20 years and thousands of still frames

June 30, 2011 1:39 PM

Terminator 2 - 20 Years. Sunday, July 3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the release of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" in theatres, so Rymdreglage (now known as "Ninja Moped") made a nifty stop-motion film in honor of the occasion. (Rymdreglage / Ninja Moped previously)
posted by Monster_Zero (82 comments total)

Twenty years? OMG. I vividly remember seeing this in the theater, far more vividly than movies I saw last month. They were so much louder then.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:43 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow. Lotsa work. I like how the animation shows this.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:45 PM on June 30, 2011

I was going to snark about the lameness of celebrating the anniversary of sequels but that was good.

Also the candle and what looked like a Commodore PET were nice touches.
posted by srboisvert at 1:48 PM on June 30, 2011

Twenty years? Really? Twenty? Holy shit.

I want more life, fucker!
posted by inedible at 1:48 PM on June 30, 2011 [9 favorites]

I want more life, fucker!

More life would mean more Terminator sequels and I don't think any of us want that.
posted by nathancaswell at 1:51 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, and the animation here is amazing, especially if that really is all the paper they went through. Talk about your long term projects!
posted by Kevin Street at 1:52 PM on June 30, 2011

I need your clothes, your boots, and 5 cases of multicolor drawing paper.
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:00 PM on June 30, 2011 [5 favorites]

That summer I had no money and no air-conditioning, and a huge megaplex had opened nearby and had ridiculously cheap matinees, so I think I saw it every day they showed it, just for the cheap A/C. Plus, it was pretty good.
posted by notmydesk at 2:02 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Come with me if you want to live."

Don't think I'll ever forget that scene. The T-800 saying that and Sarah Connor having changed into such a badass.
posted by likeso at 2:12 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't really know how to talk about this without sounding like a crazy person but I LOVE Terminator 2. I just typed a whole thing but I don't think I want it associated with my posting history. Suffice to say: pretty good? No. It is perfect. Just the perfect embodiment of that entire genre and a time capsule for that period of American movie history.

Here I go again. Will stop now.
posted by something something at 2:14 PM on June 30, 2011 [11 favorites]

It's a remarkable accomplishment, not least because most other people would have been driven bugfuck crazy by that wallpaper.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:14 PM on June 30, 2011

I love the fact that Budnick from Salute Your Shorts is in this movie.

That and the mind-blowing (at the time) movie effects, of course.
posted by elder18 at 2:15 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I liked that. My best friend and I used to do stop motion with a whiteboard and a crappy Sony camcorder in the early 90s, and this reminded me of that feeling of joy when a finished 20-second short turned out kinda cool.
posted by infinitewindow at 2:16 PM on June 30, 2011

Totally rotoscoped, man. I can tell by the pixels.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 2:19 PM on June 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

At 2:00 there is a wonderful sequence where the camera tracks continuously backward, Orson Wells style, as a whole lotta paper is burned up. How the hell is that done? Is that something you can do after the single wide-angle shot? Or is that a camera that has to be moved each frame, along with everything else?
posted by stonepharisee at 2:22 PM on June 30, 2011

More life would mean more Terminator sequels and I don't think any of us want that.

Or it might mean more Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is worth wanting.

"The unknown future rolls towards us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn that Lena Hadley is at least as good a Sarah Connor as Linda Hamilton... maybe we can too."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:24 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

God. When Sarah Conner breaks out of her cell and knocks the intern out and locks him up and then skips down the hallway looking so wary and intense and vulnerable and dangerous and beautiful all at once...I can still feel that wave crash upon my two-decades younger shore....

Was this done with many, many cameras? Or with one camera and some intensely good organizational skills?
posted by umberto at 2:26 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Simply the greatest action movie ever made. It exemplified everything awesome about pre-cgi action flicks, while simultaneously heralding their demise.
posted by Scientist at 2:27 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

TERMINATOR: The chisel point Crayola.

CLERK: That's Italian. You can go with a cap or the auto-retract.

TERMINATOR: The Magic Marker with the extra-wide tip.

CLERK: These are brand-new. We just got them in. That's a good pen. Just take off the cap and put the tip where you want the ink to go. You can't miss. Anything else?

TERMINATOR: Laser etching marker in the 40-watt range.

CLERK: Hey, just what you see, pal.

TERMINATOR The Sharpie nine millimeter.

