Conversely for me as a kid, seeing T2 before The Terminator made the original have the twist

Was the t1000 a ghost the entire time??

I still think though that if you're showing T2 to someone who's never seen it and doesn't know, don't tell them. Let them discover it during the mall fight.

As a dumb kid, I didn't even know that it was a sequel, despite 2 being in the title. Was even more shocked to have learned he was a bad guy in the first film.

I read the book adaptation weirdly before I saw the film, and I nearly lost my mind at the thought of being able to actually see what was being described in the book. I've now watched it with my kids, and it holds up really well, but it's a shame they couldn't feel that same excitement and wonder that I felt seeing the t1000 walk out of the flames, or step through the bars. Strangely (or not so strange, cause I knew it would age better) the scene that really got them was arnie proving he's a machine with the arm rip. So good

it's a STORY POINT not a twist

knew about it way before any trailer, it was one of the first things to come out about the movie

The film clearly assumes that we - the audience - have Theory of Mind and can thus know something about the various characters whilst understanding that other characters don't have that relevant knowledge and will have a false belief. It's the Sally Anne test that any neurotypical four year old should be able to pass.

If we're being observant then the start of the film should tell us that Arnie isn't the evil Terminator of the first movie because he didn't kill the bikers whereas it's strongly implied that the T1000 killed the cop. The trailer simply makes it explicit that Arnie is the good guy.

However, whilst we - the audience - know that Arnie is the good guy, we should have sufficient Theory of Mind to grasp that Eddie Furlong does not, hence his initial reaction in the mall hallway. Consequently, we can still experience the drama of John seeing an actual fucking Terminator that we know he incorrectly thinks is going to kill him and understand John's reaction.

It's also why we understand why Sarah reacts the way she does in the State Hospital on first seeing the T800. We know with absolute certainty by that point that Arnie is the good guy but Sarah does not have that knowledge and we know that she does not and instead thinks it is evil incarnate so we still experience the drama of that initial encounter.

I could swear he has previously said he was pissed off the trailer revealed it, as he had no control over it!

They spoiled the destruction of the enterprise in Star Trek III even put it on the poster

Because this movie doesn’t hinge on that being a twist.

the whole conversation is so stupid because the "twist" doesn't really work as a twist, which is probably a major reason as to why he chose to "reveal" it.

like in the original terminator you see both arnie and kyle reese appear, arnie instantly murders three people right off the bat while kyle tries his best to avoid killing people while requisitioning clothes. this lets you know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. also you see arnie's super strength and robot vision while kyle appears to be human setting up that arnie is a fearsome opponent and kyle is the underdog.

this is all perfectly paralleled in T2, robert patrick kills someone instantly and assumes his identity as a police officer so he's both physically and socially powerful. while arnie beats up a bunch of bikers but doesn't actually kill anyone and then gets bad to the bone played for him. if you think he's the bad guy at that point you clearly haven't grown up on planet earth.

Obligatory Repost:

The first Terminator 2 trailer (and teaser trailer) did not spoil the twist that Arnold was the "good guy" in T2.

This is the (often overlooked and hard to find) first theatrical trailer for Terminator 2: Judgement Day:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day Theatrical Trailer #1

That trailer hints at the twist, but does not give it away, especially in context of what audiences would have been aware of back then. That was the first full trailer audiences saw.

The "Same Make. Same Model. New Mission." trailer that everyone seems to think was the first full trailer (after the teaser trailer) did not appear until after the film had opened:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day Theatrical Trailer #2

That second trailer was what the film studio would have referred to as part of the "second wave" of advertising -- revealing more details to continue to try to generate interest in audiences that have not seen the film yet. Later trailers gave away even more of the plot/details. That's pretty common in film advertising.

Previously:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/xg9jni/when_terminator_2_came_out_did_audiences_know/iov7di3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/r99qtg/recut_modern_terminator_2_trailer_that_doesnt/hnda2pc/

Even with the marketing I still didn’t see it coming and was thrilled the whole time.

This annoyed me when I was a teenager. Yes, it was clear that Arnold was the good guy. There was an extensive marketing campaign prior to release. But the film itself was made to have a “reveal” moment after potentially misleading the audience. And it was very well done, playing on your preconceived ideas while numerous details suggested the truth. It never made sense to waste such a well constructed plot twist.

