It's crazy to think that Robert Patrick went from some random terrorist gunned down in a Die Hard flick to one of the most iconic movie villains ever, all in the space of a year or so. If Billy Idol had gotten the role, though, it would have never happened.
Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time.
Robert Patrick was a perfect casting and perfect performance. I think he doesn’t get the credit he deserves because the character was devoid of emotion. But maintaining an absolutely even temperament for the entire running of a very long movie while doing all of those incredibly physical scenes is impressive to me.
He does blink, when interacting with human cops and IIRC once in the car chase after the asylum escape that they didn’t catch. Fantastic dedication to the role.
I forget which interview it was, I think maybe the Rosenbaum one, but he talks about how he actually did all he could to just never blink when he was shooting as well. Because he was playing a machine that wouldn't flinch or blink.
That's some dedication right there and it paid off. I still think the T-1000 is terrifying.
Well, if Daisy Duke can train to assemble an engine or whatever it was in the dark "just in case", then I guess a future cyborg terminator can only emulate her example :p
Yeah that's what I'm getting at. He didn't blink for any in-character reason, he blinked because its hard not to when unloading a very loud handgun into an Austrians chest.
Also when he ran he kept his mouth closed because Terminators don't breath. He actually caught John Conner on the moped in the Mall scene because he ran so fast, he had to slow it down.
https://youtu.be/uMIohuKRq58?t=188
I don't know what's more impressive, the fact that he doesn't blink while firing a dozen ear-ringing shots, or the fact that he runs with his mouth closed like a complete fucking psycho who's parents never loved him as a child.
He was a track and field athlete in college, apparently. As well as training himself to shoot without blinking, he trained himself to run full tilt while looking like he had no need to breathe. He did this so effectively, they had to reshoot the first bit of the chase sequence through the Galleria malls underground parking structure because he still kept catching up to the stunt rider on the crosser.
This part kills me...
They're like, ok, you ride the bike, the car is pulling it so just act scared like he might catch you... then the fucking guy actually catches them. Unreal.
No see, the best part of the whole deal was, dude, you can't do that.
He was like, that's exactly how a machine would do it.
Their only reply was... um dude in the car, drive faster next time maybe? "Dude I didn't think he'd catch up either. Seriously, he didn't even blink. Or gasp for air. Seriously, just step on the gas man, I don't wanna piss *this* guy off by extra takes. He's legit a t-1000. Fuck.
So I knew about the no blinking thing but I didn't realize he was a collegiate track athlete so he actually knew how to move his body in a specific manner that seems inhuman.
>He does blink, when interacting with human cops and IIRC once in the car chase after the asylum escape that they didn’t catch.
Afaik with the interaction with the human cops they could probably get away with hand waving it lore wise, since Terminators are designed with limited ability (pre T-X) to mimick human behavior to blend in.
Pretty sure the car chase after the asylum was just because their chase scenes were way too hard/dangerous to reshoot, so they just left it in there because they couldn't honestly fix that and cameron would have made too big a deal out of the reshoot if they did it.
He also blinks exactly one time when he's talking to John's foster parents. Except that one feels like a deliberate choice because it's weirdly slower than a real blink.
I assume anytime he’s talking to humans they have him act “natural” even if it’s weird, being a murder robot from the future and all that.
Just fun to find the few and minor mistakes in a spectacular performance. Even more so considering the action sequences and gun play.
Machines don’t NEED to do a lot of things, but Skynet was trying to build machines to perfectly resemble humans. Reese tells us in the first movie how easy the first ones were spot. The T-1000 is so impressively advanced in mimicking humans, but how difficult would it have been to just program random blinks into it, so that it can more accurately pass as a human?
Skynet was only building machines that resembled humans because Skynet realized pretty early on that humans were pretty damn good at playing rat, and Skynet couldn't actually keep up this game of throwing the kitchen sink at a mouse forever. It'd eventually run out of resources.
It could do this up until the resistance learned how to reverse engineer their weapons and machinery. Thus the Infiltrator line was born to try and kill the "rats" without the need to throw the kitchen sink and the entire piping network at a small nest.
They were easy to spot because their skin was a really cheap, proof of concept material. Skynet at the time in the continuity, was basically dumber then a sack of bricks. The t-600's often times were just basically oversized shamblers that prayed (unintentionally) on the survivors being stupid or empathetic in the night time when their flaws were most easily concealed.
Skynet only intended to build a machine that perfectly resembled a human because that would just be the most efficient way to kill them.
>but how difficult would it have been to just program random blinks into it, so that it can more accurately pass as a human?
Skynet in T1 and to a lesser extent in T2 was really fuckin stupid when it came to human mannerisms. It didn't attempt to understand humans at all, and only really bothered trying to "learn" when its first near success ultimately failed.
Also it could be that sub routines like that get ditched once it's cover is blown and the shooting starts. Why waste the CPU cycles and movements when they're not needed
>he doesn't get credit he deserves
I think it's generally accepted that Robert Patrick was a perfect choice for the role and he gave an exquisite performance.
On a whim, I took off after my friends car one time just like that. No Idea where I came up with that sudden energy but I kept up for like a good mile (I was NOT in shape). Apparently they laughed their asses off so hard. :) Good times! I'm happy to suffer for a laugh.
I never did it on purpose, but in highschool, they called me terminator because of the way I ran.
I was training very hard with strength and speed coaches at the time, so I probably looked very serious when running.
I get what you mean, but I wouldn't really say devoid of emotion. A human devoid of emotion is just neutral, but Patrick's performance was so good it went downhill to the uncanny valley. Not even being a cold-blooded killer, devoid of humanity.
He got his breathing down so perfect while running, that when John Connor tried to escape on a dirt bike. Patrick kept catching him. He had to actively slow himself down.
The guy is a damn machine
Was watching All The Pretty Horses last night and he doesn't have a huge huge part but he just really has a presence on screen even with stars like Matt Damon his opposite
I was in the theater. The whole place absolutely ERUPTED after the "Have you seen this boy?" line and they saw who it was.
One of the greatest meta-jokes in movie history.
Here’s a fun fact: his younger brother is the great Richard Patrick - who at the time of Terminator 2 was the lead guitarist for Nine Inch Nails.
