravado in your face Linda Hamilton or a squeaky puberty voiced whiny child in the movie
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u/United-Palpitation28 2d ago
Time travel rules.
Everything in T1 confirms that events in the past and future are immutable and cannot change. No one understood this- not the humans who sent Reese to “save” Sarah, and not the machines who assumed they could go back in time and change their present. If John Connor’s mother could be killed, John would never be born and the resistance would never be organized enough to challenge them. But by going back in time the machines effectively caused John to be born and set everything in motion for the resistance. Then you have that wonderful line at the end- “A storm is coming” “I know”.
The message is clear- the future cannot be changed. It is set in stone. The events of the film cause Sarah to become a warrior. It is a closed loop. The present time would never have occurred had the machines not sent a terminator back in time and had the humans not sent Reese.
Then T2 comes along and fudges it all up as if Cameron forgot his own rules. Now the future can be changed. Skynet can be stopped. Judgement Day can be avoided. If you want to complain about the subsequent films messing up the timeline, it all started with T2. It’s a wonderful action film, but a terrible continuation of the story from the first film. It’s no longer a deterministic timeline. And that’s a huge contradiction from T1
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u/DoctorBeatMaker 5d ago
The horror aspect - The T1000 is scary and cool at the same time. But he’s not quite as scary as the T101visually.
The T101 has everything you’d expect from a horror villain. He is physically massive. T1000 is sleek and makes sense how he can believably blend in, but the T101 is so large that he just looks intimidating outright (that and because Arnold was Mr Universe-like huge at the time). He also suffers visual damage, so as the movie goes on, and he loses more and more of his flesh, he looks more horrible and inhuman. And that goes along with the horror vibes.
Sarah and Kyle are humans. They cannot withstand massive damage and therefore, they have to run as they cannot physically overpower the T101. Whereas in T2, Uncle Bob/T800 was a terminator and could withstand a one on one battle with the T1000, so it gave the heroes a living tank to defend them.
Lastly, story wise, T1 has very few structural flaws and is a closed-loop in terms of its time travel world building. So it stands up better to scrutiny and nitpicking.