T-1000

This article is about the fictional character. For other uses, see T1000 (disambiguation).

T-1000
File:T-1000.gif The "T-1000", played by Robert Patrick.
First appearance	Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Created by	James Cameron & William Wisher Jr.
Portrayed by	Robert Patrick, other cast members

The T-1000 is a fictional android assassin featured as the main antagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The T-1000 is portrayed primarily by Robert Patrick; however, being a shape-shifter, the T-1000 is played by other actors in some scenes of the film. In Terminator 2, the T-1000 is presented as a technological leap over the "Model 101" Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger); Schwarzenegger's character explains how the T-1000 is a more advanced terminator. It can absorb damage better, and physically mimic specific humans and other objects. Furthermore, it can use its advanced composition in innovative and surprising ways, including fitting through narrow openings, walking through prison bars, and flattening itself on the ground to hide.

Description

The T-1000 in its liquid form.

In the Terminator 2 story, the T-1000's major innovation is its "mimetic poly-alloy" construction -- an intelligent liquid metal. This gives the T-1000 the ability to change its appearance, and emulate virtually anything. It is capable of perfectly copying the shape, color, and texture of anything that it touches that is of similar size. The only restriction is that it cannot form "complex machines", such as "guns and explosives" because they "have chemicals, moving parts." The only weapons it can form are "solid metal shapes", such as "knives, and stabbing weapons." It must acquire any vehicles or other weapons it needs.

When physically damaged, the T-1000 is capable of reforming itself in seconds, closing up bullet holes and reattaching limbs. While pursuing the protagonists, the T-1000 is frozen with liquid nitrogen until it becomes brittle and shatters. However, when the pieces melt, it is able to reconstitute itself. At this point in the theatrical cut of the film, the T-1000 has suffered no apparent damage at all, leaving the protagonists wondering if anything will destroy it. In the Special Edition, the freezing and subsequent shattering causes the T-1000 to glitch repeatedly, melding with any metal it touches, such as the catwalks and hand rails.

Though the T-1000 is a formidable killer, it often attempts to accomplish its goals by deception instead of brute force. For example, in Terminator 2, it disguises itself as a police officer to gain trust, access, information, and a benign appearance. It also imitates family members of its human target, to gain that person's confidence.

Role

Film

File:T1000 3.jpg

The T-1000 shooting at John Connor. The metallic "wound", from a shotgun blast, heals rapidly due to the T-1000's physical characteristics.

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T-1000 is sent by Skynet to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), future leader of the Human Resistance against the machines. The T-1000 ambushes a police officer on arrival and takes on his identity, tracking down John Connor through the police cruiser's on-board computer and eventually confronting him in a shopping mall, where it meets a Terminator like the one from the first Terminator film. Up until this point, the audience has been misdirected. In the first film, two men show up from the future, one an enemy Terminator, the other a human protector. In this film, two show up, a Terminator like the one from the previous film, and another man. The audience is left to assume that the other man is the human protector. When the two meet, there is a plot twist. The type of Terminator from the previous film is now the guardian, while the other is the terminator sent by Skynet, a reversal of the roles from the first Terminator film.

The T-1000 confronts the protagonists at the psychiatric institution where Sarah Connor is being held, demonstrating impressive abilities, such as flattening itself into a thin 'carpet' of metal and oozing through prison-style bars while maintaining the shape of a walking man. It then predicts that the Connors will try to prevent Skynet from being invented, and meets them at Cyberdyne Systems Corporation headquarters. It hijacks a helicopter and gives chase. While flying, it sprouts two more hands, two to fly the helicopter and two to reload and fire the submachine gun. The chase ends when it crashes a liquid nitrogen truck into a steel mill.

When it exits the truck, the T-1000 is frozen solid by the liquid nitrogen. The Terminator shatters the T-1000 with a gunshot, but it reforms itself. However, it experienced a malfunction of its morphing abilities. After a short hunt, it tracks down John, who is confronted by two seemingly identical versions of his mother -- one of which is the T-1000 in disguise. Finally, The Terminator fires a grenade at the T-1000, causing enough damage to disrupt it significantly; it stumbles and falls backward into a vat of molten steel, destroying it.

Television

T-1001 / Catherine Weaver
The T-1001 liquid metal terminator from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles under the guise of Catherine Weaver. The computer system known as the Turk is seen on the table
First appearance	"Samson and Delilah" (season 2, episode 1)
Portrayed by	Shirley Manson, other cast members, special effects

A new T-1001 liquid-metal terminator is introduced in the TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson), the current CEO of ZeiraCorp, looking to develop the AI that is believed to eventually become Skynet. It frequently quotes from the Bible and speaks in metaphors. It has been shown to show emotions such as annoyance with staff members. So far, the T-1001 is shown to have the same morphing abilities as the T-1000, and has the ability to consume food. The episode "Allison from Palmdale" shows her daughter Savannah (portrayed by Mackenzie Smith).