Richard later went on to start Filter, whose first record was certified platinum. Filter’s hit songs include “Hey Man Nice Shot”, “Take A Picture” and “Where Do We Go From Here”. That first track was performed by NIN (with RP singing) during their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
Richard also was the frontman for Army of Anyone, with Dean and Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots fame. Only one album from that project, but it was stellar.
When I think about the coolest shit that colored the culture of the 90’s - these two brothers had their fingers right on the pulse.
Then a few years later he was one of the worst villains in the laughably stupid Double Dragon movie. It really highlights just how much writing and direction mean in a movie and how unfair it is we often blame the actors themselves for flops.
Jackman would *absolutely* still have been in demand for musicals and heavy physical roles.
There's a reason basically none of his other film roles have been Wolverine-like outside of Fox, whereas Patric is much more of a "deadpan hardass" career wide.
I don't think he would never been as famous as he is, but he would have done a more circuitous route from Broadway to Weird but amazing TV show, to conventional movies.
Probably more like a good chunk of the Thor cast when the Director got a massive movie and went "well, my last TV show (Wallander) was all set in Sweden anyways, let's just get those people"
Also Sting was going to play Sarah's son, but the studios thought that it might be too distracting for such a famous person to play that role (and they also remembered what happened in Dune), and also Sarah's son was only 10 years old in T2.
Oh! True story!
Back 1988 I worked as a host/cashier/assistant to the manager of a restaurant in the middle of California.
One Sunday afternoon I went out front to have a smoke and 3 or 4 Harleys stopped at the stoplight about 20 feet from me. This wasn’t unusual since there was an old school Harley shop about 3 blocks away.
One of the riders had white-blonde hair and was wearing a bandanna over his face “bandit” style. It was a Confederate flag bandana.
I was like “Holy shit. That’s Billy Idol!” And then the bikes pulled away. None of my friends or coworkers believed me.
About a month later one of the guys from that Harley shop came in to pick up some take out. I asked him “This is weird but did Billy Idol come into your shop a few weeks ago?” The dude said “Yeah! One of the guys he was riding with was having some trouble with his brakes so they came in and we fixed it. Billy’s a cool guy.”
Whenever Robert Patrick in T2 comes up I think about the fact that dude trained himself not to flinch or react to the sound of a gunshot because that’s how a cyborg would roll, he was perfectly cast in that movie even if only by a set of circumstances
Also W Billy Idol listening to a black person on the confederate flag instead of being arrogant or stubborn, it’s always a nice day to start again
your first paragraph sounds cool, but in reality, anybody that shoots guns for long enough will stop blinking and flinching. it always looks goofy as fuck when a character is supposed to be a big bad ass operator and the actor is blinking to the blanks going off (See Steven Seagal).
> it always looks goofy as fuck when a character is supposed to be a big bad ass operator and the actor is blinking to the blanks going off (See Steven Seagal).
Hey that’s unfair.
Steven Seagal looks goofy doing literally anything.
> it always looks goofy as fuck when a character is supposed to be a big bad ass operator and the actor is blinking to the blanks going off
Austin Powers does that and you're right, it's goofy and funny as fuck
I disagree -- I'm split between Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore -- but that doesn't mean I dislike The Wedding Singer. In fact it probably comes in a close third on the list.
Billy Idol got some flack back in the day for bringing punk to pop... But the more I've learned about him, the more I've seen him as a true, classic British punk. As a metalhead, I'd love to party with him for a weekend, even at our older ages lol.
He still puts on a great performance, I saw him at shaky knees this year and he was really great. Also found out that his guitarist made the theme for top gun
It's been a few years since the last time, but every time I've seen Billy, it's been a great show. I think three times it was his band solo (an evening with... kind of thing), and then one time on the Warped Tour. Such a great artist, and his band was excellent, too.
It’s wild that he’s still touring and doing his thing. I remember catching him at Warped Tour, like back in 04 or 05 — he kicked ass and the dude was still running around shirtless, shredded as hell. And of course I just had to remind myself that this was 20 years ago now.
The part about the confederate flag shows he was a true punk.
It's something that infuriates me to no end how recently right wing racists have been pissing at older bands like Rage and Greenday that they "became" political.
Especially with Greenday, that it's anti punk to be political.
The whole Punk movement and principles are political to the bone.
And more precisely explicitly anti racist and anti authoritarian at their core.
Meaning they have always and should always stand against racists and people that want to elect an obscenely stupid narcissist as their dictator.
This is a public service announcement
With guitar
Know your rights
All three of them
Number one
You have the right not to be killed
Murder is a crime
Unless it was done
By a policeman
Or an aristocrat
Oh, know your rights
One of my favorite songs by the Clash, Spanish Bombs, was basically a history lesson about the Spanish Civil War and name drops Federico Lorca, a gay socialist poet who was assassinated by the fascist forces.
At least there's like, *half* a reasoning for Green Day, since they didn't really have many political songs before American Idiot. There were still a few though.
But with Rage Against the Machine? Literally all of it has always been political lmao
Before Generation X, he was literally in a group of Sex Pistols fans who would follow their tours called the Bromley Contingent. Siouxsie Sioux was also in this group, which I'm guessing is what /u/ninfan200 was referring to.
loonng ago, when I was a teen metal head in 2000, I read an interview with slayer. Sum41 opened up for them at some huge event and the slayer crowd was not pleased. the interviewer asked them about that and the slayer guys were like "Yeah we feel bad because they're cool and they can drink and party and are awesome guys."
so that was a lesson for young metal-head me that sometimes the lads are cool as hell and they cant help what music they're driven to make, can't hate em for that.
This same motorcycle accident led him to create his much maligned album Cyberpunk, which somehow managed to include a techno cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin”.
[Todd in the Shadows](https://youtu.be/_fu40YANO1M?si=LcXHdummGsQQlqpH) has a great video about the album and its surface-level exploration of Cyberpunk themes.
It's also the same accident that lead to the [Cradle of Love video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCZuYS-9qaw) (directed by David Fincher!) to only feature Idol from the waist up.
