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 part of a different type of FAQ section, for those less initiated in Cameronverse.
Let's continue with "T2 Story Was There From The Beginning?"
I realized new fans (or the ones who don't go outside the blurays and dvds) may not be aware that 90% of the entire Terminator 2: Judgment Day had been already written back in 1982! So while the first film was not made with an eye to a sequel originally (since Cameron did not think he will have a chance to tell the full story), due to severe budgetary and other restraints, more than half of the original story had to be cut, and that half was what ended up fleshed out as T2. So T2 was never an aftermath, it was what was part of the entire original story from the beginning, finally allowed to be told unrestricted 7 years later.
The original story outline that James Cameron wrote in 1982 prior to the script treatment he eventually submitted to studios went like this: in the first part of the film, we get what we got in the first film, but halfway through, the liquid metal Terminator comes back as a backup
The first such mention was in the official "Making of Terminator 2: Judgment Day" book, published by Bantam in July 1991
Here are a few other examples from different decades where he also mention the shapshifting T-1000 being part of the first film's original story outline
Film Review Magazine, September 1991
"Years earlier, during the pre-planning of the first Terminator movie, Cameron has conceived the notion of a terminator that was made of liquid metal and that had almost infinite shape changing capabilities. But, back then, neither the films budget (a mere 6.5 million dollars), nor the then state of the effects art would stretch to it. And Cameron had to "make due" with the more mechanical Arnie
Gorezone December 1991
"Cameron adds that the T-1000 was his initial vision for the first Terminator movie. 'Even though I didn't call him the T-1000, that was my original idea', reveals Cameron. "Originally, I had the idea of a liquid metal robot from the future that could take on any form and coloration that it wanted. This would have been back in 1981. And before I actually got to writing the script. I realized two things: One, I had no conception of how to do it, even though it was a cool idea, and two, John Carpenter was making The Thing and I had heard they had gone back to the original concept of the story 'Who Goes There' with the idea of a shape changer. I had no idea what they were doing with that movie, so I abandoned that concept and went in a different direction. Now, I've come full circle after figuring out how to do the effects"
On Production Magazine, May 1992
"Cameron says he first conceived the idea of a liquid character who would disassemble and reassemble when confronted by a powerful force back in '82 when he wrote 'The Terminator' . 'But there was no way of realizing those images back then, so I had to put the storyline in a drawer until the techniques matured'"
Hollywood's Master Storytellers taped interview 2002
The Futurist: James Cameron's Biography 2009
"Cameron's initial outline [for the first movie] had called for two terminators sent sequentially to our present from the future. The hero, Kyle Reese, was able to dispatch the first- essentially the T-800 model - at about the midpoint of the story. Then the future enemy reluctantly sent the second killer. This was the Terminator even the bad guys feared to deploy, because of its power and potential effect on history's timeline. It was a tenacious liquid metal robot that couldn't be destroyed by any conventional methods - shoot it or blow it up and it would just reform and come after you again. Cameron tried to think of ways to depict the liquid metal man using the filmmaking techniques of the day. He thought claymation might work, if it was shot carefully and in shadows. 'I was seeing things in my head which couldn't be done with existing technologies', Cameron says. 'Eventually I realized I had too much story and nobody would fund it anyway" says Cameron. So he cut down the narrative down to just the T-800 idea'"
Book from the Australian Exclusive Terminator 2: Judgment Day Box Set 2018
Below from 2021 Tech Noir The Art of James Cameron book
And below from British Film Institute Interview
Even thought all this was omitted, a hint of one more Terminator remained to the last version of the script. In the final 5th draft March 1984 shooting script Reese, despite saying before that no one else comes through and the TDE was blown up, isn’t a dummy and is smart enough to realize that he cannot possibly know that or even that the Time Machine was destroyed since he went through before they could do it, and does believe that one more Terminator was sent. Below an excerpt from the script
The bit of dialogue was cut from the film because it was a tender moment which the mention of possibility of another assasin would distract from
So the whole part about the second terminator being sent, and being a shape shifting, liquid metal terminator was already there. How about the rest of the T2 elements? Sarah attempting to change the future by blowing up Cyberdyne was part of the original story as well, and it went as far as even having the scenes shot. Sarah finds the address for Cyberdyne and insists and argues with Reese that they should try to change the future and go after Cyberdyne
Reese agrees, and while this scene has been deleted, the result of it is still in the film - the entire reason why they're back in LA as oppose to running away South is that they go back to try to blow up Cyberdyne 0 this is why they make pipe bombs in the first place! Of course, even without that knowledge the scenes still work as the viewer assumes they make the pipe bombs against the Terminator, and no one ever really wandered why they're back in LA. And the irony is, their motel is already not far of from Cyberdyne, and the fate causes them to end up in the actual Cyberdyne Systems at the end of the chase (the deleted scene shows us the factory they run into is indeed Cyberdyne)
Which is another element of T2, cut from the original, but shown and improved in the second - the idea that Cyberdyne took the debris of the Terminator and based all their AI research on it.
