T-1000

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 "800 Series" Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger);^[1] Schwarzenegger's character explains how the T-1000 is a more advanced terminator, composed entirely of a mimetic metal alloy, rendering it capable of rapid shapeshifting, near-perfect mimicry and rapid recovery from damage. Furthermore, it can use its ability to quickly liquify and assume forms in innovative and surprising ways, including fitting through narrow openings, morphing its human arms into solid metal tools or bladed weapons, walking through prison bars, and flattening itself on the ground to hide or ambush targets.

Description

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 or volume. 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; when the Connors and T-800 are escaping the mental hospital, it is shot at close range in the face by the T-800's Winchester Model 1901 10ga lever-action shotgun, which blows its head almost completely in two, yet the "wound" closes up in seconds. The police uniform it is "wearing" also repairs itself when it heals, indicating the T-1000 is actually generating the appearance of clothing, as opposed to actually wearing it. 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, enabling John Connor to see through its ruse when it impersonates his mother.

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 provide a benign appearance. It also imitates family members of its human target to gain that person's confidence.

The T-1000 and T-1001 possess a vastly greater repertoire of emotional expression and interpersonal skills than the earlier models and are able to flawlessly pass as regular humans whenever necessary. They are also more deliberately devious in their behavior and exhibit a well-developed sense of irony, sardonic humor and wanton cruelty. These traits are indicative of a greater sense of self-awareness within these artificial beings which makes them not only more human-like but simply more human than their predecessors, albeit in decidedly diabolical ways.

Examples of the T-1000's emotional expression include the following; it looks shocked when its arm breaks off due to being frozen with liquid nitrogen, wags its finger in a "tsk-tsk" gesture at Sarah after she fails to destroy it in the steel mill, exhibits a shocked expression after being significantly disrupted by a grenade, spares a brief moment of bemusement after seeing a clothing store mannequin that resembles its liquid metal form, and shows genuine agony when it is freezing and dropped into the molten steel.

Film

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 T-800 Model 101 like the one from the first Terminator film. As in the first film, two men appear from the future, but in a plot twist, both are Terminators. Patrick's Terminator has been sent to kill John Connor, while Schwarzenegger's - the type from the initial film of the franchise - has been sent to protect him.

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 liquid nitrogen. The T-800 shatters the T-1000 with a gunshot, but it reforms itself due to high temperatures of spilled molten steel. 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 T-800 fires a grenade at the T-1000, causing enough damage to disrupt it significantly. Although it attempts to reform itself, it stumbles and falls backward into a vat of molten steel, and the T-1000, unable to stand the high temperature of the steel corrupting its alloy and design, screams before finally being dissolved away into the molten steel.

McG, the director of Terminator Salvation, has discussed the possibility of having Robert Patrick reprise his role as the T-1000 via CGI in a sequel.^[2]

Television

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T-1001 / Catherine Weaver
The T-1001 liquid metal terminator from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles in the guise of Catherine Weaver. The Turk computer is on the desk.
First appearance	"Samson and Delilah" (season 2, episode 1)
Created by	Josh Friedman
Portrayed by	Shirley Manson as Weaver, other cast members and guest stars, special effects
In-universe information
Species	Machine
Occupation	CEO of ZeiraCorp as Catherine Weaver; Automite Systems executive as Mr. Bradbury
Children	Savannah Weaver (adoptive daughter) John Henry (de facto child)
Manufacturer	Unknown. Most likely Skynet
Model	T-1001

A new T-1001 (sometimes misidentified as a T-1000) liquid-metal terminator^[3] is introduced in the TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, under the guise of Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson), the co-founder and current CEO of ZeiraCorp, looking to develop the artificial intelligence that will be developed to fight Skynet under the project: "Babylon". The T-1001 frequently quotes from the Bible and speaks in metaphors. It has been shown to display emotions such as annoyance with staff members; however, the T-1001 is later shown at a photo shoot, adjusting its head in very precise increments when asked to turn, pleasing the photographer; however, it is unable to create a "warm" smile when asked, producing instead a cold approximation. This is in stark contrast to Cameron and the T-888s who, although socially awkward, are capable of mimicking pleasant emotions as their missions require. The T-1001 learns to mimic affection by studying documentary footage of the Weavers being interviewed late in Catherine's pregnancy. So far, the T-1001 is shown to have the same morphing abilities as the T-1000, and has the ability to consume food.

