The T-1000 Plot Hole in Terminator 2  

"Something's wrong, she's never this nice" -John Connor, for the second time in the movie

That T1000 was one of the scariest robots to ever hit the green screen.

The real Sarah told him to "get out of the way, John." He knew that T-1000 would've just opened fire.

Man T2 is still to this day literally the best chase movie ever made. There's so many other movies that actually design their whole premise around a chase and don't even do it half as well, while T2 wasn't even trying to be a chase movie and somehow perfected it.

I’ve always thought John recognized that his mother will never ask for help like that, Sarah is the most badass character ever

Robert Patrick's performance as the T-1000 was truly brilliant Making the T-1000 a true infiltration unit

I assumed John knew that his mother would never risk John’s life, not even for her. She says it when he rescues her from the hospital

This didn’t require an explanation. John just recognized his real Mom based on behavior. It wasn’t a plot hole.

She literally says "get out of the way John" so she doesn't hurt him. Thats how he knows its her.

It was able to be cut because of clever foreshadowing. 👍😉 What foreshadowing? 1) John is on the phone with Janelle and he is able to tell, just by her demeanor that "something's wrong".."she's never this nice." Thus, we have two clues that will help us out later. First, we learn that John can tell the difference between the T-1000 and people in his life that he knows well because (the other clue) he knows their mannerisms.....the T-1000 can make a physical copy but doesn't get the mannerisms and memories of the victim, so (being that he is a robot) has to take his best guess as to how these people would act based on general information and not personal experience. So, "Mothers are nice" and "foster parents have a high level of empathy and sympathy, as they take in children that aren't their own" would be kind of information the T-1000 would be working with and he likely would have gone with "caring mother" mannerisms over "uncaring mother" mannerisms....simply due to the odds of that being the case in most situations. He was wrong and John caught on. We also only get to see another way (other than the abrupt phone hangup) the T-1000 fogured out that his cover was blown...but they removed that scene too, since killing dogs isn't good for having a money making movie. 😂 Him walking out was good enough. The point being: *John was able to tell via slightly off mannerisms that it wasn't really Janelle* and *The T-1000, if he wants to be successful, will have to adapt to this.* 2) The second time we get a bit of foreshadowing (which might be the wrong word) is during the hospital escape. During that exchange, John is clearly willing to put his life in danger to save Sarah and Sarah is a loving and comforting mother, looking over him for injuries. The T-1000, during that exchange (and any others he had with the pair in the rest of the movie) to get a tiny glimpse of how Sarah is as a mother: *loving and compassionate.* He also sees that *John is willing to risk his life to save Sarah.* ....what we see but the T-1000 doesn't is that: Sarah isn't really as comforting as it would seem to an outsider at the hospital. She is somewhat cold and callous, not because she doesn't love John, but because she needs to save him and loves him greatly. John is a teen who misses his mom and still loves her. We see that he is the one that comforts her at times and she is the comforting one at other times. When John goes to stop Sarah from killing Dyson, John is there to console her. He still has that weakness, however, of loving her so much that he will put himself in danger for Sarah. *When we get to the scene in question and talking about the cinematic version:* The T-1000 tries the "comforting mother" mannerisms again and he attempts to exploit John's weakness for his mother. This nearly works as John sees his, what he thinks is, his mom.... in pain and suffering. He wants to run to her but he doesn't. He can tell something is off but he doesn't really know Sarah. They just met for the first time at an age where he is more adult than child. So, John senses something is off. Then he sees another Sarah...one that sternly says "Get out of the way, John." The T-1000, it seems, almost assumes there will be a "I love you, I'm your real mom" moment.... but that isn't Sarah Connor's way. Thus, the hole is in his torso...not the plot. 👍

To be fair, she also says “get out of the way, John” as an expression of concern for his safety and well-being, which the T1000 probably wouldn’t have done

I just thought that john saw she didnt have her shotgun on her and that she would not drop her weapons just for him

I never understood why they cut out the malfunctions. I think they’re really cool effects.

That's not a plot hole. That's editing. His malfunctions don't alter the plot at all. Cameron just cut them because they didn't make a difference. John would've known anyway because Sarah would die before calling for him to help her.

Another plot hole I always wondered about was how the T1000 could time travel at all, since none of it was living tissue.

This is not a plot hole. John just made a judgment call.

Well, James explained the reason the T-1000’s malfunction was cut out because he wanted the audience to believe that the T-1000 couldn’t be stopped.

The fact that Sarah Connor is telling John to get out of the way is evidence enough that she's trying to protect him. The T1000 would just unload if in that position.

