One of many iconic scenes to be found in Terminator 2 sees the T-1000 make an attempt to take out John Connor on a freeway, but filming wasn't easy. It's no overstatement to call Terminator 2, one of the earliest knockout directorial efforts by future Hollywood titan James Cameron, one of the greatest films of all time, and also one of the greatest sequels. It may not be the kind of film ever likely to win Best Picture at the Oscars, but at far as action and sci-fi films go, there's few in the same league.
Terminator 2 is a lengthy experience, at over two hours long, but doesn't remotely drag, and continues to escalate events as the narrative goes on. The action scenes get progressively more elaborate, the opportunities for Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger to give career best performances abound, and the T-1000 becomes more and more intimidating. It's telling that saying all these superlatives about Terminator 2 is highly unlikely to earn a challenge, as it's one of those movies most people kind of just nod in appreciation at.
Near the end of Terminator 2, the T-1000 chases down Sarah Connor, John, and the T-800 on the freeway, with the T-1000 first flying a helicopter and later commandeering a semi truck. It's a terrific, thrilling sequence, but actually shooting it proved problematic.
Terminator 2: Why The Freeway Chase Scene Was So Hard To Film
To film the freeway chase scene, Terminator 2 director James Cameron and crew were granted permission to close down a five-mile stretch of Los Angeles freeway, not an easy feat in the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, things went sideways fast when literally all the electrical cables the production had purchased to light the freeway for filming were stolen. Faced with a rapidly ballooning budget and a tight schedule from producers, Cameron pushed ahead, managing to either rent or borrow all the needed cabling, and smartly placing it under surveillance from then on in case the electrical version of the Hamburglar showed up again.
An additional wrinkle during filming of the freeway chase involved uncooperative weather, with heavy rain making it hard to get the needed shots done. One way Cameron and Terminator 2's crew were able to get around that problem was by using what's dubbed within Hollywood as the "poor man's process." This couldn't be done with everything, but for the cutaways to Sarah and John inside the armored van being driven by the T-800, the van was simply parked under an overpass, and through a combination of manually shaking the vehicle and keeping the lighting consistent with moving shots filmed on the freeway, those watching ended up none the wiser. Ah, the magic of Hollywood ingenuity.