My websites were always targeted primarily for the hardcore fans who almost know it all. The purpose of my sites was too shine light on some very obscure interviews and facts that aren't accessible in well known books or extras that are still available for purchase. However, times change, and new generations and fans come along - and I realized that a lot of my audience consist of fans who aren't diehards who know every book and interview by memory for decades (like all the fans at the Terminator Files Forum years ago), or just never went outside the films. So this is the first part of a different type of FAQ section, for those less initiated in Cameronverse. James Cameron is one of those very few storytellers who leave the fans with more answers than any scifi fan would hope for, certainly much more than any other scifi storyteller. While movies are about the kinetic energy, emotions visual art and story, and they are certainly not obligated to explain or elaborate on every fictional aspect of it, Cameron, often praising the audiences as 'smart' and ones who 'get it', spread just enough clues and sprinkled bits of information that are enough for the viewers to draw they answers from, without a need to do it through dialogue, ruining the flow, pace and running time of the film. And he always goes extra miles unlike anyone else to give reason and logic behind everything, even fictional made up tech.
Novelizations used to be for fans who wanted that extra insight into the story, unburdened by the limited running time of a movie and it's pacing - they dwelled on character's thoughts and explained things that couldn't be visually or weren't absolutely necessary or crucial to explain in the film, and so they're often almost like the Bible of the film, along the script. Let me underline that none of the answers are my own opinions, they are an intent of the filmmakers and official sources will be quoted when necessary. And have in mind, this entire site is just about Cameronverse only.
Let's continue with "How Did The T-1000 Go Back Through Time?"
In the first film, Reese explains that only living organism can go through time because it generates a field that allows it, and that nothing dead will go. So how did the liquid metal T-1000 travel back through time? Here lies the cleverness of James Cameron, in solving quite a big problem with the T-1000's arrival. Here are the problems he was presented with as a storyteller with T-1000’s arrival scene:
1. Many may not be aware today, that back in the days the film was suppose to trick the audience into thinking that Arnold is the bad cyborg again, while Robert Patrick is a human protector.
William Wisher (T2 cowriter): “We were hoping, in the first weekend, before anyone saw it, [that the audience will think that] clearly Robert is the good guy and Arnold is the bad guy” (2003 Audio Commentary)
James Cameron: “It’s exactly the same architecture as the first film in an abstracy sense, because you put Michael Biehn on the map in the first film and he seems like a very threatening guy, very shadowy. So right until that point (The Galleria scene) we still don’t know, the Terminator might be after John, and it’s all carefully constructed” (2003 Audio Commentary)
Below a 2003 text commentary from an interactive mode showcasing how careful they had to be not to reveal the T-1000 for what and who he is
The marketing changed overtime in fear that the audiences would not accept Arnold as a good guy in a cold turkey way, but originally it was suppose to be a plot twist and the movie was designed so that the audience doesn't know the roles are reversed. So the T-1000 at that point could not be revealed for what and who he is
2. In the beginning of the film, the audiences were not familiar with the T-1000's abilities or even existence of such thing. The audience was fed bits of information gradually about it throughout the film, both through dialogue and visuals. So right off the bat there, for those reason alone, you couldn't show him use his powers or have the T-1000 arrive in clothes, as it would confuse the audience who only knew by that point that time travelers come naked. And logically, T-1000 did not have access to 90's clothes to copy or any clothes as he was quickly activated and sent back in Skynet's last minutes. And so of course, the T-1000 was not shown copying the uniform, and it happens offscreen
3. Living organisms can go through time, so how to have the T-1000 arrive, but not contradicting this rule at the same time not revealing to the audience that he is something we haven’t seen yet and that he isn’t human protector
Cameron came up with the idea that the T-1000 would arrive in a flesh cocoon that the Officer Austin would find. However, storywise, taking points 1 and 2 into consideration, it would be a confusing train wreck at that point of the story to the audience.
Van Ling, James Cameron's assistant, friend and official creative consultant on The Abyss and T2 (as well as the producer of many T2 DVD's and Blurays) explains on the Text Commentary on T2 Extreme DVD edition, as well as in an interview with JamesCameronOnline.com:
"That idea (of the flesh cocoon) was one we had bandied about during preproduction, but it was something that we thought would be too confusing to show visually. It would have been like when Brett finds the shed alien skin in Alien. I still think it's the most logical explanation, given we see a flesh "mold" in the teaser trailer already. "
On his last point - the novelization of T2 specifically describes John and the Resistance finding traces of liquid metal in a flesh wrapping machine
With the almost entire Future sequence gone and reduced only to a short, documentary-style prologue, naturally this scene did not make it into the movie either. Pictured first is the flesh machine as seen in the trailer, wrapping an endoskeleton in the flesh
And here is the movie prop of the teaser trailer flesh machine with liquid metal filling in
So cleverly, to address and solve all those problems, the T-1000 actually appears offscreen and we never see it. This way, not only it doesn't deny the Flesh Coccoon idea, but also doesn't contradict the established rule as we don't see how he arrived. And in addition to all that, it also opens up possibility for the audience to come up with a clever answer themselves.
Which leads us to the second explanation that will fit into the MOVIE-ONLY explanation section:
If one doesn't know about the flesh cocoon, one can simply assume an even simpler answer, also given in the T2 Extreme DVD Text Commentary and Van Ling interview with JamesCameronOnline.com "The other possibilities are that the T-1000 could mimic the field generated by a living organism "
Below the choice of two explanations for the viewers as it appears in 2003’s T2 Extreme DVD Text commentary
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