CLERK: You know your pens, buddy. Any one of these is ideal for home animation drawing. So what'll it be?

TERMINATOR All.

CLERK: I may close early today. (Terminator begins scribbling on countertop)

CLERK: Hey, you can't do that.

TERMINATOR Wrong. (Terminator holds up stick figure drawing)
posted by George Clooney at 2:28 PM on June 30, 2011 [32 favorites]

"We got Skynet by the balls now, don't we? "
posted by clavdivs at 2:33 PM on June 30, 2011

Kevin Street: Twenty years? OMG. I vividly remember seeing this in the theater, far more vividly than movies I saw last month. They were so much louder then.

No, it's just that your ears are much older -- as are mine. I also can't believe it was 20 years ago as I remember seeing it in the theater so clearly. I went with a trip from the (residential) school I was going to and had to get special permission since it was an R-rated movie. But Christ it seems like it was yesterday.

elder18: I love the fact that Budnick from Salute Your Shorts is in this movie.

One person's Budnick recognition was another's "Hey isn't that Arnold from Diffrent Strokes's annoying step-brother Sam" -- which again is showing my (relative) age.

As for the video posted above, awesome. As for the original movie, I am not a huge fan of action-adventure movies where things blow up and heroes beat/shoot folks/blow things up. But I think that's because I've yet to see one that has even come close to giving me the thrills of T2.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:34 PM on June 30, 2011

I'm curious...what is he doing with the computer mouse? Neat film.
posted by maxwelton at 2:36 PM on June 30, 2011

I didn't see this when it came out and instead had to wait for it to show at a drive-in, of all things. Naturally, the timing was such that I was on a mid-level dosage of hallucinogens when we rolled up to see it. What I still find fascinating is how the various F/X, such as the roll stunt, were so very obvious. I'm not the sort who goes looking for the zipper on the back of the Creature from the Black Lagoon's suit, so this was something of a shock to me. "Oh, yeah, wires. They could have hidden those better."

The biggest shock of the film was the expression on Sarah Connor's face during her escape. She's just about out of there, having taken about ten levels in Badass since the end of the first movie (dig up a copy of T.A.G.: The Assassination Game and compare Hamilton's voice), and suddenly her old nightmare is standing over her. All of the toughness dissolves when she claps eyes on the T-800. That's what trauma looks like, your barriers just evaporating and you're paralyzed with fear when you least expect it. Fantastic bit of acting there.
posted by adipocere at 2:39 PM on June 30, 2011 [9 favorites]

The last time I watched T2 (a couple of years ago) there were certain aspects of the movie that hadn't aged well (most of the attempts at humour, the "thumbs up" ending, Edward Furlong)...but none of that has anything to do with the fact that I saw this movie in the theatre five times (my personal record, tied with Trainspotting) and the first time in particular was one of the most exciting movie-going experiences of my life, up there with Raiders and Empire.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:43 PM on June 30, 2011

I remember my dad taking me to see Terminator 2 when I was 10. Obviously, I was seriously not old enough to see Terminator 2, but it was one of those things where he kind of winked at me and said, "Don't tell your mom."

It's just pitch-perfect in every way.

"There are 215 bones in the human body. That's one."
posted by kbanas at 2:44 PM on June 30, 2011

Terminator 2 is fucking great, and so is this.
posted by brundlefly at 2:51 PM on June 30, 2011

maxwelton: He's triggering the camera in the ceiling to capture the drawn image.

T2 is still for me one of the best films ever and I while Sarah Connor was maybe not the first to ignite my love of antiheroines, she cemented it pretty firmly.
posted by Iteki at 2:56 PM on June 30, 2011

I'm curious...what is he doing with the computer mouse?

I suspect that there's a ceiling-mounted projector that projects a frame of Terminator 2 onto the desk (so that it can be traced each time on a new piece of paper), and that each mouse click sets off a sequence of events something like this:

1. temporarily turn off that projector;

2. take one stop-motion frame;

3. move the stop-motion camera slightly along its track (for those shots with a moving camera);

4. and then turn on the projector again, so that it projects the next movie frame.

