Most Rewatchable Scene
Biker bar entrance; Galleria-to-truck chase; asylum breakout; Dyson home invasion; Joe Morton's death scene; liquid nitrogen truck; Arnold's farewell
In the discussion (19)
Approx. transcript time · 00:31:36Read transcript
- Naked Arnold walking into the biker bar ('I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle' / 'You forgot to say please') is one of the great character intros; the bar fight could have run another minute.
- Caught on TV during a soccer trip to Arizona: the stretch from John in the arcade as the T-1000 closes in, through the Galleria hallway shootout, the bike chase, the truck and Arnold's one-handed reload on the motorcycle, is called one of the most thrilling 20-minute sequences in movie history.
- Audiences assumed Arnold was the villain; a final trailer reportedly hinted he was back for good, but in the theater it was a shock that he was the good guy.
- A sister murmured in the theater about why they were making the supposed bad guy look cool with the glasses.
- The Henry lever-action .410 was bought because of the movie ('That's how we do in Louisiana') and used to hunt about a hundred rabbits.
- Nothing in Cameron's script is wasted: John's bank-machine hacking pays off at Cyberdyne and his video-game skill foreshadows leading the resistance.
- The thermonuclear nightmare is called maybe the least rewatchable scene ever: for an 11-year-old when nuclear fear was real it was the most terrifying depiction on film, yet it was rewatched five times the night before.
- Rewatching with a son who had just seen Terminator 1, the twist that Arnold is the protector landed as a fun reveal.
- Springing Sarah from the asylum has many great moments: the T-1000 rising from the floor pattern and imitating a guard, Sarah's revenge on the orderly who licked her, 'Come with me if you want to live', the T-1000 walking through the bars as the theater screamed, and the puddle re-forming into his body.
- The T-1000 has no Achilles heel; they waste ammunition just to slow him down, and had he been built faster rather than liquid, with a jet pack or teleporting, there would be no movie.
- The attack in Joe Morton's house is called the single most frightening home-invasion scene of all time, so harrowing it almost crosses a line; after it Sarah is no longer the hero and emotions shift to Furlong and Schwarzenegger.
- John shows leadership throughout: rescuing his mother against her orders, refusing to kill Dyson ('that's not what we do'), and getting Dyson's son out of the room; the film is about John becoming the resistance leader.
- The scene where Joe Morton dies, holding the detonator, is one of the most memorable moments; the film has three of the best action scenes in any movie, with helicopter, motorcycle and big-rig stunts never tried before.
- Seen at a Baton Rouge mall theater, the audience knew Joe Morton was not going to survive the moment he appeared, and he 'went out like a G'.
- The liquid nitrogen truck explosion is a quick pick; shooting the frozen T-1000 was a huge mistake that let him reboot.
- Arnold's death ('I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do') should be corny but is choking.
- The Galleria plus the LA river chase is chosen as among the most rewatchable scenes in action-movie history; big TVs reveal the stunt double on the bike, which is preferred to CGI. — Chris Ryan
- Arnold reportedly worked about a month on the one-handed reload and once accidentally gave Edward Furlong a mild concussion; actors throwing themselves into meaningless skills is a Rewatchables theme.
- Cameron keeps the geography clear, from the asylum layout to the truck landing in the bike chase, making it experience rather than spectacle; an obvious dummy on the car outside the hospital doesn't matter because the viewer is in the scene.
