\u201ccreature feature\u201d called Equinox <\/a>\u2014 the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Pasadena City College, and would go on to work for ILM on visual effects for movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and (fittingly) the 2005 version of War of the Worlds.<\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779369732_435_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A scene from ‘Terminator 2’ (1991).<\/p>\n
ILM and Muren began development on the CGI techniques that would be needed to pull off Terminator 2\u2019s T-1000 character in movies like 1985\u2019s Young Sherlock Holmes and 1989\u2019s The Abyss, which was also directed by James Cameron.<\/p>\n
\u201cILM has been so good at being able to really do the impossible,\u201d Muren said. \u201cAnd we kind of joke about that, but we’ve got many different ways of doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the opportunity for Terminator 2 came up, Muren had also just returned from a year-long sabbatical he spent studying computer graphics, and said he was confident ILM had the tools needed to make the T-1000 character a reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were ready to input the film digitally,\u201d Muren explained. \u201c[To] do all the manipulation in a computer instead of with optical film running through printers and going to labs for processing.\u201d<\/p>\n
And when ILM got that digital system for \u201ccompositing\u201d \u2014 combining live-action images, practical and CGI effects \u2014 working seamlessly, Muren says, \u201cThat was an incredible tool.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that didn\u2019t mean that pulling off a shiny, shape-shifting, liquid metal character successfully would be easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just complicated,\u201d Muren explained. \u201cYou’ve just got this reflective material [and] how are we supposed to be able to see depth or shape when it’s deforming?\u201d But at the same time, Muren said, \u201cthat’s what was exciting about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muren says the trickiest scene for the team to figure out is when the T-1000 walks through a cell door made of metal bars. While it happens in a matter of seconds on screen, it amounted to 14 to 16 weeks of work for the visual effects team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always said that shot, even as we were doing it, and we got close to finishing, I said, \u2018This is an absolutely impossible shot,\u2019\u201d Muren explained. So when they got it right, he said, \u201cIt was like a new world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, while he says Jurassic Park (1993) is the film he\u2019s now asked about most often, he always reminds people: \u201cT2 was really the breakthrough film.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why is 1991\u2019s \u2018Terminator 2\u2019 coming back to theaters? Terminator 2: Judgment Day is back in select theaters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[21469,4302,25084,110432,48,52,51,47,50,49,106002,135660],"class_list":["post-326155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-academy-awards","tag-arnold-schwarzenegger","tag-george-lucas","tag-james-cameron","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-vfx","tag-visual-effects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}