Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10289 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-05-19
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English

Customer Reviews

Far from perfect, but a welcome new Blu-Ray
Ahhhh, Terminator 2. After countless DVD releases and a substandard Blu-Ray disc featuring only the theatrical cut, it's nice to see the film get it's proper double-dip. The SkyNET Edition of T2 is essentially the theatrical and special editions of the film on one Blu-Ray, packaged within some nice bonus materials. It isn't perfect though.

The mainmost reason to buy this particular edition of T2 is because of Blu-Ray's capabilities. Here, they're put to awesome use. The picture has never been cleaner or sharper than in 1080p, and the new audio tracks are flat out rockin'. It's nice to hear a 6.1 DTS-HD lossless audio track rumbling the walls. So, from a purely moviegoing standpoint, SkyNET wins big.

That being said, the movie flops on bonus features. Well, actually, if compared to the majority of Blu-Ray releases out there, the film might fare well, but I pitted the SkyNET Edition against the standard-def ULTIMATE EDITION DVD, and it didn't win. The tin-case Ultimate Edition is now and out-of-print collector's item, and it still remains the quintessential king of T2 releases, bar none. Where the SkyNET Edition does pack in some interesting features (including an audio commentary with 26 crew and cast members), most of them must be accessed during the actual movie playback. Only a few of the features can be accessed from an index, and the important ones (like behind-the-scenes footage) are crunched down to a small window at the top right-hand corner of the screen. ARGH!!!

Why they just didn't decide to incorporate ULTIMATE'S plethora of bonus features (which clock in at almost 11 hours, last I checked) is beyond me. In short, the SkyNET Edition was supposed to usurp the throne, but it ended up falling a bit flat.

Nevertheless, this is the best way to actually watch Terminator 2. It's so squeaky clean that I actually noticed a few things I hadn't noticed before, even after having seen this movie for the 100th time. Not bad! The audio is a surround sound lover's dream come true, and the extras....well, they get the job done. Barely.

Good edition, but not recommended for other blu ray users
First off, let me just say that I have become a fan of the Terminator series after watching the first movie on blu ray. It was absolutely breath-taking.

Now on to the review of the sequel. Or rather, the special Skynet edition of the sequel. Before I finally decided to get this from Future Shop, I was debating whether I wanted the regular version of Terminator 2 or the Skynet edition. I could have saved $5 or $6 had I gone for the regular, but thought that the Skynet edition would be worth my money due to its many added features.

When I brought it home and inserted it into my blu ray player, it took about a minute for the disc to load. Then a skynet screen showed, displaying that my blu ray player was version 1x (or something). And it was trying to connect to Skynet. It also showed that if I utilized a blu ray player with version 2, I could experience optimum performance. Now I have no idea what the heck that means since I thought I'd get optimum performance anyway since it's a blu ray disc. And also, what's this about a version 2 blu ray player? The blu ray player I have was purchased not too long ago, and it played all my other blu ray movies just fine.

Ok, enough with that. After 4 minutes of watching the Skynet loading screen, the main menu finally popped up. I tried skipping the Skynet menu several times by pressing the menu button on my blu ray remote, but it didn't work. Anyway, when the menu popped up, I selected the option where you start the movie. What's interesting about this option is that there are 2 versions of this film - the original theatrical release and the special edition where 16 minutes of bonus scenes are added. Both of them (I would assume) are in 1080 High Definition.

Now when I selected the special edition version of the film, the screen shifted. It started showing those production companies before the movie itself (like movies usually do before playing). Before the movie could actually play though, it froze at 0:23 seconds. I tried pressing the play button on my remote, but nothing happened. It was just a black screen. I waited a couple of minutes, thinking that the movie would probably take some time to load (like some of the blu ray movies I have seen so far). But still, nothing other than the stupid black screen.

So I went back to the main menu and selected the theatrical version of the movie this time. But the same thing happened again: froze at 0:23 seconds. I got so angry at that point that I felt like taking the movie with me back to Future Shop, throw it at their faces, and demand for my money back.

Then I decided to give the movie one more chance to work by ejecting the disc and re-inserting it. This time, instead of playing the movie automatically (selecting either theatrical or special), I decided to go to the scene selection and selected the prologue of the movie. And wouldn't you know it, it worked! The scene played and I was finally able to get the movie working! What's even cooler is that while the movie is playing, you are able to make the main menu appear without having to leave the movie. I went to the option where you can select which version of the movie you want to watch. And I selected the special edition. And voila! The movie, as it was being played, just flashed a brief moment and continued playing, which meant that I was watching the special edition! I'm not sure if you can alternate it though between theatrical and special (since I haven't watched the full movie yet after getting it working), but at least it worked.

So now I'm satisfied and probably won't have to go back to Future Shop to return it (although I'm still disappointed that I can't play the movie automatically by choosing a version, but rather manually by selecting a scene).

If you are new to blu ray discs (as I am), I would NOT recommend this edition of Terminator 2. Rather, you should buy the regular version of it. It's cheaper, and you will still get the same high definition quality (but minus the extra special features). I did make a mistake in purchasing this version of the movie, but now that I know how to get it playing, I think I'll hold on to it for a while.

As for the Skynet features, I'm not sure what to make of it. Guess I'll have to do some research on it...