PS - I can't imagine the headaches caused by using that many felt pens.
posted by arm's-length at 2:57 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is there a way to watch the thing he's making without all the shots of him making it? I understand that it's all technically clever but it's not actually very interesting.
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:11 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Terminator 2 was one of the two laserdiscs that I owned. The other was Dances with Wolves. Guess which one holds up better after 20 years.
posted by R_Kamidees at 3:15 PM on June 30, 2011

the "thumbs up" ending

DUDE THE THUMBS UP ENDING IS AMAZING

DA NA NA.... NA NA NAAAAAAAAA.
DA NA NA.... DA NA NAAAAAAAAAA NAAAAAAAA...
DA NA NA.... NA NA NAAAAAAAAA.... DUHHHH NA NA
dum dum dum dum dum
posted by nathancaswell at 3:18 PM on June 30, 2011 [5 favorites]

I read about the T-1000's CG in an issue of SFX before I saw the movie (on TV, sadly enough). I love it, but I really appreciate the lean economy of the first movie. A woman, a man, a robot and a metal press.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:26 PM on June 30, 2011

> DUDE THE THUMBS UP ENDING IS AMAZING

"I know now why you cry throw up. But it's something I can never do."
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:29 PM on June 30, 2011

> A woman, a man, a robot and a metal press.

Isn't that what Jean-Luc Godard said was all you needed to make a movie?
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:30 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, yeah, the "I know now why you cry" is stupid. But the actual lowering himself into molten metal, and the epic closeup of the thumbs up being consumed by flames is badass.
posted by nathancaswell at 3:32 PM on June 30, 2011

Simply the greatest action movie ever made.

I think Die Hard gives it a run for it's money. Actually, I take that back... Die Hard is better. There are a couple sour notes in T2, as much as I adore it. Die Hard is pretty much perfect.
posted by nathancaswell at 3:34 PM on June 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am not ashamed to say that T2 was an inspiration to me. The ATM hacking scene inspired me, a young rabblerouser, to learn everything I could about computers and gave me a sense that great skill with technology could lead to very interesting things.
posted by fake at 3:37 PM on June 30, 2011

Ditto on T2 being the perfect hollywood popcorn movie: just enough cheese, just enough kickass, just enough serious emotional range, just enough robo-saudade.
posted by lalochezia at 3:39 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think Hard-Boiled has the best action in action movie history, but almost everything in it that isn't people shooting each other (most of the movie, to be fair) is kind of stupid. So Die Hard might be the best action movie ever made. It definitely has the best script.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:40 PM on June 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

Terminator 2 - The Opera
posted by lalochezia at 3:42 PM on June 30, 2011

Die Hard was the best Christmas movie ever. Let's just leave it at that.
posted by Horselover Phattie at 3:42 PM on June 30, 2011 [9 favorites]

I think Die Hard gives it a run for it's money. Actually, I take that back... Die Hard is better. There are a couple sour notes in T2, as much as I adore it. Die Hard is pretty much perfect.

You know, on reflection, I think you're right. T2 is terrific, but you're right - you watch it these days, there's a couple spots that are just a little off. Die Hard, on the other hand, is pretty much flawless.
posted by kbanas at 3:43 PM on June 30, 2011

Is there a way to watch the thing he's making without all the shots of him making it? I understand that it's all technically clever but it's not actually very interesting.

I actually feel the opposite -- the traced over scenes of Terminator 2 aren't particularly interesting, but the process by which they made it and the presentation of that process is absolutely amazing.

In fact, my only criticism of Rymdreglage is that their very tendency to "trace" things (see all of their Lego-ized NES game videos). I admire the work it takes, and it's still fun, but I'd much rather watch something that was more original, or at least more mashed-up.
posted by Herschel at 3:43 PM on June 30, 2011

I'd like to see a mash-up of Die Hard and Terminator:

"Now I have a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range. Ho Ho Ho."
posted by entropicamericana at 3:47 PM on June 30, 2011 [5 favorites]

I love it, but I really appreciate the lean economy of the first movie. A woman, a man, a robot and a metal press.

I make this argument a lot because my friends and I are dorks who argue about T1 vs T2, Alien vs Aliens etc constantly. I think T1 is actually a better film than T2. The economy, the whole TECH NOIR tone is really awesome. It stretches it's dollar so far, which I respect. T2 is a more enjoyable popcorn movie.

I'm thinking of going as just-arrived Reese for Halloween. Shirtless, bum pants, trenchcoat, black Nikes with giant swoosh, saw-ed off for when people ask who I am.

