Cinefex #47 from 1991 is one of my favorite readings on Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I also gone on record as saying that Cinefex top them all. Not to take away from any Terminator related books out there, most of them fantastic in their own right, but this Cinefex issue is in my opinion, the best Terminator book out there.
It guides the reader scene by scene, reads very well and has some production photos which are still rare to this day. The entire issue is all T2 and it's 60 pages. And it goes scene by scene, it leads you through an entire plot and focuses on each scene carefully. And again, it isn't some technical mumbo jumbo, and I can't really call myself a special FX nut either. It's just fascinating how back in the days there was no rule book on making a scene - a group of people were presented a scene and they had to brainstorm how to create this for the movie, and those are always fascinating stories and ideas to read about. And it reads very easily, the style is very accessible.
The issue is written by Jody Duncan, who went on to become one of the masters of Making Of books for decades to come, including books for Star Wars Episode I, Jurassic Park, The Dark Knight and Avatar. As usual, Cinefex interviews just about anybody who worked on any kind of effects on the film, not only people at ILM but people who did the Termovision, people who erased the cables - everyone. Plus Robert Patrick and of course James Cameron. There's plenty to learn from this book - I always call it a book because other than soft paper that it's made of , in my opinion it absolutely IS a book, and the most detailed one on the subject. Not only you can read how each shot was made, but also how each of the teams had their work rejected by Cameron at first, requiring improvements.
The book also calls T2 a "storyline that concludes the saga", which was a well known and obvious fact at the time. This is reiterated at the end of the book by Cameron again, after yet again Arnold Schwarzenegger repeats his willingness to do a third film:
For his part, Cameron seems satisfied that the story he first drafted nearly a decade ago has been brought to its fitting conclusion. "Terminator 2 does it for me. Not only does this story change the future, it unmakes the future that made both films possible - so it's a closed loop. As far as I'm concerned, Terminator 2 answers all the questions"