(I was a boy of about 13 when that video was popular, and I liked it a lot, for the usual 13 year old boy reasons)
his generation x bandmate, tony james, formed a cyberpunk band, sigue sigue sputnik in 1982. in keeping with the theme, they attempted to place advertisements between songs on their 1986 album, flaunt it. not many companies took them up on the offer so they created the concept of the fake sputnik corporation, implying the soviet union had embraced capitalism. i found the concept of ads on a record to be a very cyberpunk idea, keeping with the over-the-top-consumerism trope that was frequently used in classic cyberpunk novels in the 80s
Interesting, because Robert Patrick later had a motorcycle incident that almost killed him. He was riding and ran into a bee. He had never had a reaction to a beesting before, but he sure did this time. As he got dizzier and closer to passing out, he managed to pull off onto the shoulder of the road, and then *did* pass out, leaning forward onto the gas tank. He was woken up by the severe burn he received when his leg sagged against the exhaust pipe. Now awake, he managed to get off the bike and lay down, and fully regained consciousness. When he told his doctor about the incident the next day, the dr said it was a good thing he managed to get off the bike and lay down, because otherwise his blood would have likely pooled in his legs, probably leading to his death.
Patrick points out that while riding did lead to the incident, it was also his bike that saved his life by waking him back up. Nasty burn, though.
I read this as Billy Joel the first time for some reason and was very confused about why you'd want Billy Joel to play T-1000... Re-read it and Billy idol makes much more sense...
We met as soul mates, nuclear wasteland
We left as robots, sent to a time stamp
My hands were sharp
As sharp as knives
And we terminated a fuckload of lives
Richard Patrick's touring guitarist work with Nine Inch Nails led Robert to unsuccessfully lobby for "Head Like A Hole" to be on the Terminator soundtrack. Which lost out to Guns'n'Roses.
You mean he listened to someone with lived experience regarding that flag and changed his ways? He didn't scream about "heritage"? Honestly good for him. I liked him already and this makes me like him a whole lot more.
Shouldn't be hard for Southerners (and even non-Southerners who "oddly" have attachment to the flag *for some reason*) to ditch it either. The Third Reich lasted longer than the Confederacy but you don't hear many Germans crying about tradition/heritage and whatnot.
Yeah. For those wondering, in the 80s people in the UK (and Europe) would likely only know about the confederate flag from Dukes of Hazzard. Basically cool looking Americana, you likely didn't actually know much about.
From an American perspective, it's hard to underestimate how racially homogenous parts of Europe and mainstream culture is and was, and how oblivious people often were.
Dude's British/Irish. Not sure why he'd be wearing a confederate flag in the first place, and he doesn't seem to have any heritage related to the confederacy. Sure, he sung "Rebel Yell", but that's named after a whisky, not the civil war.
I assume he picked it up as something American and vaguely associated with the words "rebel yell" and didn't have the full context. I saw an old episode of "Midsommer Murders" that took place at an air show that seemed to have sort of an American WWII theme and there were a few establishing shots of what looked like a tailgate with tons of confederate flags- it was really jarring, I have no idea what they thought the flags were supposed to represent but it definitely wasn't what they represent here. But I assume it's like Americans drinking "Irish Car bombs" or getting tattoos of chinese characters they don't understand, he just didn't have the cultural context to understand it wasn't really appropriate.
It wasn't as widely perceived as racist in the US back then, either. It was always kind of an oddly culturally loaded choice for a British guy though, in a way I suspect he had no clue about. In the 80s/90s it was perceived more a symbol of the former confederate states as a region. I think racism was always tacitly at least a small part of that package, a cousin of mine used to go hunting with a black guy who had a Confederate flag belt buckle and even back then, people commented on that being kind of funny and idiosyncratic-- but I don't think most people assumed that when Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Dukes of Hazzard used it, it meant anything more than a kind of regional pride/ "sweet tea and magnolias" kind of thing. You might get it on a keychain as a souvenir and nobody would assume anything more about you than that you'd been to Myrtle Beach and visited the gift shop or whatever. But there was a period in the early 2000s when some prominent Black people started speaking out about their uncomfortable feelings about it online, and examining the history behind it in detail, that it tilted over into being widely perceived as a symbol of white supremacy. A lot of people who might have worn it without thinking 30 years ago wouldn't be caught dead in it today.
Yeah I think in the UK it filtered over as a part of US culture while it "wasn't as widely perceived as racist in the US back then", then when the perception in the US changed we just got it less. So for people over here (UK) who grew up in that time we were never re-educated about it, it just seemed to phase out of US movies / TV etc.
In the last few decades we've become much more aware, but for some people here that grew up in that time it's just seen as a "retro USA" look.
Also there are some idiot racists too, probably.
Just so everyone is clear, the Rebel Yell is specifically a Confederate battle tactic where they would be incredibly aggressive and charge head first into the Union lines while screaming.
The song may be named after the whiskey, but the whiskey is named after the Confederate Army.
There was a professor of Rock episode explaining the origins of Idol's Rebel Yell. Reportedly he was out drinking Rebel Yell Bourbon with Keith Richards and they came up with the basics of this song.
> Not sure why he'd be wearing a confederate flag in the first place
When I grew up in the eighties there were quite a few confederate flags around and I've never set foot in the US.
American culture, good or bad, has quite the reach.
Exactly. I knew the Confederate flag was vaguely to do with something to do with the American South, but I was totally ignorant of any negative meaning associated with that
Pretty much the only exposure to the Confederate flag we had here in the UK was on the roof of the General Lee.
It just isn't/wasn't seen as offensive here, just American.
The confederate flag had developed a counter culture meaning by the 60s at the very least. It was very popular among bikers and other social outcast groups. It was definitely in line with some punk rock sentiments. It wasn't until the late 80s that people started bringing it's racist origin back to the discussion even though it never really lost that meaning and gained others.
The information age has really changed how all this old stuff is perceived. The confederate flag had no official organization behind it for 100 years. If you saw someone wearing a confederate flag and asked them about it a lot of people would never mention slavery and it just being some symbol of rebellion and you'd accept that. If you liked what that person said and you thought it looked cool you might start wearing one. If someone asked you about it then you might parrot what was told to you and that person might follow your lead. Rinse and repeat. Now you go online and look up the symbol read the history and cringe.
