Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of the most popular and influential blockbuster movies ever made. Now, more than 25 years later, the movie is being re-released in theaters in 3D. William Wisher co-wrote the screenplay for the film along with director James Cameron and he believes that seeing the film back in theaters with the addition of 3D is something that really needed to happen. It's a movie that a lot of people have never experienced on the big screen, but that most probably wouldn't consider checking out if the technology update hadn't be applied. According to Wisher...
The fact that [James Cameron] has put it in 3D, which I'm sure looks fantastic...that creates an event. I think that in and of itself is a good thing, because it gets people into a theater that otherwise might not have ever done that. We turned it out about 25, 26 years ago, so there are people that age who weren't born when we made it. So I think that's cool.
It's certainly true that a lot of people have never seen Terminator 2 inside a movie theater. There are people who can buy a beer in the theater now who weren't alive when the movie was first released. Those who grew up to become fans of the franchise certainly have seen the movie, but for those of us who did see the movie in the theater, there's a lot that's lost when you shrink that screen down to the size of even a large TV.
William Wisher says that if Terminator 2 just got a straight re-release it wouldn't end up being seen by any but the most die hard fans. It will be interesting to see if that's true. There will almost certainly be some die hard fans who will wish that they had the chance to see just a straight re-release of the original film. Quite often, adding new technology to older films is met with skepticism by many fans.
James Cameron has always been a fan of using the newest and best technology to create his films and Terminator 2: Judgment Day was no exception. Its special effects were some of the most impressive we had seen up to that point and while William Wisher tells Gamespot that, in many ways, they still hold up today, he figures that the 3D update also helped bring those effects into the modern era, making this the ultimate version of T2.
I also think that as well as the film has always held up visually, in terms of the SFX we used and the CGI we used, I'm going to guess that some of that got a little bit improved and cleaned up. So it'll be kind of a perfect version of the film.
Whether or not the 3D version of Terminator 2: Judgment Day is perfect is not clear. It's still a great movie overall, but whether or not the 3D makes it any better is up for discussion. The new version of the classic film is showing in select theaters now.
