T-1000

The T-1000 (ADVANCED PROTOTYPE TERMINATOR INFILTRATOR Series 1 Model 1A Type 1000) is a fictional android assassin, featured in '.

Related Topics:
Android - Assassin

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T-1000, played by the actor Robert Patrick in the male appearance it assumes throughout most of the movie, is an extremely advanced Terminator (killing human-imitating robot). It is made of liquid metal, so it is a shapeshifter, acquiring new shapes on physical contact. It can also mold its body into simple weapons, "knives and stabbing weapons" in the words of the T-800, but cannot form mechanical or chemical weapons. This gives it incredible resiliency — it seems more susceptible to being knocked down than the T-800, but it repairs itself in seconds, even from truly staggering damage.

Related Topics:
Actor - Robert Patrick - Robot - Metal - Shapeshifter - T-800

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In ', the T-1000 is sent by Skynet from 2029 back in 1995 to kill John Connor, future leader of the Human Resistance against the machines. As before, the Resistance is able to send back a lone protector, a reprogrammed T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The T-1000 ambushes a police officer on arrival and takes on his role, tracking down John Connor through the police cruiser's onboard computer, eventually tracking him down in The Galleria, an arcade in a shopping mall. It isn't clear until this moment which Terminator is the hunter and which is the protector.

Related Topics:
Skynet - Arnold Schwarzenegger

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It predicts that John and the T-800 will next attempt to rescue Sarah Connor, John's mother, and infiltrates the mental hospital at the same time John arrives and Sarah makes an independent escape attempt. It demonstrates 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. The attack fails, though the T-1000 follows them on their frantic escape, and eliminates their survivalist ally Sal (though not in the theatrical version.)

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Once again predicting its target's actions, it arrives at the home of Miles Dyson after the family is already evacuated and the files destroyed, speeding to the labs of the Cyberdyne Systems Corporation in an apocalyptic confrontation between it, the Connors and their allies, and hundreds of policemen. It hijacks a police helicopter in a freeway chase sequence, which concludes in its ramming a tanker truck of liquid nitrogen into the entrance of a steel mill, which is rapidly abandoned.

Related Topics:
Cyberdyne Systems Corporation - Nitrogen - Steel mill

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The cyborg leaves its truck and tries to track them down on foot, but the chilled nitrogen freezes it into a bewildered statue in moments. The T-800 shatters it into thousands of pieces with a gunshot, but it soon thaws out into tiny droplets that run back together into the T-1000. It starts to exhibit glitches after this resurrection: it picks up the textures of nearby objects, and sticks to exposed metal surfaces. After a short hunt, disabling Sarah and the obsolete T-800, it tracks down John, who is confronted with two identical versions of his mother. A quick glance down shows the feet of one of them melded with the steel grating, and the imposter is destroyed through a combination of incredible damage and being mixed into a vat of liquid metal, where it melts in a frenzy of previous disguises. It was succeeded as Skynet's time-traveling infiltration assassin by the T-X.

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The T-1000 that appears in the film is apparently the only one ever developed, as a prototype with the specific task of killing John Connor. It exhibited basic emotion - it seemingly took pleasure from causing its victims to suffer before dying. While the T-800 series was a systematic killer that ensured the target was dead, the T-1000 would often strike a blow before taunting his victim. Examples of this are when he stabs Lewis (a guard at the mental hospital) in the eye before watching him twitch, and especially when he stabs Sarah Connor in the shoulder, asks her to call out for her son whilst extending his finger towards a point, aimed directly at Connor's eye. He also waves his finger at Sarah and John when their attack fails, as if to reply to their actions with a paternal display of condemnation.

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The T-1000 special effects were revolutionary, a new step in computer-generated imagery. The effects won an Oscar, were referenced in Virtuosity and The Matrix, and also spoofed by movies like Hot Shots! Part Deux, Wayne's World and Last Action Hero, the final two featuring Robert Patrick in a brief cameo in the familiar police uniform.

Related Topics:
Computer-generated imagery - Oscar - Virtuosity - The Matrix - Hot Shots! Part Deux - Wayne's World - Last Action Hero - Cameo

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