T-1000

T-1000
The "T-1000", played by Robert Patrick
First appearance	Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Last appearance	T2 3-D: Battle Across Time
Created by	James Cameron & William Wisher Jr.
Portrayed by	Robert Patrick, other cast members
Information

The T-1000 is a fictional android assassin featured as the main antagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The T-1000 is portrayed by Robert Patrick. However, being a shape-shifter, the T-1000 is played by other actors in some scenes of the film. Teaser trailers for Terminator 2 deliberately withheld the notion that the T-1000 character was the villain. A tagline for the film was "This time there are two. Terminator 2." In Terminator 2, the T-1000 is presented as a technological leap over the "Model 101" Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger)^[1]; Schwarzenegger's character explains how the T-1000 is a more advanced terminator. It can absorb damage better, and physically mimic specific humans and other objects. Furthermore, it can use its advanced composition in innovative and surprising ways, including fitting through narrow openings, walking through prison bars, and flattening itself on the ground to hide. On the Terminator 2 DVD, writer/director James Cameron describes his casting of Robert Patrick as a deliberate contrast to the original Terminator character portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger: "I wanted to find someone who would be a good contrast to Arnold. If the 800 series is a kind of human Panzer tank, then the 1000 series had to be a Porsche."

Characteristics

The T-1000 in its liquid form.

In the Terminator 2 story, the T-1000's major innovation is its "mimetic poly-alloy" construction -- an intelligent liquid metal. This gives the T-1000 the ability to change its appearance, and emulate virtually anything. It is capable of perfectly copying the shape, color, and texture of anything that it touches that is of similar size. The only restriction is that it cannot form "complex machines", such as "guns and explosives" because they "have chemicals, moving parts." The only weapons it can form are "solid metal shapes", such as "knives, and stabbing weapons." It must acquire any vehicles or other weapons it needs. When physically damaged, the T-1000 is capable of reforming itself in seconds, closing up bullet holes and reattaching limbs. In an attempt to destroy the T-1000, the protagonists freeze it with liquid nitrogen until it becomes brittle and shatters. However, when the pieces melt, it is able to reconstitute itself. At this point in the theatrical cut of the film, the T-1000 has suffered no damage at all, leaving the protagonists wondering if anything will destroy it. The Model 101 Terminator remarks that it is "unknown" if it can ever be destroyed. In the Special Edition, the freezing causes the T-1000 to glitch repeatedly, melding with any metal it touches, such as the catwalks and hand rails. Though the T-1000 is a formidable killer, it often attempts to accomplish its goals by deception instead of brute force. For example, in Terminator 2, it disguises itself as a police officer to gain trust, access, information, and a benign appearance. It also imitates family members of its human target, to gain that person's confidence.

Role in the series

The T-1000 shooting at John Connor. The metallic "wound", from a shotgun blast, heals rapidly due to the T-1000's physical characteristics.

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T-1000 is sent by Skynet to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), future leader of the Human Resistance against the machines. The T-1000 ambushes a police officer on arrival and takes on his identity, tracking down John Connor through the police cruiser's on-board computer and eventually confronting him in a shopping mall, where it meets a Terminator like the one from the first Terminator film. Up until this point, the audience has been misdirected. In the first film, two men show up from the future, one an evil Terminator, the other a human protector. In this film, two show up, a Terminator like the one from the previous film, and another man. The audience is left to assume that the other man is the human protector. When the two meet, there is a plot twist. The type of Terminator from the previous film is now the guardian, while the other is the terminator sent by Skynet, a reversal of the roles from the first Terminator film. The T-1000 confronts the protagonists at the psychiatric institution where Sarah Connor is being held, demonstrating impressive abilities, such as flattening itself into a thin 'carpet' of metal and oozing through prison-style bars while maintaining the shape of a walking man. It then predicts that the Connors will try to prevent Skynet from being invented, and meets them at Cyberdyne Systems Corporation headquarters. It hijacks a helicopter and gives chase. While flying, it sprouts a third hand to fire a submachine gun. The chase ends when it crashes a liquid nitrogen truck into a steel mill. When it exits the truck, the T-1000 is frozen solid by the liquid nitrogen. The Terminator shatters it with a gunshot, but it reforms itself. After a short hunt, it tracks down John, who is confronted by two seemingly identical versions of his mother -- one of which is the T-1000 in disguise. Finally, The Terminator fires a grenade at the T-1000, causing enough damage to disrupt it significantly; it stumbles and falls backward into a vat of molten steel, destroying it.