So what is left? One last element, which is the Terminator protecting young John Connor. That part Cameron came up with in 1985, as he says in a 1993 interview included in the interactive mode on T2 Extreme DVD
James Cameron: "There was only ever one idea. About a year after the first picture was released, I was at a party at Arnold's house and he asked me about doing a sequel. I said I have this kind of whacky idea, to do two terminators, a good and evil terminator. It would have been reprogrammed to be protector of the child and I got an idea to do this kind of 'Shane" story where he becomes that sort of surrogate father, and of course it had to end tragically"
So now, with that last element, a complete T2 story was ready in 1985, with 90% already written in 1982. below, screenshots with text commentary from T2 Extreme DVD
T2 Co-writer William Wisher recalls Cameron sharing the idea with him years later
William Wisher: Jim pulled out this old yellow sheet of paper from a notebook and handed it to me without saying anything. there was one sentence scribbled on the dog eared page. It read: Young John Connor and the terminator that comes back to befriend him. (The Making of T2, 1991)
So T2 was never an afterthought, and never simply a cash in or a retcon. It was always a part of the story, just impossible to be told back in early 80;s, but finally realized onscreen in 1991. It was a case of a story that had to be omitted due to multiple limitations, but needed funds and rights to happen. That was even confirmed back in 1985
James Cameron: "We've got a story worked out but it hasn't gone beyond the talk stage" (SciFi Movieland 1985)
William Wisher (T2 co-writer): "This isn't so much a sequel as it is part two of a very fascinating adventure. We've finished the story, and as far as I'm concerned, it should stay finished"(Fangoria #104, 1991)
Cameron said it best in a mini book that came in 1993 Terminator Collection VHS Box Set
That's why T2 was always made as an end to a saga:
William Wisher (The Terminator co-writer and the co-writer of Terminator 2: Judgment Day): "This isn't so much a sequel as it is part two of a very fascinating adventure. We've finished the story, and as far as I'm concerned, it should stay finished. Everything we had to say about the Terminator has been said. One of the things Jim and I talked a lot about was whether there should be another followup. And we made our decision in the way we wrote Terminator 2. There are no backdoors in this film. We wrote this movie so that the fat lady sings. (Fangoria 1991)
James Cameron: "Terminator 2 is the ABSOLUTE conclusion, as far as I'm concerned. (...) By the end of "Judgment Day", we've basically rewritten the underlying foundation of reality as we know it."(Starlog Yearbook, Sept 1991)
James Cameron: "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"(Cinefex #47, 1991)
James Cameron: "Terminator 2 brings the story full circle and ends it" (Starlog #170, 1991). "Terminator 2 is the absolute conclusion as far as I'm concerned. (...) By the end of Judgment Day we've basically rewritten the underlying foundation of reality as we know it." (Starlog Yearbook #9, 1991)
"Storyline that concludes the saga. For his part, Cameron seems satisfied that the story he first drafted nearly a decade ago has been brought to its fitting conclusion. (Cinefex #47, 1991 Magazine)
James Cameron: " "I'm not really interested in doing [a third film]. Terminator 2 brings the story full circle and ends. And I think ending it at this point is a good idea".(Starlog #170, 1991)
Arnold Schwarzenegger: " I know Jim rules out a third film" (Starlog #169, 1991)
Everyone connected with Terminator 2 insists that this will be the last Terminator (Starlog #169, 1991)
Linda Hamilton: "I thought it was perfect with two films. It was a complete circle."(wharf.co.uk)
Linda Hamilton: ""My feeling is that Terminator 2 is very complete." (Film Review September 1991)
Even the narration in the official The Making of Terminator 2 about T2 refers to the film as The conclusion of the Terminator saga
Joe Morton: "It was a wonderful way to end the Terminator story" (The Official T2 Magazine)
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