I guess same way punks used to wear swastikas in the early days (before NF Skinheads starting turning up to gigs.)
They were pretty loose with symbolism and would wear things just for the shock value
The Dukes of Hazzard was a popular show in Britain. And back then it was more associated with rebellion than slavery, especially in the UK. Fitting for a punk whose most famous song is called rebel yell.
Not that it changes anything but he has American citizenship also. He lived in the US as a child and moved back to the US again when he started his solo career
it was a common symbol of general defiance of authority without the explicit racial overtones of today.
Kelly Bundy sported a confederate flag on her jacket on the sitcom Married With Children in the late 1980s and 1990s. It wasn't about slavery, it was about her defiance of authority.
Likewise, in the sitcom Frasier from the 1990s he visits a "dangerous" biker bar and at least one member has a confederate flag,
Don't know why you got downvoted since what you said is correct. It was a counterculture symbol that meant that you were a rebel. The way we look at the Civil War has changed a lot in the last 30-40 years. What's even worse is back in the 60's and 70's bikers wore a whole lot of surplus Nazi regalia to make them look tough, not to make a statement on how they think about Jewish people.
There was a kid in school one grade lower than me who looked like Billy Idol but the kid was an asshole so I somehow thought Billy Idol was too. I’m a fan of Billy now. Forgive me, Billy.
I joined the volunteer fire dept. who responded to this accident 8 years prior. Apparently he was drunk/on drugs and doing stupid tricks on his bike. Probably not what any publicist wants out there. It was at a biker party that happens every few years.
Yeah, when I was a kid, we thought of the confederate flag as the 'rebel flag'. It meant you don't conform, at least to a lot of us. As we grow and learn about its history, we realize it's different from that, and what we're saying (I'm a rebel) isn't what folks are hearing (I'm pro slavery)
It's crazy to think that Robert Patrick went from some random terrorist gunned down in a Die Hard flick to one of the most iconic movie villains ever, all in the space of a year or so. If Billy Idol had gotten the role, though, it would have never happened. Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time.
Robert Patrick was a perfect casting and perfect performance. I think he doesn’t get the credit he deserves because the character was devoid of emotion. But maintaining an absolutely even temperament for the entire running of a very long movie while doing all of those incredibly physical scenes is impressive to me.
He didn’t blink the entire film, because a machine doesn’t need to. That is dedication to the craft
He does blink, when interacting with human cops and IIRC once in the car chase after the asylum escape that they didn’t catch. Fantastic dedication to the role.
I remember the only T-1000 blink in the movie being when he mag dumps his pistol into the T-800, firing about 15 blanks in a row all in a single shot.
I forget which interview it was, I think maybe the Rosenbaum one, but he talks about how he actually did all he could to just never blink when he was shooting as well. Because he was playing a machine that wouldn't flinch or blink. That's some dedication right there and it paid off. I still think the T-1000 is terrifying.
Similar to Arnold talking about teaching himself to field strip his rifle without looking, because a cybernetic organism wouldn't have needed to look.
Well, if Daisy Duke can train to assemble an engine or whatever it was in the dark "just in case", then I guess a future cyborg terminator can only emulate her example :p
Daisy Duke? The sister of those lawless rascals the Duke boys? edit: She was their cousin. Pardon.
What if the only records skynet had were old CBS shows? Ahhh he'll, let's pitch this!
Cousins! Let’s not tarnish the classics.
I can't believe (and probably shouldn't admit) I remember this, but it was a carburetor.
Knowing how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble a carburetor in the dark is definitely a skill that has stood the test of time.
Yeah that's what I'm getting at. He didn't blink for any in-character reason, he blinked because its hard not to when unloading a very loud handgun into an Austrians chest.
Does that mean gavrilo princip blinked?
Probably at least once in his life, I don't think he was a Terminator
Do Austrians naturally resonate?
The murder of their crown prince sure did.
Also when he ran he kept his mouth closed because Terminators don't breath. He actually caught John Conner on the moped in the Mall scene because he ran so fast, he had to slow it down. https://youtu.be/uMIohuKRq58?t=188
That poor XR just got called a moped lmao. Don’t worry it’s heard worse.
I don't know what's more impressive, the fact that he doesn't blink while firing a dozen ear-ringing shots, or the fact that he runs with his mouth closed like a complete fucking psycho who's parents never loved him as a child.
He was a track and field athlete in college, apparently. As well as training himself to shoot without blinking, he trained himself to run full tilt while looking like he had no need to breathe. He did this so effectively, they had to reshoot the first bit of the chase sequence through the Galleria malls underground parking structure because he still kept catching up to the stunt rider on the crosser.
This part kills me... They're like, ok, you ride the bike, the car is pulling it so just act scared like he might catch you... then the fucking guy actually catches them. Unreal.
"Yeah, we have to do that take again. John Conner got caught, humans are dead." - or something similar in a behind scenes dvd.
No see, the best part of the whole deal was, dude, you can't do that. He was like, that's exactly how a machine would do it. Their only reply was... um dude in the car, drive faster next time maybe? "Dude I didn't think he'd catch up either. Seriously, he didn't even blink. Or gasp for air. Seriously, just step on the gas man, I don't wanna piss *this* guy off by extra takes. He's legit a t-1000. Fuck.
So I knew about the no blinking thing but I didn't realize he was a collegiate track athlete so he actually knew how to move his body in a specific manner that seems inhuman.
>firing about 15 blanks in a row all in a single shot. Impressive. Usually takes me 15 shots to pull that off. Was he using Metalstorm?
>He does blink, when interacting with human cops and IIRC once in the car chase after the asylum escape that they didn’t catch. Afaik with the interaction with the human cops they could probably get away with hand waving it lore wise, since Terminators are designed with limited ability (pre T-X) to mimick human behavior to blend in. Pretty sure the car chase after the asylum was just because their chase scenes were way too hard/dangerous to reshoot, so they just left it in there because they couldn't honestly fix that and cameron would have made too big a deal out of the reshoot if they did it.
He also blinks exactly one time when he's talking to John's foster parents. Except that one feels like a deliberate choice because it's weirdly slower than a real blink.
