The Tech Behind Terminator 2: An Oral History of ILM's Liquid Metal Breakthrough
The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)
I spoke with over a dozen ILM artists who invented the tools to realize the liquid metal T-1000 in Terminator 2. From coding custom software like Make Sticky to working with early Alias packages, this team overcame limited computing resources to create groundbreaking visual effects. Their journey from The Abyss to T2 reveals the intense collaboration and technical ingenuity that defined a new era in filmmaking.
I'd point to a page and say, 'Oh, well that looks interesting. How are you going to do that?' And they're like, 'Oh, we don't know yet.'
- ortusdux
Amazing writeup! I'll add that the custom squibs they made for the liquid metal bullet impacts are still one of the best practical effects ever.
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- jmyeet
I'm not sure that anyone under the age of 45-50 can truly appreciate just how big of a deal Terminator 2 was and how big movie releases can be. Like, nothing in the MCU era or the Star Wars prequels and sequels comes remotely close. Yes, they gross a lot of money but in terms of cultural significance, I've seen nothing close.
At the time I lived in a city when the local movie theaters would typically run major releases on 1, maybe 2 screens. Session times were like 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm 6 days a week and I think 1 less on Sundays. This was before the age of smaller theaters in the large multiplexes so a big movie theater might only have 4-8 screens.
3 weeks after T2 was released, it was still showing on screens in my local movie theater for 12-15 sessions a day, even on Sunday, from 8am til midnight. I actually waited a couple of weeks for the hype to die down and went on an 8am Sunday session knowing basically nothing (because that's how things worked then) and the movie theater was still full.
The CGI was a big part of it. It has some fan service to it. My movie theater cheered when Arnie came out of the bar wearing the leathers and hopped on the bike. But it's not overboard. It's actually a really great story, which is kinda unusual for a sequel. Like, James Cameron really has to be commended for that.
But there was another aspect too and that was Linda Hamilton. This was one of the first mainstream big-budget movies that changed the way women were portrayed in film. Lots of […]
- whycome
The 4K remaster of this is back in theatres next month for “Judgment Day” and the 35th anniversary.
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- macote
It's worth mentionning that Softimage was used for Terminator 2.
- raychis
This was a fantastic read. I had no idea how much of Terminator 2 had to be invented from scratch. It's amazing to think that a lot of the tools and ideas that shaped modern VFX started with engineers just trying to solve one impossible problem after another.
Some films really do stand the test of time, I'm not really sure that contemporary CGI will really age as well.