They didn't want the T-1000 to start breaking down in order to maintain an indestructible image

I like how when T-1000 has Sarah cornered, he tried to get her to call out to John first instead of just killing her and taking her place. He's smart enough to know that he probably couldn't be as convincing as someone's own mother.

John had already gotten in trouble with his mother for trying to help her earlier in the flick. The T1000 didn't know this and therefore John was skeptical of the encounter, until the real Sarah Connor came into the scene.

👏👏 This is hands down one of the greatest movies EVER made!

Theirs also a plot hole with the whole shapeshifting thing where it tried to get Sarah to call out to John when it could just do it itself

There are multiple reasons why John would trust the version of his mom aiming a gun at the other telling him to get down vs the one moving towards him crying for help. Metal leg malfunction not needed.

One of the biggest plotholes, and one that was addressed in a deleted scene, was in regards to how the T-1000 was able to go through time at all, since the Time Displacement Machine can't send anything dead back, per what Kyle Reese said in the first film. The T-1000 is fully metal unlike Arnold's T-800, which has human skin covering its endoskeleton. In this aforementioned deleted scene the police officer that discovers the T-1000's arrival finds a flesh-like cocoon that the Liquid Metal was transported in for the time trip, which I thought was a pretty ingenious way to solve that story blip, even though James Cameron decided to cut the scene believing most people wouldn't notice or care, and he was right.

Sure, but this isn’t even close to being a plot hole. It’s just a shift of context in how the scene plays out.

Fact: John's other mom, was her twin sister, for real.

In all fairness it's not much instinct for John when the woman who's holding the gun pointing in his direction is telling him to move out of the line of fire so it could have been left out

A bigger plot hole is why Skynet didn't send the T-1000 back to the point it originally sent the Terminator to try and kill Sarah. No way Kyle Reese would've destroyed that thing.

The movie still works without the omission. Leaving the T1000 malfunctioning scene out is kind of a bummer. Knowing it can be damaged at an OS level is interesting

I always thought it was malfunctioning due to the heat. Never even thought about the fact that it was frozen and blown apart. Interesting.

That's absolutely not a pothole. This was edited perfectly. In the theatrical version John was totally duped alongside the audience. If "Get out of the way John" Sarah was actually the T-1000 instead, it wouldn't have had to tell John to get out of the way and would have just shot Sarah and/or John without announcing its presence. A reasonable person would conclude that John worked off this instinct in the theatrical version.

that's not much of a plot hole....

It's not a plot hole. It's a character choice. He was able to identify his living breathing organic mother from a couple of feet away from a non breathing machine. Makes him seem like he has human characteristics himself rather than just "he has eyes".

Special edition also explains that the T-800'S CPU is set to "read only" by default and it is because John sets it to read write that the T-800 begins to retain what it learns. On read only mode, its learning capacity is limited and the data it gathers gets routinely erased to make room for new pertinent info.

A bigger plot hole is that the T-1000 can time travel without any organic flesh to cover it. In the classic, Kyle Reese establishes that, “Nothing dead goes through” “You ‘jump’ naked or not at all.” It was how he explained to the police psychiatrist why he had no “ray gun” with him even though he was from the future.

The theatrical is way better, it shows his intuition and judgment, noticing the small differences in behaviour and recognising his mother. It’s not a mistake or a plot hole.

T2 isn't the type of movie to be worrying about plot holes

After breaking out of the hospital and the terminator hooks itself onto the back of the car escaping, John shoots him then grabs with his hands and unhooks the bit that is still clinging to the car trunk, only later to merge back with the main body. I just figured we were going to get a John clone at some point now that it's touched John. Never happened. I always thought it was a missed opportunity.

Also Sarah would not have called out to John like that; that would be calling him to danger; she would never do that.

Neh, I thought the brutal "Gey out of the way!" From the OG Sarah was the tip off, that there was something inherent in the relationship vs some failure on the T-1000 part that made it quality.

Not only would T-1000 not say "out of the way, John," but I should also point out that John was the PRIMARY target. Like, it's one thing if Sarah was in the way of John. But if John is in the way of Sarah, then why would the T-1000 want John out of the way? John is priority #1.

The T-800 did mention to John that the T-1000 is not like him, an "advanced prototype," insinuating that it wasn't yet a fully fledged concept.

Same reason why it tortured sarah to call for John instead of just using its voice imitating abilities. It was probably glitching but later got that ability back.