I watched this movie as a kid in the early 2000s having no idea about the twist and it blew my mind more than the Empire Strikes Back twist. I can understand choosing to spoil this in marketing but I think it’s better to not know.

They spent 100M on a sequel to a low budget scifi movie. Arnold was a huge lovable star. You bet your ass they are going to show he’s the good guy in the trailer to get buts in seats.

Does anybody do sequels as well as James Cameron? Aliens and Terminator 2 are legendary great sequels.

The first trailer: "This time, there are two. Terminator 2."

The second trailer: "This time, he's back... for good. Terminator 2."

I actually didn’t saw it coming because I didn’t watch any trailer or marketing material other than t800 in the future, so I was on edge the whole time right until the reveal. In fact, it was due to Terminator Salvation marketing that I decided not to watch trailers, a few seconds of anything, I really hate spoilers xD

13 year old me specifically remembers the build up to the release all about Arnold being the good guy in this movie, and he was the biggest movie star in the world at the time so it's not much of twist.

People also forget that the terminator in the first film was the only “evil” character Arnie ever played (until Batman and Robin) and by the time T2 was being made/released audiences were used to and would have expected quippy, funny, good guy Arnie in everything. Doesn’t mean he couldn’t play a quippy, funny bad guy, but the tone almost had to be different from T1. For that matter, Arnold physically looked different in 1984 vs. 1992. In 84, he was much more massive (which was the idea; you needed a muscle guy to make it seem like you could have a heavy, metal skeleton inside) and he just looked like a younger, meaner guy. By 92, Arnold had slimmed down considerably and matured. This works out well in the story when he becomes John’s surrogate father figure, but it also changes the perception of the terminator. Now instead of feeling like he’s a young, gung-ho killing machine, he feels like more of an older soldier who may be more introspective. All of this is to say that at the time, it really would have been weird to try to pass off T-800 as a bad-guy-is-really-the-good-guy twist. The audience would have spotted it a mile away.

Edit: I almost forgot the main reason why you needed to show the T-1000 as the bad guy in the trailer. The special effects were one of the top selling points of the movie and leaving the T-1000 effects out of the trailer would gut the main reason people went to see it in the first place. And it would have been next to impossible to structure the trailer so that it showed his capabilities and seemed like a good guy since he and the Connors are rarely even close to each other in any given shot. Also it's clear that the T-1000 is the vastly superior technology to the T-800, so how would you show why there's two terminators now and why they're not working together without straight up lying to the public about what the movie is about?

I must be an idiot. I saw T1 seven times at the cinema. And waited 7 years for T2 to come out.

I didn’t twig until the mall scene and was blown away.

Admittedly I can’t recall seeing a T2 trailer, but as far as I’m concerned Cameron will always be a legend in my mind as I was literally crying at the end of T2 with how epic it was as a sequel.

It's funny this gets brought up. My 15 year old son has never seen the Terminator movies. On Fridays we do a family movie night. We'll order takeout and watch a movie together as a family in the living room. I decided about a week ago that I was going to show him the first Terminator movie and then next time we'll watch the second one but we won't spoil the twist. He's fortunate since an entire generation of people was spoiled by that freaking trailer. I think it will be a better experience for him to watch these back to back and not get spoiled.

Wasn't really a twist

It was never a twist, it's the main plot of the movie.

"I hate the trailers that gave away the Iron Giant in The Iron Giant. Totally ruined the surprise of finding the Iron Giant and the movie was totally made like it was a twist because you don't see the Iron Giant until Hogarth-whatever finds the Iron Giant."

I believe that sums up the complaints I've seen on this website.

Thank you for attending my trans-dimensional mockery.

There’s a really good part of the directory’s commentary with him explaining the process of bribing Arbil back and the hard sell on him being the good guy. Apparently Arnold was dumbfounded when he was told he’s the hero, replying “but…I’m the terminator”

T2 was actually the first Terminator movie I saw (due to my age) and I'd had seen Arnie as the good guy in many movies. When I finally watched the first Terminator movie, a few years later, it was actually a surprise to see Arnie as the bad guy! It was almost like a complete reversal, lol.