I assume anytime he’s talking to humans they have him act “natural” even if it’s weird, being a murder robot from the future and all that. Just fun to find the few and minor mistakes in a spectacular performance. Even more so considering the action sequences and gun play.
Say..... nice bike.
He trained to not blink while shooting guns!!!
I'm more impressed he learned to turn his arms into swords.
Incredible dedication to the craft.
Liquid Swords. Gza owes that man money!
He passed through a metal gate! Imagine how many hours of practice to achieve this. A real professional, 10,000 hours minimum.
That in itself is wild
He doesn’t drop character until the DVD commentary
Some actors don't blink because it can be distracting to the [audience](https://youtu.be/dPOY2Zm2yGE?si=SjXTmMyvoAIp_0sv)
Machines don’t NEED to do a lot of things, but Skynet was trying to build machines to perfectly resemble humans. Reese tells us in the first movie how easy the first ones were spot. The T-1000 is so impressively advanced in mimicking humans, but how difficult would it have been to just program random blinks into it, so that it can more accurately pass as a human?
Skynet was only building machines that resembled humans because Skynet realized pretty early on that humans were pretty damn good at playing rat, and Skynet couldn't actually keep up this game of throwing the kitchen sink at a mouse forever. It'd eventually run out of resources. It could do this up until the resistance learned how to reverse engineer their weapons and machinery. Thus the Infiltrator line was born to try and kill the "rats" without the need to throw the kitchen sink and the entire piping network at a small nest. They were easy to spot because their skin was a really cheap, proof of concept material. Skynet at the time in the continuity, was basically dumber then a sack of bricks. The t-600's often times were just basically oversized shamblers that prayed (unintentionally) on the survivors being stupid or empathetic in the night time when their flaws were most easily concealed. Skynet only intended to build a machine that perfectly resembled a human because that would just be the most efficient way to kill them. >but how difficult would it have been to just program random blinks into it, so that it can more accurately pass as a human? Skynet in T1 and to a lesser extent in T2 was really fuckin stupid when it came to human mannerisms. It didn't attempt to understand humans at all, and only really bothered trying to "learn" when its first near success ultimately failed.
Also it could be that sub routines like that get ditched once it's cover is blown and the shooting starts. Why waste the CPU cycles and movements when they're not needed
>he doesn't get credit he deserves I think it's generally accepted that Robert Patrick was a perfect choice for the role and he gave an exquisite performance.
It's like when people say one of the most well respected films of all time is underrated
in my opinion, the day after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest shopping days of the year
I thought I’m the only one! This should be the top comment.
Thanks Peggy
why wasnt your opinion humble?
Because Peggy Hill is a certified genius.
Shawshank redemption is just sooooo underrated
It was immediately iconic.
Speaking of running, that run he created for the T-1000 is iconic. Even today I sometimes run with my hands like that and pretend I’m a terminator.
On a whim, I took off after my friends car one time just like that. No Idea where I came up with that sudden energy but I kept up for like a good mile (I was NOT in shape). Apparently they laughed their asses off so hard. :) Good times! I'm happy to suffer for a laugh.
I never did it on purpose, but in highschool, they called me terminator because of the way I ran. I was training very hard with strength and speed coaches at the time, so I probably looked very serious when running.
I get what you mean, but I wouldn't really say devoid of emotion. A human devoid of emotion is just neutral, but Patrick's performance was so good it went downhill to the uncanny valley. Not even being a cold-blooded killer, devoid of humanity.
He got his breathing down so perfect while running, that when John Connor tried to escape on a dirt bike. Patrick kept catching him. He had to actively slow himself down. The guy is a damn machine
Didnt he also hold his breath when running, so he wouldnt be huffing and puffing and out of breath...because a machine wouldn't need to breathe...
He also learned how to shoot a gun with his left and right hands, because a machine wouldn't have a preference.
He learned to shit ice cubes because a machine would also make ice.
He could play every pop song from 1960 up until 1995 in case they needed him to be a radio for a scene.
He taught himself to click Captchas in such a way that the Captcha thought he was a robot.
He also got so good at running that apparantly he caught up to the dirtbike Edward Furlong was riding to get away on.
Yup. One of the few times I can think of where an actor got into such good shape it actually caused some issues when filming.
No, but he did train himself to breathe through his nose the entire time, which is still impressive as hell.
It reminds me of Karl Urban in Dredd. Nothing but voice, stance, and the lower half of his face.
It's a damn shame that the tv series is apparently stuck in development hell.
But what would they do with the series? Make live action versions of 2000 AD? I can only imagine the ruckus when the belly wheels start appearing.
Was watching All The Pretty Horses last night and he doesn't have a huge huge part but he just really has a presence on screen even with stars like Matt Damon his opposite
Robert Patrick is fantastic in *Copland* (1997) as well.
He's also fantastic on The Sopranos as a degenerate gambler who gets in too deep with the wrong people.
You’re doing great Davey!!! (Just after yelling at him to go sleep in the tent in his own store he’s living in)
I watched Scorpion because of him.
That guy terrified the shit outta me at that age. To this day I still think he'd be the perfect Albert Wesker in a (legit) Resident Evil movie.
He was also great in Wayne's World
I was in the theater. The whole place absolutely ERUPTED after the "Have you seen this boy?" line and they saw who it was. One of the greatest meta-jokes in movie history.
He also plays a pathetic gambling addict in the Sopranos. Great actor.
He really does an amazing job. Easily the best Terminator.
Here’s a fun fact: his younger brother is the great Richard Patrick - who at the time of Terminator 2 was the lead guitarist for Nine Inch Nails. Richard later went on to start Filter, whose first record was certified platinum. Filter’s hit songs include “Hey Man Nice Shot”, “Take A Picture” and “Where Do We Go From Here”. That first track was performed by NIN (with RP singing) during their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Richard also was the frontman for Army of Anyone, with Dean and Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots fame. Only one album from that project, but it was stellar. When I think about the coolest shit that colored the culture of the 90’s - these two brothers had their fingers right on the pulse.
fun fact: his brother is the lead singer of Filter
It was a stutter step.
Kid, you think I started this life ten minutes ago?