I saw a KILLER Sarah Connor on her way to kill Dyson costume last year, complete with the round sunglasses.
posted by nathancaswell at 3:52 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is awesome. So is the discovery I made last weekend:

I was sitting in the basement flipping through the channels and discovered some channel showing the original Terminator. I started watching it and my wife walked in and said "Oh, is this Terminator? Like, the original? I've never seen it. I think I saw the second one sometime - was Arnie a good guy in that one or not, I forget. We should rent them sometime."

My eyes almost fell out at the thought of being able to geek out over Terminator and Terminator 2 sometime. T2 is like the best sequel every made, and you can only truly appreciate its awesomeness when you see how well it picks up on and echoes the notes of the original.

Anyways, one of the ways my wife keeps her geeky husband happy.

no, I won't tell you about the others
posted by never used baby shoes at 3:52 PM on June 30, 2011

Nightmare fuel

....

I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcyle........
posted by lalochezia at 3:52 PM on June 30, 2011

Terminator 2 was a great movie, but I remember it for its music.

Specifically, "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses, playing while Edward Furlong goes speeding around Los Angeles on his motorbike. I loved that song. MTV began playing the video shortly after the movie's release, and I was hooked. I hadn't been a huge GNR fan until then, but that song and its riff convinced me that I needed to take another listen.

So I went down to the local music store, which at the time was either Record Town or Tape World (in Franklin, Mass.), and asked to buy the album. This was the moment that I learned about release dates. The clerk told me that the song was on an album that wasn't available yet, and in fact wouldn't be available for months—until September 17. I was confounded. How could they be playing a song on the radio and MTV that wasn't available to buy? Every song was available to buy. I had trouble wrapping my mind around it.

(I sympathized with little girls, years later when I worked at a record store and suddenly one Saturday morning they began streaming in by the dozens asking about a new song by somebody called Britney Spears. We had been told nothing about this Britney Spears person or any forthcoming album. It took a few phone calls to figure out that a single would be released in a week or so, but until then these girls would just have to wait.)

September rolled around. It turned out that GNR was releasing two albums simultaneously, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. I don't think I knew in advance which tape "You Could be Mine" was going to be on, but it didn't matter to me: Surely both were going to be equally awesome. Problem was, albums come out on Tuesdays and I was a kid in school. My mom wasn't around, so this was one of the few moments in my life when I asked my dad for a favor because it was just that important. I gave him the money and a piece of paper with the titles of both albums on it, and I asked him to buy them for me.

The day finally came. I was so excited all morning, and then that afternoon I was hit with the most excruciating migraine I have ever endured, then or since. I prayed for it to subside so I could listen to the tapes when I got home, but it lasted the whole bus ride home. I stumbled through the front door and grabbed the tapes off the kitchen counter, one yellow and one blue, shouting "Thanks!" to my dad and then trying to climb the stairs to my bedroom before I collapsed.

I was in no shape to listen to that music. My head was thundering like Athena was trying to break out and I was dying to go to sleep. But I soldiered on. I unwrapped the cellophane from both cassettes and unfolded the inserts to read the lyrics, and I popped the first tape into my yellow Sony boom-box and hit "Play." I laid there on my bed for the next couple hours wearing this half-grin, half-grimace on my face while I listened to this new music that was finally mine and tried to block out the fact that my skull was slow-motion exploding.

The next day, all the kids were talking about the new GNR. (Mostly the lyrics to "Get in the Ring.") Nevermind had been released already, but we hadn't noticed it yet. Nirvana would define and inspire a lot of our music through high school, but at that moment GNR was all that existed. The intro to "Sweet Child of Mine" was the first thing I learned how to play on guitar. I went on to music school, a career, etc. Every time I watch Terminator 2, I think about Guns N' Roses and those two cassettes. Also my dad, who is gone now but ran an errand for me that day that helped me to realize I was a musician.
posted by cribcage at 4:10 PM on June 30, 2011 [14 favorites]

TERMINATOR Wrong. (Terminator holds up stick figure drawing)

Oh, oh, oh shit, I'm making choking noises at my desk and think I might sick on myself.
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:19 PM on June 30, 2011

...Record Town or Tape World...

You didn't try Music Planet, Cassette City or Sound Shire?
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:21 PM on June 30, 2011

I actually feel the opposite -- the traced over scenes of Terminator 2 aren't particularly interesting, but the process by which they made it and the presentation of that process is absolutely amazing.

