[2][14] Construction for the Hollywood venue forced the closure of Fievel's Playland and An American Tail Theatre, which were built atop a parking structure.

In the year of the attraction's opening, attendance at Universal Studios Hollywood remained steady at 5.1 million; however, other parks in the region saw declines in revenue, such as Disneyland which experienced a 5% drop.

[6][7] The queue features dozens of television monitors that show a series of video segments (which are being presented on the "Cyberdyne Interactive Network", or C.I.N.).

Just before entering the pre-show auditorium, guests pass an unmanned kiosk where they pick up a pair of "safety visors" (3D glasses)[11] for use during the main show.

The pre-show is hosted in the "Miles Bennett Dyson Memorial Auditorium" by Kimberley Duncan (Named Reika Ayanokōji for the Japanese version), Cyberdyne's Director of Community Relations and Media Control.

Here, the audience stands and views a promotional video about Cyberdyne's numerous technological contributions before the video feed is temporarily hijacked by John (Edward Furlong) and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), warning the audience about Skynet and the future war against the machines and telling them to get out of the building before they are cut off.

Once guests are seated, they are told to put on their "safety visors" to watch a demonstration of the T-70 Terminators in action, presented by Duncan.

A T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) bursts through the movie screen through a "time portal" on his signature Harley-Davidson motorcycle – via actual actor/stunt double riding into auditorium – to rescue John.

He takes John back through the portal and into the future war between humans and machines while Sarah stays behind in the present, with the T-1000 in pursuit.

During the destruction of the T-1000000, water is sprayed from the ceiling onto the riders and then during the explosion, smoke is blown into the audience; the seats of the auditorium also lurch with a sudden drop, giving guests a final scare and ending the attraction with Sarah narrating that she feels that she owes her life to the Terminator for saving John's life.

Jay Stein, Universal Destinations & Experiences' Chairman and CEO at the time, asked Gary Goddard and his team at Landmark Entertainment to develop a stunt show based around the Terminator franchise.

Goddard sought permission from MCA Planning and Development (later Universal Creative) to morph this concept into a theater-based presentation featuring a 3-D film, live action and pyrotechnics.

Although Cameron was originally against the idea of Universal taking his Terminator franchise and converting it into a ride, he found the storyboards and the whole concept to be "great", so the project was green-lit.

[1] A full-scale mock-up duplicating the dimensions of the planned Florida venue was created in an airplane hangar at the Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley.

[24] Several elements of T2-3D: Battle Across Time have been patented by Universal, including the seat drop effect, the blending of live action and film, the trio of projection screens, and the simulated assault weapons.

[26][27][28][29] The film was shot at the abandoned Eagle Mountain iron ore mine, just north of Desert Center in California.