The Terminator 2 Comparative Analysis

Alyssa Graham

Intro to Cinema

April 26, 2016

Comparative Analysis James Cameron is a movie director, known for multiple top-rated movies. Before he decided to get involved in directing movies, he majored in physics at California State University, but he never used his major. Right after he received his major, he got in his truck to follow his screenwriting ambition. I chose to write about James Cameron because he has directed two of some of my favorite movies, Avatar and Titanic, which are two of the movies I will be talking about as well as The Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Titanic used about $200 million and once it came out into theatres, it held a twelve year record of highest gross income of $1.843 billion. Throughout this movie, My

Cameron actually created the first The Terminator movie with only half of his actual idea. He says the second Terminator movie, “although greatly elaborated, was the second half of the original story.” The lack of technological advancements back then held Cameron back from what he really wanted to portray in his movies, which is why he waited so long to make the sequel. One of the main motifs of this movie is a young woman teaching and showing a machine, whom is unable to feel or acknowledge his wrong doings, how to know right from wrong and how to care about others. In the first movie, John is the antagonist and everyone views him as evil, but in the sequel, The Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Cameron uses John to show that change is possible because John went from murdering others and having no care, to protecting and becoming the hero of the film. This movie used so many special effects, especially on the T 1000

In every single one of his movies that he has directed, there is a character that yells “Go! Go! Go!” He typically names his movies one-worded titles, which are also the theme of the movie. He incorporates the arrogance and selfishness of humanity and how much the world relies on technology. For each of his movies, he does not give himself a budget, he uses as much money as he believes is needed.

Cameron tends to use elevators in his movies with dangerous scenes in or near them to add a sense of thrill to his movies. In The Terminator 2: Judgement Day, there are three scenes where an elevator is used. One scene, they are running towards the elevator, the next scene they are in the elevator, and the third scene shows them exiting the elevator. Throughout all of these scenes, there are explosions and attacks going on. In Titanic, Rose and Jack use an elevator to escape Rose’s fiancé, and another scene where Rose takes the elevator down to an already flooded floor which causes the elevator to begin