Hmm. I guess what bugs me is that this feels like a behind-the-scenes DVD extra for a movie I haven't watched yet. The video seems to assume that I'm already impressed with the animator guy, enough to want to watch him work in stop motion, but I have no reason to be impressed with him since I haven't seen his work yet!

I actually do want to be impressed by this video, but without some way of seeing what the guy is doing with this mountain of paper, it's all sort of abstract and wankish.
posted by Mars Saxman at 4:38 PM on June 30, 2011

Lovecraft In Brooklyn: "I love it, but I really appreciate the lean economy of the first movie. A woman, a man, a robot and a metal press."

They're both fine movies, but the thing that makes T2 such an impressive sequel (or at least, the thing that really blew me away on first viewing) is how it fucks with audience expectations. The weak are now strong and the strong are, while not weak, now somewhat subservient, and instead of being another chase movie the plot twists around and inverts the message of the first film.

"Rise of the Machines" was a flat movie in many ways, but the thing I most disliked about it was how it brought back Judgment Day and pretty much invalidated everything that happened in T2.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:12 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

They were so much louder then.

No, you were (a) younger, so it made a better impression and (b) they were better overall that the crap released now.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:23 PM on June 30, 2011

Kevin Street: Agree 100%. They might as well just shown someone with some wood filler resurfacing that NO FATE picnic table. The only good thing to come out of Terminator 3 is the pinball table.
posted by aubilenon at 5:36 PM on June 30, 2011

Kevin Street: Agree 100%. They might as well just shown someone with some wood filler resurfacing that NO FATE picnic table. The only good thing to come out of Terminator 3 is the pinball table.

So I go to this trivia night, invited by a long-time crush. There's massive amounts of drama and BS. That's not the story. They have a T3 pinball table, which I'd never played before. One of the bartenders is a champion, and has the highest score. After the drama calms down he challenges me to a game. After an epic half an hour battle I lose, but only barely.

You gotta love a machine with a ping-pong ball launcher in the backglass.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:45 PM on June 30, 2011

Confession: I have never seen "Terminator II". I loved the first Terminator movie the way I loved the first Alien movie, and "Aliens" was such a massive disappointment I couldn't bring myself to risk it with T2. Still haven't. Probably never will.
posted by Decani at 5:49 PM on June 30, 2011

Decani: For what it's worth, both Terminators are from the same director. Admittedly, that director has a less-than-stellar track record, but T2 is amazing...

...actually you know, never mind. Don't bother.
posted by pts at 5:56 PM on June 30, 2011

You didn't try Music Planet, Cassette City or Sound Shire?

Dude, he totally scoured Sound Shire.

I'd like to see a mash-up of Die Hard and Terminator:

This is actually the last act of T2.

I really appreciate the lean economy of the first movie. A woman, a man, a robot and a metal press.

There's hardly been an independent feature that can measure up to it. When you look at how many iconic shots, scenes, and lines it has, it's ridiculous. The only thing I wish I could change about it is Hamilton's awful hair. There were so many other ways they could have done it that it would have a timeless appearance, but boy is that thing she has on encased in amber.

As for T2, much has aged, but it's still an awfully good action movie, especially for an action movie with a kid at the center. In fact, almost exclusively for an action movie with a kid at the center. Some feat, that.

What I still find fascinating is how the various F/X, such as the roll stunt, were so very obvious

I dunno. The more movies I watch, the more obvious they all become. There are only so many ways to do this stuff. I prefer to get my enjoyment out of how they do pull it off, whether it's a stunt or a special effect.
posted by dhartung at 6:22 PM on June 30, 2011

"Aliens" was a massive disappointment? I'm glad we've got a network between us Decani, because around the chmmr household them's fighting words.
posted by chmmr at 6:29 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Aliens" was a massive disappointment? I'm glad we've got a network between us Decani, because around the chmmr household them's fighting words.

I guess if you really liked the silent, atmospheric horror of the first one then the second one might be disappointing?