This T-1001's mission is, thus far, wholly independent of the missions of the terminators attempting to assassinate the Connors. While she and John Connor have been within two metres' distance at least once, she is too preoccupied to notice. As of the episode Adam Raised a Cain the T-1001 is informed of Sarah Connor's existence and agrees to a meeting setup through James Ellison. Connor and Ellison become fully aware that Catherine Weaver is actually a machine at the end of the season. Weaver in turn becomes aware of John Connor and shows interest in meeting him for the purposes of creating an alliance against Skynet. As Catherine Weaver, the T-1001 either coincidentally or intentionally recruits individuals connected to the Connors to work for it at ZeiraCorp.

In "The Tower is Tall But the Fall is Short", Weaver hires John's psychologist, Dr. Boyd Sherman (portrayed by Dorian Harewood); first to treat Weaver's daughter Savannah (portrayed by Mackenzie Smith) for incontinence and defiance, and then (to his surprise) to analyze and assist the development of the child-like artificial intelligence system known as "Babylon". At one point, the T-1001 nearly encountered John Connor who was teaching Savannah to tie her shoelaces. Dr. Sherman names the Turk/Babylon computer "John Henry" and dies when John Henry redirects the building's power from the climate control and security systems, in the episode "Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point".

In the episode, "The Mousetrap", the T-1001 recruits FBI Special Agent James Ellison to find and capture a Terminator in order to reverse engineer it; Weaver and her late husband Lachlan Weaver blame a Terminator for a 2003 fatal commuter jet plane crash and it tempts Ellison with photographs of the cyborg secretly taken at the crash site, supposedly by Catherine's brother, an NTSB investigator. In the episode "Complications", Ellison delivers Cromartie's body to Weaver after it was critically damaged by John's Terminator bodyguard Cameron Phillips, and advocates learning more about the 'robots' ironically in order to prevent Judgment Day. With Ellison's initial mission complete, it assigns him to replace Sherman as John Henry's mentor/tutor.

In the final scene of the episode, "Automatic for The People", the T-1001 is revealed to have also assumed the identity of Mr. Bradbury (Tommy Redmond Hicks), an executive of Automite Systems, who announces that his company has entered into a partnership with the owners of seven nuclear power plants to install automated systems in the plants' control rooms. Once in his automobile, "he" morphs back into the Catherine Weaver shape before driving away.

The episode "Allison from Palmdale" shows Weaver's daughter Savannah, and implies that the T-1001 killed the real Catherine Weaver and her husband, and determining that the fatal helicopter crash was the result of human error. Savannah is asked to be in a photographic shoot with her "mother", but refuses. Annoyed, the T-1001 tells Savannah to sit, who again declines and runs off, leaving a puddle of urine where she was sitting. After Savannah tells psychologist Dr. Sherman that she wants her 'old mom back,' the T-1001 is shown watching a video recorded before Savannah's birth, of the real Catherine Weaver and her husband, Lachlan, in order to learn to mimic her actions. It succeeds in this, gaining Savannah's affection.

Ellison turns to the T-1001 (as Weaver) when he is falsely (but reasonably) arrested and charged with a murder perpetrated by a Terminator duplicate in the episode, "Brothers of Nablus". Weaver is the only person Ellison knows who will both believe his story and has the financial means to secure his bond. The T-1001 indeed resolves Ellison's situation, but not as Ellison had anticipated or is aware. Rather, it assumes the appearance of the lead detective and questions the witness again until the man reveals seeing the lighting flashes and energy bubble of the Ellison Terminator's arrival and the superhuman strength he possessed. With the witness shown to be a "crack-pot" and his testimony useless, the charges against Ellison are dismissed.

To further John Henry's psychological advancement, Weaver's Babylon team connects 'his' servers to Cromartie's former endoskeleton, having repaired the T-888's head covering, as shown at the end of "Strange Things Happen at the One/Two Point". Weaver provided Ellison with a remote control of the endoskeleton for his defense, implying Weaver installed fail-safes within it in case the cyborg would turn against them.

The T-1001's guise as Catherine Weaver does not convince John Henry who quickly identifies her as a machine, albeit different from himself. He obeys her instruction not to share that information with anyone, including his handlers, and assures him that everything she is doing with ZeiraCorp is for him. Later, she tells Ellison her belief that Savannah's future safety is dependent upon John Henry, but that the reverse is not the case. This was the first implication that she was potentially humanity's ally. Prior to this time, the audience had been led to believe that she and ZeiraCorp were building Skynet to eradicate humanity.