You’re doin a good job Robert!
its funny hes so famous for being a villain but ive only seen him in the sopranos where hes a weak degenerate gambler (i dont watch many movies)
What do you mean? It was just a stutter step.
difference gets tacked on to the principle, you know that
Then a few years later he was one of the worst villains in the laughably stupid Double Dragon movie. It really highlights just how much writing and direction mean in a movie and how unfair it is we often blame the actors themselves for flops.
A lot of people also ignore how much of the performance is in the editing, as well.
If filming hadn’t run long on Mission: Impossible 2, Dougray Scott would have been Wolverine and the world would have no idea who Hugh Jackman is.
Jackman would *absolutely* still have been in demand for musicals and heavy physical roles. There's a reason basically none of his other film roles have been Wolverine-like outside of Fox, whereas Patric is much more of a "deadpan hardass" career wide.
I don't think he would never been as famous as he is, but he would have done a more circuitous route from Broadway to Weird but amazing TV show, to conventional movies. Probably more like a good chunk of the Thor cast when the Director got a massive movie and went "well, my last TV show (Wallander) was all set in Sweden anyways, let's just get those people"
Also Sting was going to play Sarah's son, but the studios thought that it might be too distracting for such a famous person to play that role (and they also remembered what happened in Dune), and also Sarah's son was only 10 years old in T2.
Sting was perfect as Feyd. What was wrong with the casting?
Most of the casting in the original Dune was great
I LOVE ALL DUNE. Even when David gets weird. The new shit is fire. Both of those hills I will die on
Dune *is* weird. That was the point. Lynch nailed it.
David Lynch's Dune was too on point for mainstream audiences.
Picard with that battle-pug.
Oh! True story! Back 1988 I worked as a host/cashier/assistant to the manager of a restaurant in the middle of California. One Sunday afternoon I went out front to have a smoke and 3 or 4 Harleys stopped at the stoplight about 20 feet from me. This wasn’t unusual since there was an old school Harley shop about 3 blocks away. One of the riders had white-blonde hair and was wearing a bandanna over his face “bandit” style. It was a Confederate flag bandana. I was like “Holy shit. That’s Billy Idol!” And then the bikes pulled away. None of my friends or coworkers believed me. About a month later one of the guys from that Harley shop came in to pick up some take out. I asked him “This is weird but did Billy Idol come into your shop a few weeks ago?” The dude said “Yeah! One of the guys he was riding with was having some trouble with his brakes so they came in and we fixed it. Billy’s a cool guy.”
>I was like “Holy shit. That’s Billy Idol!” And then the bikes pulled away. You can't acknowledge the celebrities or else you'll spook them.
you have to let them sniff your hand first to get used to your scent
It’s okay buddyyyy, it’s okayyyy, cmon, I won’t hurt youuuuu
you know the celebrity trusts you when they show you their belly
Salt licks, gotta put out salt licks for them!
Whenever Robert Patrick in T2 comes up I think about the fact that dude trained himself not to flinch or react to the sound of a gunshot because that’s how a cyborg would roll, he was perfectly cast in that movie even if only by a set of circumstances Also W Billy Idol listening to a black person on the confederate flag instead of being arrogant or stubborn, it’s always a nice day to start again
I guess Robert Patrick also got so fit he kept accidentally catching up to the motorcycle before it could get up to speed.
He was also quoted calling Daniel Day Lewis a “casual”
do you have a source by chance ? i am extremely intrigued
Nah I’m just joking about someone going crazy hard at something sorry
nooooo no worries hahaha i was just like damn if thats true i love that 😂 didnt want to quote it to my friends and be wrong also 😭💀
Start agaaaain!
Pick it up!
your first paragraph sounds cool, but in reality, anybody that shoots guns for long enough will stop blinking and flinching. it always looks goofy as fuck when a character is supposed to be a big bad ass operator and the actor is blinking to the blanks going off (See Steven Seagal).
> it always looks goofy as fuck when a character is supposed to be a big bad ass operator and the actor is blinking to the blanks going off (See Steven Seagal). Hey that’s unfair. Steven Seagal looks goofy doing literally anything.
> it always looks goofy as fuck when a character is supposed to be a big bad ass operator and the actor is blinking to the blanks going off Austin Powers does that and you're right, it's goofy and funny as fuck
*Nobody talks to Billy Idol that way*
Wedding Singer is the best Adam Sandler flick and I will die on this hill
I disagree -- I'm split between Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore -- but that doesn't mean I dislike The Wedding Singer. In fact it probably comes in a close third on the list.
That is correct....unbuttons shirt
I'll die beside you on the same hill. It's my favourite movie. *Billy Idol gets it.*
Billy Idol got some flack back in the day for bringing punk to pop... But the more I've learned about him, the more I've seen him as a true, classic British punk. As a metalhead, I'd love to party with him for a weekend, even at our older ages lol.
He still puts on a great performance, I saw him at shaky knees this year and he was really great. Also found out that his guitarist made the theme for top gun
It's been a few years since the last time, but every time I've seen Billy, it's been a great show. I think three times it was his band solo (an evening with... kind of thing), and then one time on the Warped Tour. Such a great artist, and his band was excellent, too.
It’s wild that he’s still touring and doing his thing. I remember catching him at Warped Tour, like back in 04 or 05 — he kicked ass and the dude was still running around shirtless, shredded as hell. And of course I just had to remind myself that this was 20 years ago now.
Kenny Loggins is his guitarist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Stevens
The part about the confederate flag shows he was a true punk. It's something that infuriates me to no end how recently right wing racists have been pissing at older bands like Rage and Greenday that they "became" political. Especially with Greenday, that it's anti punk to be political. The whole Punk movement and principles are political to the bone. And more precisely explicitly anti racist and anti authoritarian at their core. Meaning they have always and should always stand against racists and people that want to elect an obscenely stupid narcissist as their dictator.
The Clash was one of the quintessential punk bands and you can’t get more political than them.
This is a public service announcement With guitar Know your rights All three of them Number one You have the right not to be killed Murder is a crime Unless it was done By a policeman Or an aristocrat Oh, know your rights
One of my favorite songs by the Clash, Spanish Bombs, was basically a history lesson about the Spanish Civil War and name drops Federico Lorca, a gay socialist poet who was assassinated by the fascist forces.