Nah, I can't do it. It would have been hilarious if Ridley Scott had directed T2 though.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:38 PM on June 30, 2011

I am not the first to mention that the scene where the bad bot walks through a cell door was a watershed, marking the moment it was clear to anyone who was paying attention that anything could be done with digital effects.
I watched it a few weeks ago, and it stood up pretty good.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 6:43 PM on June 30, 2011

I almost never re-watch movies without years in between, but I will admit to watching T2 enough times to wear out the VHS tape my friend recorded it off his illegal cable box with. Even watching the ultimate edition over and over again years later, pointing out all the continuity errors between shots, it was still a good time. Some times a movie is done just right; T2 is definitely one of those.
posted by Dark Messiah at 6:44 PM on June 30, 2011

Hell, the special effects in T2 were good enough, I vividly recally watching the promo for it on the PPV preview channel endlessly.
posted by Dark Messiah at 6:45 PM on June 30, 2011

I hardly ever exercise RealPlayer's offer to download YouTube videos. I did for this. Fucking awesome, for the sheer amount of love for the material. There are fans, there are hardcore fans, and then there are fans like this who if you are an artist you pray will come your way.
posted by localroger at 7:49 PM on June 30, 2011

Aliens is hands down the best action and/or science fiction movie ever made. It makes Alien look like a wet fart from a paraplegic dog. and I think Alien is a good movie! That's how good Aliens is.

I was 12 the summer T2 came out. I saw it in the theater by myself. Twice. Other movies I saw by myself that summer in the theater (twice!) include Robin Hood, The Rocketeer, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Naked Gun 2 and 1/2, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 7:51 PM on June 30, 2011

That video is pretty good—albeit excessively hipsterish—but I must inform you that this is the greatest Terminator 2 tribute of all time. Hands down.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:15 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

Aliens is quite fun, tense and campy. Alien is a masterpiece and one of the 25 best films ever made. There is no comparison.
posted by nathancaswell at 9:16 PM on June 30, 2011

Maybe campy is too strong, but Paxton is ridiculous in a fun way.
posted by nathancaswell at 9:18 PM on June 30, 2011

"Aliens" was a massive disappointment? I'm glad we've got a network between us Decani, because around the chmmr household them's fighting words.
posted by chmmr at 2:29 AM on July

Alien was slow, dark, unreal and horribly, nightmarishly menacing. It had an enemy that was penumbral at best, seemingly invincible and whose attacks were based on raw body horror and primal terror.

Aliens was YEEEHAAA BOYS LET'S ROLL!! DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA GO TEAM AMERICUH! SEE THEM VULNERABLE AND NO-LONGER-SO-TERRIFYING ALIEN BODIES TUMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF DAKKADAKKADAKKA FIREPOWER!

Could you really not see this less-than subtle difference between the two movies?
posted by Decani at 9:18 PM on June 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

Aliens was YEEEHAAA BOYS LET'S ROLL!! DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA GO TEAM AMERICUH! SEE THEM VULNERABLE AND NO-LONGER-SO-TERRIFYING ALIEN BODIES TUMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF DAKKADAKKADAKKA FIREPOWER!

As a film, Aliens is incredible. As an 80s Action entry, it destroys the genre. Really, it shouldn’t even be here, but it’s too late to turn back now. One way to look at Aliens is as a subversive commentary on the gung-ho militarism of the 80s. You’ve got the toughest marines in the galaxy — sweaty, brutal, unrefined — and they’ve got the best and biggest guns imaginable. Serious, Vasquez and Drake spend most of the film with the world’s largest strap-on phalluses rigged to them via steady-cam mounts. Anyhow, all this bluster and ra-ra USA-ism is no match for the Aliens. In other words, stop jerking yourselves raw over the defeat of Communism. Brother, we got bigger fish to fry. Also, of course, represented in Ripley is a woman who loves her cat and uses her maternal instinct to defeat the biggest, baddest Alien of all — with that awesome fucking loadlifter thing. Take that, stay at home moms.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:26 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Aliens was YEEEHAAA BOYS LET'S ROLL!! DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA GO TEAM AMERICUH! SEE THEM VULNERABLE AND NO-LONGER-SO-TERRIFYING ALIEN BODIES TUMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF DAKKADAKKADAKKA FIREPOWER!

It's been a while since I watched Aliens, but I remember it as pretty solid military SF; a genre shift, sure, but an interesting treatment of the material. Your synopsis strikes me as the kind of thing one might come up with from repeatedly catching the same 5 minutes of gunfire-heavy action sequence on some premium cable channel and, like, completely ignoring the rest of the movie.

(Everything after the second installment, however, I'm pretty happy to pretend never existed.)
posted by brennen at 9:28 PM on June 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Has there ever been a movie more thoroughly damaged by the spoilers in the trailers?