In a mission during the Future War, Commander Jesse Flores, executive officer of USS Jimmy Carter, is tasked with delivering a mysterious box to John Connor. Fearing the box to be a trap, the crew opens it and releases a liquid metal terminator, which kills Petty Officer Goodnow, and assumes her identity before escaping through a vent. It later confronts Flores, instructing her to tell John Connor that the answer is, "No". The liquid metal then escapes the submarine in the shape of a large eel, and propells itself upwards before the boat reaches crush depth. Ashore in Southern California, Cameron reveals to Flores that the answer was in response to John Connor's question, "Will you join us".

In the second season finale "Born to Run", the T-1001 asks John Connor and Cameron, "Will you join us?" through Ellison as an intermediary. As well, Ellison, Sarah Connor and John Connor discover that Weaver's true nature when she forms into a shield to save them from a flying Skynet drone crashing into her office. When Sarah sees that ZeiraCorp has possession of Andy Goode's Turk, she assumes that Weaver is constructing Skynet but Weaver states that she is "building something to fight it." Upon entering basement, the four discover that John Henry had transported himself to the future with Cameron's chip, leaving Cameron's empty body. When Ellison and Sarah Connor decline to jump forward in time with Weaver and John Connor, Weaver instructs Ellison to pick up Savannah from school.

Weaver then transports itself and John Connor to the future in which John Connor is not known to the human resistance. Either that portion of the T-1001's matter which took the appearance of clothing disappeared like real clothing in transit, or the T-1001 converted it into the form of flesh in the instant before transit; like Connor, the T-1001 arrived in the future as a naked human, though she formed clothing a second later.

In the future, John meets his father Kyle Reese and Kyle's brother, Derek Reese. Having jumped over the period in which he would have become their leader in the other time-frame, neither has heard of John Connor. Also present was either Allison Young or the Terminator based upon Young's appearance (i.e., that which would have become known as Cameron in the other timeline). The T-1001 itself disappears when they are first encountered by the Resistance fighters.

This T-1001 is capable of splitting her body into separate entities. One such entity posed as the eel in her fish tank.

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: Judgment 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."

Director James Cameron had originally chosen rock musician Billy Idol to play the T-1000 and had drawn storyboards to resemble him, but a serious automobile accident prevented Idol from accepting the role.^[4] 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." Originally, he thought of casting actor Michael Biehn, who played Kyle Reese in The Terminator, in the role with the explanation that Skynet managed to clone Reese's body and use it for a new Terminator. Cameron ultimately dropped this idea after deciding the audience would find it too confusing.

The visual effects used in Terminator 2 to create the T-1000 won the Academy Award for Visual Effects.^[5] 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, Hunter-Killers, and the future war sequences on the second season of the show. The company also contributed the digital imagery of feature films James Cameron's True Lies and Titanic.^[6]

Pop culture references

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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?". Patrick also reprises his role in Universal Studios's theme park attraction T2 3-D: Battle Across Time .

• 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" is also a song by Long Island Hardcore band Bela Kiss
• 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 the 9th episode of season 8 of The X-Files, "Salvage", 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." And Scully replied: "Does it, Agent Doggett?" 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 John Cena, One of Rome's(Robert Patrick) 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", introduces Lionel Luthor's assassin, Trent MacGowen, who has kryptonite-enhanced abilities that are identical to the T-1000. Trent's powers included morphing into liquid metal and forming objects like blades and compactors from his hands. Even the episode's climax with its protagonists Clark Kent and Lois Lane is somewhat mirroring T2, specifically the final battle between the T-1000, (Terminator) T-101, and Sarah Connor. Entity FX, Inc., which is responsible for the visual effects on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is also responsible for the digital effects on Smallville.
• In SMF (Story Mode Federation),The T-1000 is portrayed as a character who plans to destroy the SMF.
• The climax of the Japanese Sonic the Hedgehog OVA mirrors the "death" scenes of both the T-1000 and T-800 when the heavily-damaged Hyper Metal Sonic is knocked into the mouth of a subglacial volcano by falling debris. Sonic, realizing that Metal is capable of feeling human emotions and thinking for himself, desperately tries to save him, but Metal refuses his aid, declaring that there is "only one Sonic", and is slowly destroyed by the molten magma, much to Sonic's dismay and sadness. This mirrors the destruction of the T-800, who is destroyed by Sarah Connor at his own request so its technology could not be discovered and used to create Skynet.
• In the movie, Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg mimicks the T-1000's arm movements when running. On the commentary track, he describes it as "The T-1000 run".

In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cameron (Summer Glau), disguised herself as a police officer, similarly to the T-1000 on episode "The Demon Hand", as a homage to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

• In the video game Sonic Heroes, Neo Metal Sonic is made of liquid metal, and can change its form.

See also

• Nanomorph

References

External links

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