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I recently re-watched Terminator 2: Judgement Day with a friend. When it came to the helicopter chase scene, my friend commented "He's reloading the gun, how is he still flying the helicopter?"

Now we've seen the T-1000 form knives and take on alternate forms, and at one point the T-101 punches through its head, and the T-1000 compensates by latching on, changing its head to hands, and growing a new head. So it seems fairly trivial for it to change one (or both) of its legs into an extra hand capable of flying the chopper whilst its other hands are busy shooting/reloading

Unfortunately it was on TV so we couldn't go back and check, but was the T-1000 using 3 hands in that scene?

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    Wow, that's a pretty great spot. Kudos to your friend! – Jordan Gray Jan 9 '14 at 9:32
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    @JordanGray - believe me he's not the guy you want sitting next to you in a movie theater... He's too good at spotting this stuff ;-) – Robotnik Jan 9 '14 at 9:45
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Yes, it has 3 hands at that time. This is made explicit in a short shot that is in the Director's Cut of the film:

screenshot showing 3 handed T1000

This is one of my favorite details of the film, it's not explicitly shown in the non-Director's Cut, but there is that moment your friend noticed where it's reloading while flying the helicopter.

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  • It's something you don't really think about until it's expicitly pointed out to you - it's great that it was addressed in-movie and wasn't just a plot hole :) – Robotnik Jan 9 '14 at 4:06
  • I just watched the theatrical version on blu-ray and this shot was definitely in it – Crow T Robot Nov 4 '19 at 23:49
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Actually it has four (4) hands at that moment. To fly the helicopter you have to use both of your hands: one to control the cyclic (the 'joystick', you can see it in the picture) and one to control the collective, the handle on the left side of the pilot, although the collective doesn't need constant attention.

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If you look closely there are four hands. It looks like the actor was sitting on the lap of the pilot. The pilot's left hand, which is not seen in the screen shot, is to the right, just a few seconds before the shot was taken it is clearly visible. I saw it on the director's cut.

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    Can you by any chance provide a screenshot showing the fourth hand? – Jason Baker Jul 31 '15 at 5:12
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If you pause quickly, right after the chopper flies out from under the bridge & look closely at the little sliding window to the right (which is open) you will see the pilots arm resting there. Seems to me though, that there wouldn't be any real need to actually fly a chopper to achieve that shot being that its so up close, but what do I know.

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  • iirc they were hemming and hawing about how to do it with a crane. The pilot told 'em to just hold his beer. – Mazura Jan 20 '19 at 2:43

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