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Terminator 2: Why James Cameron Chose To Make The T-1000 A Police Officer
Robert Patrick's T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one of the coldest, creepiest villains to ever grace the silver screen; he's an unfeeling machine designed only to kill. Director James Cameron felt that he could enhance the character's imposing demeanor and sense of cruelty by donning Patrick in a police uniform. Cameron believed that cops, institutionalized in a system that encourages them to abuse their power, were a perfect representation of the inhumanity that led to the creation of murderous robots.
The liquid metalloid form of the T-1000 may have displayed groundbreaking special effects, but the robot assassin is just as easily identifiable by its human form's determined stare, many thanks to Robert Patrick's sinister performance. When the T-1000 arrives in then-present day Los Angeles, he kills a police officer to assume his identity, giving the Terminator access to a police database and the guise of an authority figure to more efficiently hunt down his prey. It wasn't just espionage, however, as to why James Cameron chose that particular costume.
According to the 2010 biography The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron, written by Rebecca Keegan, the director came up with the imagery when trying to help legendary special effects artist and friend Stan Winston create his design for the villain. According to the director, Winston was unsatisfied with the script's version of the T-1000, expressing that the killing machine was merely "a blob of goo", and that a specific visual appearance was necessary to make his creation a fully realized character. Later that night, Cameron called up his collaborator to excitedly tell him about his new idea.
Why James Cameron Made The T-1000 A Cop
Cameron specifically decided to portray the antagonist of his movie as a police officer because the imagery built on the philosophical concepts of The Terminator series. To the filmmaker, these stories aren't so much about the dangers of a machine uprising, but the callousness of humankind leading to the creation of unfeeling weapons of mass destruction. Skynet, an artificial intelligence created as a military defense system, is merely the logical conclusion to the dehumanized mindset that those in power adopt to carry out brute force. To Cameron, the terminators represent "us losing touch with our own humanity and becoming machines, which allows us to kill and brutalize each other".
Although Skynet may be symbolic of military leadership and abuse of power, the system of brutality flows all the way down to the street level. Police officers likewise take part in a violent power structure that encourages them to aggressively act out against those who they feel are below them. In the words of James Cameron,
To Cameron, then, there isn't much of a difference between police and Skynet, or between cops and Terminators. The tragic moral lesson of the film lies in how similar the killing instincts and unflinching savagery between man and machine are. It's why Miles Dyson, who retains his compassion for humanity, is so horrified to learn about the intended use of his invention. The T-1000's police uniform isn't just a disguise, but a symbol of how power dehumanizes people. To cap it off, there was a man who was able to capture footage of Terminator 2 during its shoot with his personal camcorder. His name was George Holliday, who happened to also film the beating of Rodney King in 1991 with the same camera.
