I believe it is. It's much shorter and much more intense. T2 is obviously great too but it's a bit long and bloated and has a lot James Cameron shmaltz. I am thoroughly entertained by it everytime I see it but I never got why people almost universally preferred it over the first film.
shareI prefer the more polished feel of T2 and the menace that is the T-1000. And I prefer Sarah Connor as the soldier rather than the waitress who gets into a pickle. And of course, T2 has the harrowing Judgment Day sequence itself, which shows WHY they fight. The production values are higher and the soundtrack more awesome in every way, and the morality tale of convincing the creator of Skynet that it is NOT the way to go is key to the core of the story, and not just mindless violence.
As for T1, I just don't like the low-budget feel of it and the gore and violence, whereas T2 has a lot less of that. And to be honest, it's cool to have two Skynet Terminators fight! And the added drama of a young CHILD under threat of the more advanced Terminator raises the stakes immensely.
T2 all the way, baby!
This is the main appeal of the movie for simpletons: they need the worn out trope of a child in peril, also they need women to be butch and masculine, and they need shinier special effects.
shareThey're both Classics... Technically, you wouldn't have the awesomeness of T2 without the 1st Terminator, so there's that.. Even T3 was pretty good, even if Edward Furlong wasn't in it?? They should've stopped at T3, but instead, they beat a dead horse with this franchise and made it worse as it went along..
shareI would have liked a Future War movie that was more the tone of the future war scenes in Terminator 1 and 2. Instead it was less dark and there were too many day time scenes.
shareThey both are outstanding films. I love the horror element of T1, but T2 has so much great action. Both have great stories too. Some days I like T1 better and others T2. Great great movies.
sharedepends what you're looking for I guess?
the more intense factor - Total Recall (the original) had more of those sorts of classic Arnie film intense moments (like when the good/bad mutant guy reveals he's a mutant by showing you his disjointed arm). T1 was also just Arnolds character going round killing people. T1 was very 80's (loadsa kill count action). T2 was supposed to sanitise his image? preferred T2 myself, special effects still hold up for me
i think it's the same as Alien
the first is amazing, the second is what you expect from a sequel
"the body count is always bigger, the death scenes are always much more elaborate, carnage candy, and never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead."
I prefer T1. The darkness, visually and tonally, and it's just more suspenseful with a human being going up against a Terminator. And I always thought Schwarzenegger was more effective as the evil robot.
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