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Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a photo by timtak on Flickr.

"Terminator 2: Judgement Day" is a great movie. I saw it in a theatre in Okayama City when it came out in 1991, and felt it to be representing a conflict between Japanese and American heroes.

The American hero, a T-800 robot played by Schwarzenegger had been the antagonist in Terminator 1. In Terminator 2, however, Cameron turns Schwarzenegger's T-800 into a robot that wants to be human, a soccer dad, sent to protect a boy by himself in the future. "It" is a 'little tiny, fragile, ceramic wafer' within its own head. Rational but caring, and ultimately self-sacrificial, T-800 struck me as the logos on steroids.

But I was rather rooting for the T-1000. Much more beautiful, cat like, and in appearance feminized (and good at impersonating women) but all in all much stronger, braver, and more advanced. The T-1000 speaks little but can imitate anything, and made of some sort of reflective material: a mirror made flesh that dwelt amongst us.

Since it was an American movie, the beautiful, reflective T-1000 was made out to be the antagonist but perhaps the Japanese could remake the movie with a Japanese actor playing a nice-guy version of the T-1000. In this version the two robots would team up against a Kaiju monster.

Images copyright TriStar Pictures.

Labels: japan, japanese culture, Nacalian, nihonbunka, 日本文化

# posted by Timtak @ 3:49 PM