I love this movie to death it’s one of my favorites of all time, but a big plot hole that no one seems to ever bring up is the fact that the t800 doesn’t kill anyone in the bar scene at the beginning before he meets John and is ordered to not kill anyone after the terminator attempts to shoot the unarmed guy who posed no physical threat. But in the bar he’s being hit with weapons, stabbed with knives and even guns pulled on him and he purposely does not kill anyone, stabbing the guy with the knife through the arm and just swiping away the shotgun. Obviously I know why James Cameron did this and we are supposed to ignore it but still irks me lol

I would actually argue that the T-1000 did an incredible job not just impersonating Sarah but to imitate her injured shoulder. Right down to mimicking what looks like blood but is probably the liquid metal taking the color red.

A bigger failed point is all the damage the T1000 sustained, it would be losing mass and it shouldn't be able to mimic full sized people

Even before seeing the feet John recognized it wasn’t his mother. It’s the reason he was approaching so slowly and carefully. He knows his mother would never romper and beg for help like that.

He should have left the parts in. It was almost no screen time. But the malfunctions weren’t just from being frozen. The T1000 took a lot of abuse fighting Arnold. He had been blown up twice in two days. Liquid Metal or not, that takes its toll

There’s one huge plot hole that I believe to remember. In T1, if I remember well, it was said that only living tissues could go through the gate of time. ( The T800 could make it because he was made of living tissues over a metal endoskeleton…) But what about T1000 ? No living tissues, right ? ( Don’t worry… I can unplug my brain to enjoy the movie.)

HERE'S A GIGANTIC PLOT HOLE: THE T-1000 THREATENS SARAH WITH DEATH IF SHE DOESN'T CALL OUT TO JOHN, EXCEPT THE T-1000 DIDN'T NEED HER TO DO THAT SINCE IT COULD IMITATE HER VOICE ITSELF (WHICH IT DID LAYER)!

James Cameron did a good job removing it from theatrical release.

Why would they cut out a crucial detail from the theatrical release (aka, the movie)? To save half a second?

Why didn't they just scatter the broken pieces of the T-1000 so it won't have any chance of reassembling itself?

He knew which was the real Sarah Connor because all she cared about was stopping the Terminator. She didn’t ask if he was ok. She didn’t ask for help. She just told him to get out of the way. The brilliant irony is that the T-1000, an emotionless killing machine, behaved too human. That’s the dark humour of that moment. The loss of Sarah’s humanity is literally a through-line of the entire film. I can’t believe you thought it was a plot hole 🤦‍♂️

The T-1000 doesn’t ever use a shotgun in the entire film, only a handgun for the Galleria sequence and as someone else has stated, an MP5 in the helicopter scene; John is acquainted with the T-1000 using melee weapons as opposed to heavier human firearms. I think without the T-1000 malfunctioning, John would’ve figured that out just fine.

"Plot hole" You don't know what that term means. Plot holes specifically refer to plot elements that directly fail internal consistency. They aren't "I don't know what thing is." Secondly, "Get out of the way, John" is kind of fricken obvious that the one with the gun was NOT the fricken terminator for frick sake.

Still a really great film, hard to believe it was made 30+ years ago

I honestly like it better in the theatrical cut where it implies John is learning to "spot" infiltrators.

No there was that in the theatrical version showing her legs weird. That was creepy af when I saw it.

A bigger plot hole in the T-2 story is that the time warp is only supposed to be able to send organic material back in time. It works for the T-800 because he's covered in organic material but the T-1000 is purely liquid metal. The only explanation would be that when the T-1000 takes human form the liquid metal is able to at least mimic organic genetic make-up.

I always thought it was cause the copy was being soft, whereas the real Sarah says “get out of the way John!”

Back when "director's cuts" and "special additions" actually made a movie better and weren't just cash-grabs.

This was a massive film in 91..I was 12 went to see it in the cinema..blow me away

Not really a plothole though as the T-1000 is asking for help and Sarah Just tells him to move so he doesn't get hit, if that was the T-1000 both Sarah and John were fully open to shoot. So even without the special edition edit the scène makes perfect sense.

Let's also ignore the big plot hole that Terminator 2 ignores from Terminator 1. The fact that the time travel machine can only send back things with an organic exterior. Which was why Reese never took any advanced weaponry with him. And why the Terminator had an organic exterior over its mechanical skeleton. But with Terminator 2 there is no fleshy exterior over the t1000. It's all metal in a liquid form that is able to imitate the look and movement of skin. But it's still 100% inorganic.

That's not a plot hole. The the original version the scene makes sense without T-1000 malfunctioning as Sarah. John realized when shotgun Sarah came out and told him to move out of the way, that she was his mother and not the T-1000. The T-1000 would not tell him to move. I never liked this part of the director's cut bc the final cut was so much better better without the malfunctioning T-1000 affect "insuring" the audience which Sarah is the real Sarah

The biggest plothole is the T-1000 getting sent back in time in the first place. The first movie made it very clear only living tissue could go through. So how does a liquid metal machine make it?

