Cutting Room Floor: "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991)

Cutting Room Floor is a new, ongoing segment to Continuity Film that examines "deleted scenes", or scenes left on the cutting-room-floor.


"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991)



The T-1000 walks down a long hallway that leads into John Connor's room.

He stops at the door threshold and looks around. He hears water percolating and he looks left as the camera pans and follows him.

The source of the water is a fish tank. The T-1000 bends down to take a closer look at the fish. His face falls behind a large magnifying glass.

His face is distorted and elongated through the glass. This is a quick character "plant" by James Cameron to show the T-1000's liquid-metal elasticity.

The T-1000 starts touching books, cds, and other material items that belong to John Connor with his fingertips. He is searching for clues. He is gathering information.

The T-1000 is then seen through a mutli-pane prism. Again, another plant by Cameron to remind the audience of his elasticity.

The T-1000 continues touching the computer keyboard and monitor. He runs his fingers along an unmade bed and a Walkman headset.

Finally, he touches the "Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet" poster on the wall. This is what he is looking for. Instead of shredding the poster, the T-1000 takes it down to reveal:

A shoebox labeled "Messages from Mom" that fits into a cavity in the wall.

The T-1000 opens the box and rifles through pictures of John Connor's childhood, mother, friends, and most importantly, his past.

This gives the machine the necessary ammunition for his quest to hunt-down and kill John Connor.

He decides to find Sarah Connor...

...where John and the T-800 (Arnold) are destined to be.


James Cameron called this scene a "classic case of underestimating the audience." He was concerned that the audience wouldn't "get" that whatever the T-1000 "touched or made physical contact with, he could sample molecularly."

Originally, the point of this scene was two-fold: a) Show the audience how the T-1000 functioned, how he was able to "read" items molecularly in order to gather information, and b) Show the T-1000 attaining the information he needed in order to track-down John: the whereabouts of his mother, Sarah.

Cameron decided, after having seen the rough cut, to delete this scene because it disrupted the narrative pace of the film.

What is interesting about this scene is the approach taken by Robert Patrick. Patrick decided to touch the items as if he was "reading Braille." It was important for him, and his character, to be tactile oriented. So, instead of just tearing the place apart like Axl Rose in a Motel, he skims the surface of the item, he reads its history.

His programmed curiosity leads him to touch every item so that he can gather information even though he can never "feel" what it means to be human.

Ultimately, this is the downfall of the machines. Their Artificial Intelligence may be far superior to ours, but they can never be human, no matter how many new upgrades that come down the production line, no matter how many T-1000's can morph into a human being.

Cameron's post-production instincts are correct. His decision to cut this scene in order to maintain the narrative pace of the film was the right decision.

Although it may add detail to the T-1000's character, time is better spent following the father/son bonding of the T-800 and John Connor.