As awesome as T2 was, I'd give anything to have seen it without knowing going in that Arnold was the good guy this time.
posted by straight at 9:48 PM on June 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

Twenty years? OMG.

I'm really apprehensive of next year. Blade Runner is going to be 30 next year.

Jurassic Park is going to be 20 in a couple of years (LoTR:TFotR is 10); it seems like the upper edge of CG is kind of stalling out, but the lower/mid echelons are getting much much much more affordable/faster. Is it even feasible for a modern film to use sets/costumes/models like in Blade Runner or is CG good enough now (balanced against the issue of cost)?

Then again, compare those against this clip from UHF, released in 89 - a mere 4 years before Jurassic Park came out, rendered on (an?) Amiga. I can't find the link now, but iirc, it took a mind-blowing number of computer-hours to render when I first read about it half a decade (or more) ago. Anyone have a source on how long it actually took to do it?
posted by porpoise at 10:38 PM on June 30, 2011

Oh, I caught Blade Runner on TV the other night. Sans voice-over. It's held up extremely well, I think.

And I remember waiting for the T2 release. I had seen T1, and my friends and I were into cyberpunk and dystopian futures through books and tabletop RPGs, and we were literally counting the days until we could see it. And GnR's music video for You could be mine featured Arnold as the T800, and it almost blew or teenage minds.
posted by Harald74 at 11:35 PM on June 30, 2011

Could you really not see this less-than subtle difference between the two movies?

Of course the two movies are examples of completely different genres: that's part of what makes Aliens so interesting. Most sequels are little more than retreads of whatever was interesting about the original; Aliens took the same elements and combined them in a whole new way.
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:34 AM on July 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Alien is about a haunted house.

Aliens is about 'Nam.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 12:49 AM on July 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Horselover Phattie: "Die Hard was the best Christmas movie ever. Let's just leave it at that."

Gremlins
posted by minifigs at 1:11 AM on July 1, 2011

I'm curious...what is he doing with the computer mouse?

I suspect that there's a ceiling-mounted projector that projects a frame of Terminator 2 onto the desk (so that it can be traced each time on a new piece of paper), and that each mouse click sets off a sequence of events something like this:
1. temporarily turn off that projector;

2. take one stop-motion frame;

3. move the stop-motion camera slightly along its track (for those shots with a moving camera);

4. and then turn on the projector again, so that it projects the next movie frame

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking, with the exception of turning off the projector. Projectors typically take about a minute to warm up, and the stress on the bulb from turning them on & off that much will wear things down quickly.
posted by ShutterBun at 2:24 AM on July 1, 2011

It makes Alien look like a wet fart from a paraplegic dog.

Based on my knowledge of Alien, I can only conclude you love them poor paraplegic doggies with all your heart.

Alien was amazing and it's funny how the Alien franchise seems mostly relegated to video games nowadays. The AvP films didn't help certainly.
posted by ersatz at 5:37 AM on July 1, 2011

Wow. I guess it's because I never played Tomb Raider, but I just clocked to the fact that Lara Croft is based almost entirely on T2 Sarah Conner.

I remember when the movie came out. I didn't get to see it in theaters, but I had the magazine. Bought it at B. Dalton with my birthday money, along with the complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. I & II (I think my mother would have been concerned if not for that part of the purchase). Saw it later on cable, and it was awesome. Then I saw T1 [yes, I know, back-formation], and it was awesome. Then I saw T2 again and it was even better; almost a whole new movie.

(But I agree that Die Hard narrowly edges it out for better movie; T2 is a better FX-y/sci-fi movie, though. There is room for both in my heart. Right next to American Psycho and The Big Lebowski. Perfect movies.)
posted by Eideteker at 8:13 AM on July 1, 2011

Well yes Decani, Alien and Aliens are utterly different films. Different genres even, as noted in this thread. But that's not necessarily a bug. I suppose if you were expecting another Alien and got Aliens instead it may have been disappointing. And I would agree that Alien was a better art movie. But characterising Aliens as "DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKA GO TEAM AMERICUH", considering its critical reception and continuing cultural influence, is a little absurd I think.
posted by chmmr at 8:37 AM on July 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sarah Connor was my first bi crush. I had a poster of her on my wall in college, which doesn't sound like a big deal until you consider I was at a fundie Christian college, where coming out would have meant ostracization at best, forced counseling at worst. No one ever asked about the poster, though.
posted by cereselle at 12:31 PM on July 1, 2011