Comics

In the Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Nuclear Twilight comic published by Malibu Comics in 1996, an injured Tech-Com soldier named "Griff" is abducted by a troop of T-800 Terminators and brought back to Skynet. He is drugged and, while in a delirious state (believing he has died and gone to Heaven), questioned by Skynet about Tech-Com's acquisition of a T-800 unit. After he has supplied all the information he is aware of, two T-1000 Terminators enter the room, both assuming his appearance before killing him. One of these T-1000 units is then sent to infiltrate the human resistance, the other sent through time to kill John Connor as outlined in the Terminator 2 movie. In the simultaneously published Terminator 2: Judgement Day – Cybernetic Dawn, set just after the film, a female T-1000 and two T-800s come to the present to make sure the creation of Skynet happens as planned.

Creation

Teaser trailers for Terminator 2 deliberately withheld the notion that the T-1000 character was the villain. A tagline for the film was "This time there are two. Terminator 2."

On the Terminator 2 DVD, writer/director James Cameron describes his casting of Robert Patrick as a deliberate contrast to the original Terminator character portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger: "I wanted to find someone who would be a good contrast to Arnold. If the 800 series is a kind of human Panzer tank, then the 1000 series had to be a Porsche."

The visual effects used in Terminator 2 to create the T-1000 won the Academy Award for Visual Effects. The development of computer-generated imagery (CGI) by Industrial Light & Magic to manipulate, re-create, and "morph" the image of an actor was used in the creation of the T-1000 character in the film. According to the book The Winston Effect: The Art & History of Stan Winston Studio, however, of the 15 minutes that the T-1000 displays its morphing and healing abilities, only 6 of those minutes were accomplished with pure computer graphics. The other 9 were achieved in camera with the use of advanced puppets and prosthetic effects created by the Stan Winston studio, who were also responsible for the metal skeleton effects of the T-800.

Entity FX, Inc. is responsible of the visual effects of the T-1001 on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,along with the digital animation of endoskeletons and Hunter-Killers on the show. The company also contributed the digital imagery of feature films James Cameron's True Lies and Titanic.

Pop culture references

Robert Patrick has cameos in several films as the T-1000 in police disguise, including Last Action Hero, also a Schwarzenegger film, and Wayne's World, where he pulls Wayne over and asks, "Have you seen this boy?"

• In The Simpsons episode "Homer Loves Flanders", Homer walking through a hedge, and subsequently chasing down the Flanders' car while wielding golf clubs, are references to the T-1000. In "Burns' Heir", Homer is attacked by a robotic Richard Simmons which regenerates after being shot in the head point-blank with a shotgun. This scene was, however, deleted and then broadcast on the "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular". In "Day of the Jackanapes", after being blown up by a bomb, a room full of network executives reconstruct themselves like the T-1000 and then suggest more "improvements" to the show as a testament to their evil.
• "Todd the T1000" is a song by Jonathan Coulton about a Terminator servant.
• "T-1000" is also a song by Industrial metal band Fear Factory.
• T-1000 was spoofed in movies like Hot Shots! Part Deux (Saddam Hussein freezes, melts, and rebuilds himself, but winds up fused with his similarly-shattered Yorkshire terrier).
• In an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch a match pitting Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone against each other, Arnold fires a RPG at Stallone and blows him to pieces, but he reforms himself in the style of the T-1000.
• In Stargate SG-1, the villainous human-form Replicator known as RepliCarter kills its foes in a similar manner to the T-1000 by stabbing them with a large blade formed from its own body; the producers have stated that this was intended as an homage to the T-1000.
• In an episode of The X-Files, Robert Patrick's character, John Doggett says, "What’re you saying? Ray Pearce has become some kind of metal man? ‘Cause that only happens in the movies, Agent Scully." A reference to his role as the T-1000.
• In a DirecTV commercial, a clip from Terminator 2 with the T-1000 is shown with him talking about how he did not want to kill John Connor. He just wanted to check out his DirecTV.
• In The Marine, starring Robert Patrick, one of Rome's henchmen refers to John Cena as the terminator "because he won't die," after which, Robert Patrick's character shoots him a menacing glance in the rear view mirror. During a chase sequence, John Cena's character sits back up after his vehicle's top is ripped off in a manner similar to a scene with the T-1000 in Terminator 2, after the semi-truck the T-1000 is driving is similarly damaged in a chase.
• Tyzonne, the Mercury Ranger from Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive is an alien (a Mercurian) whom can change into liquid Mercury, similar to the T-1000.
• An episode of Smallville from its fourth season "Gone," Lionel Luthor's assasin, Trent, whose kryptonite enhanced abilities was identical to the T-1000. Even the episode's climax with its protagonists Clark Kent and Lois Lane is somewhat mirroring T2 of the final battle of T-1000, T-101, and Sarah Connor. Entity FX, Inc., which is responsible for the visual effects on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is also responsible of the special effect on Smallville.

See also

• Nanomorph

External links

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