They don’t take bullets
The T-1000 robot consisted of a metal that could become solid or liquid. When the bullets hit, his body acted like a thick liquid: A hole appeared in it and then closed. To understand what this might actually look like, Stan Winston, head of the special effects team, and his team spent weeks throwing heavy weights into semi-liquid clay and seeing what three-dimensional shapes were created as a result. After this, craftsmen made many appliques of similar shapes that could be attached to clothing, especially police uniforms.
Appliques were created from rubber or foam coated with metallized latex for the illusion of frozen metal. Because the bullets hit the Terminator during continuous shooting without editing, they could not immediately connect to the fuselage. Instead, they were mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism that opened the “hole” like a flower. This mechanism required space, and so the uniform was worn not on a naked body, but on a thick chest plate with built-in “flowers”.
Wounds were healed with the help of computer graphics. If you look closely you can see that they look worse and less realistic now.
Sword Hands
The T-1000 had the ability to transform body parts into bladed weapons. In particular, he pierces John Connor’s stepfather, a security guard at a psychiatric clinic, with his sharp hands, and at the same time clings to the heroes’ car with his hooked hands. These swords and hooks were trivially obtained by applying fake blades to the player’s body. For example, in the scene of John’s conversation with his adoptive parents, the T-1000 guard-shaped “blade” is worn on the actor’s shoulder, and the leather-covered base of the blade is also a dummy.
As with the bullet holes, the metal of the liquid terminator consisted of metallized latex on a polymer solid base. It is very difficult to make it look like fantasy metal and the models have been redone many times.
A combination of location shooting and computer graphics were used in the scene where the T-1000 pierces the guard’s eye with its sharp finger in front of the audience. The entire hand was a model made in three copies: with a short, medium and long tip. They were used alternately in the frame and then intermediate frames were drawn using the computer to create the illusion of continuous movement.
puppet show
Visible gaps appeared when the T-1000 received significant damage: a shotgun shattered its head, and a steel rod nearly sliced its shoulder. These scenes were shot using detailed mannequins and puppets. Patrick’s babies are so indistinguishable from a living person that their “faces” can even be photographed in close-up.
For example, the scene where the head breaks was shot using two dolls placed on a person’s head. Models were first shaped from clay into the exact shape of the actor’s head, then the soft clay was shattered (as if a bullet had struck liquid metal) and used to create a foam model after hardening. The first model could be opened by command after the shot was fired. This is clearly seen in the freeze frame: there is already a gap in the middle of the T-1000’s head before the shot, and upon closer inspection it becomes clear that this is not a living actor.
The second baby was harder. First, the terminator had to “shut down” again to indicate that it was trying to recover. Second, his eyes moved during the procedure. Both were made using moving mechanisms, and only in the third frame was Robert Patrick’s face “stitched together” using computers.
The scene where the steel bar is shot was shot in a similar way. The actor was fitted with a doll that simulated the severed right side of his body; the person had to stand at a certain angle to maintain normal shoulder width. The device opened on impact, the player pretended to be stunned, but soon caught the stick sticking out of the doll to counterattack.
Finally, the most complex puppet was needed to film the final moments of the T-1000’s life. His body exploded after being hit with a grenade launcher. The Terminator eventually lost control and soon fell into the molten metal.
This scene was created using three puppets controlled with rods and strings. The first of them was supposed to open on command, simulating the consequences of an explosion. The second showed a stunned T-1000 swaying, its body movements being controlled by humans like a puppet, and its eyes and mouth moving using radio control. Finally, the third baby, already uncontrollable, fell into the molten metal.
Break and melt
One of the most captivating scenes in Terminator 2 was when the T-1000 chases the heroes in a tanker truck full of liquid nitrogen before breaking into the metallurgical plant. The tank crashed and the robot’s metal hardened and became brittle, making it impossible to control. As a result, the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) fired at the frozen enemy and shattered it into thousands of pieces, but it was no use. Due to the heat from the metallurgical plant, the T-1000 material quickly heated up, clumped together, and recreated the robot.
To film the T-1000’s disintegration, the team hired an amputee and fashioned polymer prosthetic legs into boots for him. These prostheses were cut in half and held in place only by the connecting piece, which broke with a signal. As a result, when the robot played by the stuntman tried to lift his leg, it was severed from his tibia. The same thing happened again in the second match.
The real Patrick’s hand was severed, but it was fake and fake, but the doll was torn into pieces.
A low melting point metal placed on a heated steel plate was used to demonstrate how frozen pieces become liquid. Much more unorthodox but simple methods were required to collect droplets of liquid metal together. For this they used mercury, which looks like a special effect in real life. To show how the Terminator was slowly putting itself back together piece by piece, the director and his team filmed a hair dryer dispersing a puddle of mercury and then they let me in squares in reverse order. Mercury according to another version forced it flowed into the center of the tray with an indentation, but the filmmakers may have combined both methods.
Replacing steel with water
The final scenes of the film take place in a steel mill that closes in the middle of production. There are vats full of molten metal everywhere, and both Terminators drowned in one of them. If the film had been directed by Christopher Nolan, known for his passionate commitment to realism, perhaps liquid steel would actually have been gushing around the actors. But James Cameron and his team decided not to endanger people and instead of steel used water mixed with translucent mineral oil and a number of other additives. Many bright orange lamps were placed at the bottom of the tub to make the white, thick liquid glow like hot metal. Both terminators completed their journey in this “steel”.
Terminator 2 was considered a breakthrough for its time in terms of computer graphics quality. For example, without this it would be impossible to show how the T-1000 passes through a steel grid or changes shape. But they were only able to get a really good picture by cleverly combining a computer-generated image with practical effects. After all, Robert Patrick’s dolls look lifelike even in studio photos, and scenes shot with them look great even in 2023.