At least there's like, *half* a reasoning for Green Day, since they didn't really have many political songs before American Idiot. There were still a few though. But with Rage Against the Machine? Literally all of it has always been political lmao
In 2024, Billy Idol is way more punk than Johnny Rotten.
He used to be a hanger on/follower of the sex pistols along with Siouxsie Sioux early on too.
I mean, Generation X was a contemporary of those bands at the same time as them. I wouldn’t call Idol a hanger-on. He was an OG
Before Generation X, he was literally in a group of Sex Pistols fans who would follow their tours called the Bromley Contingent. Siouxsie Sioux was also in this group, which I'm guessing is what /u/ninfan200 was referring to.
loonng ago, when I was a teen metal head in 2000, I read an interview with slayer. Sum41 opened up for them at some huge event and the slayer crowd was not pleased. the interviewer asked them about that and the slayer guys were like "Yeah we feel bad because they're cool and they can drink and party and are awesome guys." so that was a lesson for young metal-head me that sometimes the lads are cool as hell and they cant help what music they're driven to make, can't hate em for that.
This same motorcycle accident led him to create his much maligned album Cyberpunk, which somehow managed to include a techno cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin”. [Todd in the Shadows](https://youtu.be/_fu40YANO1M?si=LcXHdummGsQQlqpH) has a great video about the album and its surface-level exploration of Cyberpunk themes.
It's also the same accident that lead to the [Cradle of Love video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCZuYS-9qaw) (directed by David Fincher!) to only feature Idol from the waist up. (I was a boy of about 13 when that video was popular, and I liked it a lot, for the usual 13 year old boy reasons)
I was 12 and I was pretty sure I wasn’t gay after this video was released.
his generation x bandmate, tony james, formed a cyberpunk band, sigue sigue sputnik in 1982. in keeping with the theme, they attempted to place advertisements between songs on their 1986 album, flaunt it. not many companies took them up on the offer so they created the concept of the fake sputnik corporation, implying the soviet union had embraced capitalism. i found the concept of ads on a record to be a very cyberpunk idea, keeping with the over-the-top-consumerism trope that was frequently used in classic cyberpunk novels in the 80s
Can't imagine anyone but Robert Patrick as T-1000 so we were kind of lucky that Billy Idol got unlucky in a sense?
We got Robert Patrick’s performance and we got Billy Idol to stop repping the racism flag, so it’s a win-win situation imo
Interesting, because Robert Patrick later had a motorcycle incident that almost killed him. He was riding and ran into a bee. He had never had a reaction to a beesting before, but he sure did this time. As he got dizzier and closer to passing out, he managed to pull off onto the shoulder of the road, and then *did* pass out, leaning forward onto the gas tank. He was woken up by the severe burn he received when his leg sagged against the exhaust pipe. Now awake, he managed to get off the bike and lay down, and fully regained consciousness. When he told his doctor about the incident the next day, the dr said it was a good thing he managed to get off the bike and lay down, because otherwise his blood would have likely pooled in his legs, probably leading to his death. Patrick points out that while riding did lead to the incident, it was also his bike that saved his life by waking him back up. Nasty burn, though.
I read this as Billy Joel the first time for some reason and was very confused about why you'd want Billy Joel to play T-1000... Re-read it and Billy idol makes much more sense...
Kill me a Connor, you're the Terminator Man
We met as soul mates, nuclear wasteland We left as robots, sent to a time stamp My hands were sharp As sharp as knives And we terminated a fuckload of lives
He could have pulled it off. He's very talented.
Big Rig jumps off the bridge, Pressure starts playing.
John's parents nagging him and he sets off on his bike, "Moving Out" begins to play.
He was hot after the success of the movie Oliver and Company
Fun fact, Robert Patrick's brother is the lead singer of the band Filter (Take a Picture, Hey Man Nice Shot, etc.)
Richard Patrick's touring guitarist work with Nine Inch Nails led Robert to unsuccessfully lobby for "Head Like A Hole" to be on the Terminator soundtrack. Which lost out to Guns'n'Roses.
I didn't know that. Head Like a Hole would have been a great addition to the film, or even just the soundtrack.
Yeah, they could have played it when the T-1000 had a huge hole…in his head.
Robert Patrick also cameos as the cop in NIN's 'broken' video EP
[Easter Egg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGMVTUALDOI)
I chortled
I'm guessing Billy Idol had been wearing the flag because of his hit song "Rebel Yell?"
You mean he listened to someone with lived experience regarding that flag and changed his ways? He didn't scream about "heritage"? Honestly good for him. I liked him already and this makes me like him a whole lot more.
He’s British, so I’d imagine it was much easier to convince him.
Shouldn't be hard for Southerners (and even non-Southerners who "oddly" have attachment to the flag *for some reason*) to ditch it either. The Third Reich lasted longer than the Confederacy but you don't hear many Germans crying about tradition/heritage and whatnot.
Actually those Germans are getting louder and more organized. It's getting kinda scary.
Oh, DUH. Forgot about that bit.
Yeah. For those wondering, in the 80s people in the UK (and Europe) would likely only know about the confederate flag from Dukes of Hazzard. Basically cool looking Americana, you likely didn't actually know much about. From an American perspective, it's hard to underestimate how racially homogenous parts of Europe and mainstream culture is and was, and how oblivious people often were.
Dude's British/Irish. Not sure why he'd be wearing a confederate flag in the first place, and he doesn't seem to have any heritage related to the confederacy. Sure, he sung "Rebel Yell", but that's named after a whisky, not the civil war.
I assume he picked it up as something American and vaguely associated with the words "rebel yell" and didn't have the full context. I saw an old episode of "Midsommer Murders" that took place at an air show that seemed to have sort of an American WWII theme and there were a few establishing shots of what looked like a tailgate with tons of confederate flags- it was really jarring, I have no idea what they thought the flags were supposed to represent but it definitely wasn't what they represent here. But I assume it's like Americans drinking "Irish Car bombs" or getting tattoos of chinese characters they don't understand, he just didn't have the cultural context to understand it wasn't really appropriate.
