T-1000 was under-realized...
...here's why:
Terminator 2 was directed with a different approach to appease a different audience. Instead of Tech Noir Horror, they went for Action Drama.
This is because it's more palatable to make a film that can support a whole slew of merchandise that would follow after the film's release. Nothing new here, but due to T2 changing course from T1's atmosphere, a lot of the concepts are underhanded and under-realized.
How and why.
Well, when it comes to the T-800, not much needs to be said about him, because he's not the problem. The concept of the T-800 is quite basic and is already set in place due to the first film's depiction of the robot model.
The T-1000 on the other hand, is completely reduced to the predetermined business strategy of appeasing a greater audience (even though the execs have no clue if they continued in lieu of T1's approach) and making a particular story to fulfill that goal.
Imagine if they made a Terminator movie with the Tech Noir Horror style WITH the T-1000. It would be absolutely amazing. Of course you would not copy the T-800's concept in this context, you would take it to the next level.
That's what we got; an underhanded nemesis that is essentially the same model as the T-800 but with a liquid-matrix structure. Boring.
What SHOULD have happened is the T-1000 being formless. What I mean here is that he does not have a fixed body-structure like you see in T2 as Robert Patrick. Rather, it would "absorb" identities to conceal its formless-like structure.
Instead of seeing him appear from the portal at the start naked like the T-800, there would be nothing but a concave in the concrete slab and the T-1000 concealed in one of the pillars taking out the cop and "absorbing" his identity. It would have been WAY more interesting to set it up this way as we then discover its true nature as a liquid-matrix organism.
Each person the T-1000 kills, he absorbs their identity. It would make him like Michael Myers but a formless ghost that can evade any trace of his whereabouts.
Thoughts?