Special effects

The visual effects used in Terminator 2 to create the T-1000 won the Academy Awards for Visual Effects.^[2] The development of computer-generated imagery (CGI) to manipulate, re-create, and "morph" the image of an actor was used in the creation of the T-1000 character in the film.

Appearances in other films

Robert Patrick has cameos in several films as the T-1000 in police disguise, including Last Action Hero, also a Schwarzenegger film, and Wayne's World, where he pulls over Wayne and asks if he has seen John Connor.

Comics

In the Terminator 2: Judgment Day Nuclear Twilight comic published by Malibu Comics in 1994, an injured Tech-Com soldier named "Griff" is abducted by a troop of T-800 Terminators and brought back to Skynet. He is drugged and, while in a delirious state (believing he has died and gone to Heaven), questioned by Skynet about Tech-Com's acquisition of a T-800 unit. After he has supplied all the information he is aware of, two T-1000 Terminators enter the room, both assuming his appearance before killing him. One of these T-1000 units is then sent to infiltrate the human resistance, the other sent through time to kill John Connor as outlined in the Terminator 2 movie.

Pop Culture References

• In The Simpsons episode Homer Loves Flanders, Homer walking through a hedge, and subsequently chasing down the Flanders' car, references the T-1000. In another episode, Burns' Heir, when Homer goes to Mr. Burns to reclaim his son, Smithers deploys the "best he's got", a robotic Richard Simmons that regenerated after being shot with a shot-gun by Smithers, in a failed attempt to control him. This scene was, however, deleted and then broadcast on the "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular".
• Todd the T1000 is a song by Jonathan Coulton about a Terminator servant.
• T-1000 is also a song by Industrial Metal band Fear Factory.
• T-1000 was spoofed in movies like Hot Shots! Part Deux (Saddam Hussein freezes, melts, and rebuilds himself, but winds up fused with his similarly-shattered Yorkshire terrier). Wayne's World and Last Action Hero feature Robert Patrick in a brief cameo in the familiar police uniform.
• Universal Studios Theme Parks feature an attraction titled Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time, featuring a combination of live actors and filmed elements, the latter reuniting actors Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong and Robert Patrick, all reprising their roles from the film. The presentation has high production values, but is clearly non-canonical to the Terminator franchise. It briefly features a "T-1000000", a much larger spider-like version of the T-1000.
• The 1993 Nintendo game Duck Tales 2 features an end boss named D-1000, a grey, metallic-skinned duck that can melt and reform just like T-1000, and is an obvious reference.
• In an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch a match pitting Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone against each other, Arnold fires a RPG at Stallone and blows him to pieces, but he reforms himself in the style of the T-1000.
• Issue #16 of the Pinky and the Brain comic book, which parodied Terminator 2, featured an antagonist in the form of a prototype robot called the V-1000, built by the leader of a movement intended to dispose of Brain in the future and place their own ruler in its power. In what appears to be its normal form, the V-1000 looks like Pinky, causing Brain to think Pinky's the movement's leader and the robot's creator, an idea he finds laughable, which insults Pinky. However, the V-1000 soon reveals that it was in fact created by Snowball and attempts to exterminate the mice. Similar to the movie's ending, the V-1000 is defeated when the original Verminator (introduced in an earlier issue) punches it into a fondue pot.
• In Stargate SG-1, the villainous human-form Replicator known as RepliCarter kills its foes in a similar manner to the T-1000 by stabbing them with a large blade formed from its own body; the producers have stated that this was intended as an homage to the T-1000.
• In Mortal Kombat 3, Jax has a Fatality where he has his arms turned into blades slicing the opponent, in a homage to the T-1000.
• In Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly there is a enemy called the R-1000 which is a T-Rex shaped robot made of liquid metal. It can only be destroyed by freezing them with Spyro's Ice Breath and then charging them.

See also

• Nanomorph

External links

• T-1000 at the Internet Movie Database

References