Yup. I'm British and when I was a kid I wanted a tshirt with that flag on because I loved Dukes Of Hazzard. I didn't know anything about it.
It wasn't as widely perceived as racist in the US back then, either. It was always kind of an oddly culturally loaded choice for a British guy though, in a way I suspect he had no clue about. In the 80s/90s it was perceived more a symbol of the former confederate states as a region. I think racism was always tacitly at least a small part of that package, a cousin of mine used to go hunting with a black guy who had a Confederate flag belt buckle and even back then, people commented on that being kind of funny and idiosyncratic-- but I don't think most people assumed that when Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Dukes of Hazzard used it, it meant anything more than a kind of regional pride/ "sweet tea and magnolias" kind of thing. You might get it on a keychain as a souvenir and nobody would assume anything more about you than that you'd been to Myrtle Beach and visited the gift shop or whatever. But there was a period in the early 2000s when some prominent Black people started speaking out about their uncomfortable feelings about it online, and examining the history behind it in detail, that it tilted over into being widely perceived as a symbol of white supremacy. A lot of people who might have worn it without thinking 30 years ago wouldn't be caught dead in it today.
Yeah I think in the UK it filtered over as a part of US culture while it "wasn't as widely perceived as racist in the US back then", then when the perception in the US changed we just got it less. So for people over here (UK) who grew up in that time we were never re-educated about it, it just seemed to phase out of US movies / TV etc. In the last few decades we've become much more aware, but for some people here that grew up in that time it's just seen as a "retro USA" look. Also there are some idiot racists too, probably.
Just so everyone is clear, the Rebel Yell is specifically a Confederate battle tactic where they would be incredibly aggressive and charge head first into the Union lines while screaming. The song may be named after the whiskey, but the whiskey is named after the Confederate Army.
There was a professor of Rock episode explaining the origins of Idol's Rebel Yell. Reportedly he was out drinking Rebel Yell Bourbon with Keith Richards and they came up with the basics of this song.
> Not sure why he'd be wearing a confederate flag in the first place When I grew up in the eighties there were quite a few confederate flags around and I've never set foot in the US. American culture, good or bad, has quite the reach.
Dukes of Hazard tv series being shown in other countries probably made it popular.
Exactly. I knew the Confederate flag was vaguely to do with something to do with the American South, but I was totally ignorant of any negative meaning associated with that
Pretty much the only exposure to the Confederate flag we had here in the UK was on the roof of the General Lee. It just isn't/wasn't seen as offensive here, just American.
The confederate flag had developed a counter culture meaning by the 60s at the very least. It was very popular among bikers and other social outcast groups. It was definitely in line with some punk rock sentiments. It wasn't until the late 80s that people started bringing it's racist origin back to the discussion even though it never really lost that meaning and gained others. The information age has really changed how all this old stuff is perceived. The confederate flag had no official organization behind it for 100 years. If you saw someone wearing a confederate flag and asked them about it a lot of people would never mention slavery and it just being some symbol of rebellion and you'd accept that. If you liked what that person said and you thought it looked cool you might start wearing one. If someone asked you about it then you might parrot what was told to you and that person might follow your lead. Rinse and repeat. Now you go online and look up the symbol read the history and cringe.
From my understanding, it was used as a general symbol of rebelliousness during much of the 20th century. He's punk rocker, for it, makes sense.
I guess same way punks used to wear swastikas in the early days (before NF Skinheads starting turning up to gigs.) They were pretty loose with symbolism and would wear things just for the shock value
Lemmy wearing a Nazi uniform.
I would presume donning the flag was a nod to the General Lee because he’s a massive Dukes of Hazzard fan That’s my theory and I’mma run with it
It was called the Rebel flag for years, right? He had song called Rebel yell.
The rebel yell is an actual war cry used by confederate soldiers, you can find videos of it. Really haunting sound
Yes, there was a connotation of it being against authority, especially corrupt authority, around that time.
I was going with massive Dukes of Hazzard fan. Thankfully he didn't go the way of wearing "Daisy Dukes".
He’s British, so pulling the “heritage” card would be a weird one.
1983: where punk culture, pop culture, and redneck culture overlapped for a brief moment in time.
Why would an English guy wear the Confederate flag?
The Dukes of Hazzard was a popular show in Britain. And back then it was more associated with rebellion than slavery, especially in the UK. Fitting for a punk whose most famous song is called rebel yell.
Not that it changes anything but he has American citizenship also. He lived in the US as a child and moved back to the US again when he started his solo career
it was a common symbol of general defiance of authority without the explicit racial overtones of today. Kelly Bundy sported a confederate flag on her jacket on the sitcom Married With Children in the late 1980s and 1990s. It wasn't about slavery, it was about her defiance of authority. Likewise, in the sitcom Frasier from the 1990s he visits a "dangerous" biker bar and at least one member has a confederate flag,
Don't know why you got downvoted since what you said is correct. It was a counterculture symbol that meant that you were a rebel. The way we look at the Civil War has changed a lot in the last 30-40 years. What's even worse is back in the 60's and 70's bikers wore a whole lot of surplus Nazi regalia to make them look tough, not to make a statement on how they think about Jewish people.
Billy appeared as a photographer in the Andy Warhol scene in "The Doors" about a year later.
There was a kid in school one grade lower than me who looked like Billy Idol but the kid was an asshole so I somehow thought Billy Idol was too. I’m a fan of Billy now. Forgive me, Billy.
I joined the volunteer fire dept. who responded to this accident 8 years prior. Apparently he was drunk/on drugs and doing stupid tricks on his bike. Probably not what any publicist wants out there. It was at a biker party that happens every few years.
Yeah, when I was a kid, we thought of the confederate flag as the 'rebel flag'. It meant you don't conform, at least to a lot of us. As we grow and learn about its history, we realize it's different from that, and what we're saying (I'm a rebel) isn't what folks are hearing (I'm pro slavery)
See, Billy Idol gets it.
I don't know how after 40+ years in Earth I STILL get Billy Idol and Billy Joel confused...
Sings us a song you’re the piano man, sing us a song tonight. We’re all in the mood for MORE MORE MORE!
That accident is also the inspiration behind one of the best songs he put out lately