Terminator 2 - Judgement Day

Ask James Cameron for a great plot and incredible action and ye shall receive. No better example could be had back in 1991 than with the sequel to the awesome sci-fi flick that launched the blockbusting career of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Terminator told the story of an indestructable cyborg, sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, mother of the future savior of the world, John Connor.

Terminator 2 jumps forward a decade as we see a young John Connor (Edward Furlong) rebelling against his foster parents because his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton) is locked away in a mental institution for the things she has seen and believes.

This time around there are 2 Terminators sent back in time to kill you John. The first, your standard T-800 model (Arnold) and the second a sleeker, faster, more advanced T-1000 model with the ability to shape-shift into anything it comes into contact - a much deadlier assassin. But all is not what it seems when both Terminators find the boy at the same time but only one of them is sent to kill, the other is sent to protect and it is here where the battle of the Terminators begins as the T-800 battles to survive the newer models onslaughts, protect John and help destroy the technology at Cyrberdine to stop the future of these machines from ever seeing the light of day.

I'd like to thank the guys at Start Digital and the crew from Seleco, who came down from Sydney to properly calibrate the projector in their showroom, for giving me the opportunity to review this disc with them.

Not as impressed as I was hoping to be. I wasn't holding much expectation given the oh so long delays with the initial release and when viewing the disc I didn't feel that surprised. A pity, it's only a few niggling aspects that I've not experienced with either the region 1 disc nor the laserdisc for that matter.

The first niggly I saw was the sharpness. Either the film was like this initially or it was something inherent in the transfer process but I felt the image was a little softer than I've been used to before. I tried the disc at home on my Hitachi TV and on the PC-DVD player and all gave me the same soft look. Do I need to see an optometrist? From there we go to the film stock as it lends to a slightly dirty print in some scenes a long with a grainy presentation in low lighted scenes. Then again, Cameron is known for is inherent graininess but I doubt this was the cause.

On the plus side, the disc is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio. Black level is excellent and the contrasting blue night tones with the orange desert tones are very nice indeed. Color saturation is fine but could have been a tad richer.

All in all, this is a pretty good transfer. I guess I was not expecting much and expecting a little too much at the same time. Is that possible?

Ahh, that demo material soundtrack that is associated with a James Cameron action flick. This soundtrack is great but there's just something in their that I just can't pin-point. I guess I'm so used to my ultra dynamic range of my PCM laserdisc.

Dialogue is always clear, no matter the distractions around you. Take the scene where Arnie and John Connor are on the harley and discussing the T1000's ability to morph. The Harley roars along nicely yet the dialogue seems to be in a sound space of it's own - nice and discrete indeed.

Directionality is excellent with many instances of left to right, front to back, back left to right front and on and on and on all presenting the head turning effects they intend to. This is indeed an active surround track.

Bass was exceptional. Even having the movie playing at home in the background induced some reverberating rumbling at low listening levels. Your subwoofer will be getting a nice aerobic session.

As I said earlier, there's just something missing in the soundtrack that I can't pinpoint which is holding me back from giving it a 10. Also take note that for some french reason the default audio language is french dolby surround with french subtitles. Once the menus appear, select the audio you prefer and then switch of subtitles and you'll be fine.

Ok, there's not much on this disc but there's not much in the US to warrant one disc over the other. We are treated to the teaser trailer of the T-800 endo-skeleton being manufactured and then processed into a fully synthetic cyborg of Arnold with his glowing red-eyes.

We also get anamorphic menus throughout and a very slick picture disc - something I always like having.

A great movie, a decent looking disc and a great soundtrack all lend to another winner for Columbia Tristar. I can't help but feel that if Sony DVCC had authored the disc then we would have had a perfect looking and sounding disc. As it is, this will still keep people happy until a hopefull region 4 release of the special edition version of the movie which is by far, a more enjoyable and complete movie.