That was NOT a plot hole. Cameron decided it was more powerful if John instinctively knew his own mother. Cmon man. Do your research

Also, they never addressed the fact that there was yet another terminator arm left behind. They destroyed Arnold and the chip in his head, but not the arm that was severed by the gear while he was fighting the T1000.

Just watch the extended special edition then…duh, but seriously Sarah told him to get Outta the way, the real T-1000 would have instantly open fire

It's honestly better without these scenes. Knowing the T-1000 is weaker makes him less intimidating in the climax. Also, it's more satisfying knowing John can tell his mother apart from it based on their relationship up to this point; she wouldn't call for his help if it risked his life (she hid him against his will shortly before this scene) and she wouldn't tell him to get out of the way if she was the T-1000. John intuitively knew who was his true mom.

T1000 being able to time travel without being coated with a living organism is the biggest plot hole

He was by far the best enemy In the franchise

The plot hole for me is if Dyson had destroyed all tech then technically both 101 and t1000 should have disappeared along with John conner

The only plot hole in the entire movie is that it is the best sequel ever made. Ever.

Even in the theatrical version, it can be seen that the T1000 is mimicking the upper body of the patrol car cop uniform and the lower body of the bike cop uniform. It's losing identity cohesion.

It was clever of Cameron to use Linda Hamilton's twin sister Leslie (RIP) as the imitation Sarah Connor so it wouldn't look perfect.

That isn't a plot hole and is thoroughly explained in subtle hints throughout the film that this is what john would do regardless.

I’ve seen the extended version 3 times but don’t remember that “feet are imitating the floor in the steel mill” clip OR the part where he shifts from Sara back to the cop! I need to rewatch now. I really liked the little “T-1000 is showing damage” scenes, the FX were amazing and they only took up a couple seconds each.

Out of all the things they could cut from the movie, that's a split-second scene! It did nothing removing it from the movie! Thanks for covering that, I didnt notice that difference in the special edition (I also watched it tired). Thanks, great point!

John being observant from young, future leader 💯

No plot hole at all. Why would the terminator imitate Sarah behind her instead of just killing her?

The malfunction was such a cool effect that I can't believe they even considered cutting it.

If anything in this sequence would have been a plot hole it would have been leaving John dependent on seeing the imperfections of the t1000 copy of Sarah’s feet. First, John would know that the last thing his mother would do is ask John to protect her. Second, the T1000s mission was to kill John and wouldn’t be concerned that John needed to get out of the way. Simply put, Cameron liked the idea of the reveal and the effects, but it was all rather redundant given the characters he had written.

The machine? MachineS. Millions of nano bots

I thought the T-1000 could stretch but then I saw your definition of the term 'Plot Hole'.

Doom: "Doom is no ones second choice." The MCU: "HUH! I can't hear you?"

Not exactly plot holes but these little bits do actually make the movie better.

He knew his mother was strong and didn’t want help like that. He could tell which was the right one.

That’s not a plot hole knob. A son will know his real mother.

So the fact its liquid metal and being able to travel through time, wasnt a bigger plot hole?

I remember when they showed glimpses of extended scenes back in the day and never released it….had my whole household in an uproar 😂😂😂

Robert Patrick turned out to be an amazing actor. I love his acting on Scorpion.

the real plothole in terminator 2 (and any other films that feature liquid metal terminators) is that the t-1000 shouldn't be able to use the time displacement unit because it's not organic. in the original film, when asked why he didn't bring any technology with him from 2029, reece says inorganic material won't go through (which is also the reason you have to be nude). the t-800 essentially fooled the machine by being covered in living tissue. i don't know if it's the same time displacement unit from the first film, but if it isn't and this one was upgraded to remove that restriction then there's still a plothole because that means the t-800 in t2 could've come back to 1995 with future weapons, or indeed just as an endoskeleton but that would undermine the whole blending in thing i guess

I will never understand why companies will cut 5 seconds out of a film at the expense of the plot

The extended scenes on the DVD explained a few things like how the T800 learned to smile

His Mom was standing behind the T-1000. That’s how he knew. Thanks for playing.

the theatrical plays so, so, so, much better here. The glitch effects are a fun watch, but john trusting his mom immediately in theatrical is endearing to the characters and very believable as other comments have said. I also like that in the theatrical cut the T1000 is basically running optimally and they STILL thwart his plan -- a powerful moment

That isn’t a plot hole. The T1000 would have just shot John and his mother in that situation without hesitation, the fact that she told him to get out of the way clearly illustrated she was the real Sarah.