T2: The Director's Cut: Not What You Think

Let me be as clear as I possibly can on this matter. The theatrical cut of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY is the director's cut of the film. By that I mean it is James Cameron's preferred cut, the one he considers to be definitive.

In other words, the extended cut is nothing more than a curiosity. I don't care how many people refer to it as the director's cut. I don't care how many European video releases label it as such on the movie's actual menu (at last count, there were two. The extended cut is not the director's cut.

I have gotten into a lot of arguments about this, and no one wants to listen to reason, no matter how much evidence is provided. So let me just set the record straight here, for anyone who may question the truth now or in the future.

Like everyone else, I, too, once believed that the extended cut was the director's cut. After all, that big collector's edition, the "film school in a box" as it came to be known, contained the extended cut. That's the cut that I bought on LaserDisc back in the day (in pan & scan, no less), and with it came a rather ambiguous note from Cameron himself:

People sometimes ask why I would want to do a special edition of T2. Why "fix" something that ain't broken?

I see it not as a fix, but as an opportunity to do greater justice to the characters who live and breathe within the 136-minute confines of the film. This Special Edition in no way invalidates the theatrical cut. It simply restores some depth and character made omissible by theatrical running time and now made viable again by the home theatrical/laserdisc format.

The Terminator films are all about trying to change history, and the importance of the individual within the grand scheme of things. More often than not, we find that even if we cannot alter the events of our lives, we certainly have the ability to shed more light on them, to see them from a slightly different perspective. I think that not only the viewers, but the characters of these films understand this empowerment theme quite clearly. Not just Sarah Connor, but Dyson, Terminator, John, the T-1000--and even the late Kyle Reese--have all come calling to alter our view of the events in their lives as seen in the theatrical release of T2.

In this age of interactivity, special editions give viewers a choice between seeing a film as it was shown in the theater and seeing essentially a finished version of the initial conception of the movie. It's a look behind the curtain on the creative process that got the filmmakers to the version of the film that was released; one can see the ideas that were being explored. I think it's a good lesson for people who are interested in film, to see what is necessary--and what is not--to tell a story.

Pioneer and Carolco have worked closely with me and my tireless staff at Lightstorm Entertainment to give you this gilmpse into the alternative realities of T2. We have restored more than fifteen minutes of material to the film, to give you a different refraction of the T2 story, with new facets and old faces. Gary Rydstrom and his crew at Skywalker Sound have once again performed their audio mastery to mix new scenes, and the THX Laserdisc Program has helped to ensure that our work on the special edition comes through to you loud and clear. I hope you enjoy it.

Jim Cameron

That note is rather ambiguous, but it's inclusion with the extended cut seems to validate that cut. However, if you listen to Cameron's commentary on the "Extreme DVD" that came out a few years back, his true preference becomes clear:

I still stand by the release version of the film. I don't think we needed that dream sequence. I think we made the right decisions editorially, and I think that the dream sequence and some of the other things that we put back in for the extended version are good to sort of show the creative process, but, you know, essentially, making a film is an analytical and reductive process. You throw away the things you don't need.

I think that's about as close as we're going to get to him saying that he prefers the theatrical cut without just flat-out saying it. And yet there are still people who insist that the extended cut is the director's cut. I see these people as being similar to those religious nutballs who insist on believing whatever fairy tale their parents fed them as a child, no matter how much scientific evidence there is to the contrary. Like Carl Everett and his dinosaurs. Well, guess what Carl, James Cameron prefers the theatrical cut of T2 just a surely as dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Deal with it.