"That Terminator is out there...It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!"
— Kyle Reese on the first Cyberdyne model T-101, First film
The Terminator franchise deals with plotters seeking to rewrite the future to their own needs. Whether good or bad, these brilliant machines and humans, including many incarnations of the iconic T-800, from the past, present and future, are exceptional in their intricate planning and execution.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Original Film Trilogy
- Sarah Jeanette Connor evolves from a scared young waitress protected by Kyle Reese into a survivalist genius. Destroying the first Cyberdyne Terminator after it kills Kyle, Sarah, destined to raise their child John to fight the evil Skynet and the machines in the future, trains him to become a war-ready, tactical mastermind. Institutionalized for her knowledge of the future being mistaken for insanity, Sarah skillfully breaks out threatening the life of her doctor and joins forces with her son John and a heroic Terminator to stop Judgment Day. Prepared to kill the man who will incidentally allow for Skynet to come into existence, Sarah relents to tell him the truth and has him help her steal the research that will develop Skynet. Defeating the T-1000 model sent to kill John, Sarah passes on optimistic about the future but leery that Judgment Day will never truly be stopped and even died leaving John weapons to fight Skynet.
- First film: The first Terminator himself—first Cyberdyne model T-101—is a cyborg from the dystopian future of Los Angeles 2035 sent by evil supercomputer Skynet to kill waitress Sarah Connor because her son John will eventually be the leader of the human resistance. Taking out a gun shop owner and targeting women with the exact same name while trying to find her, the Terminator racks up a high body count, particularly when he shoots up the police station to get to Sarah there and multiple occasions is only stopped when Kyle Reese intervenes. Learning human behavior over time and tricking Sarah over the phone into thinking she's talking to her mother, the Terminator is able to learn the latest location Reese and Sarah are hiding at to once again track them down and even continues to determinedly do so both when his human exterior is burned off and his legs are disabled as well. Throughout the film, the Terminator truly proves the notion from Reese that he "absolutely will not stop" until Sarah's dead.
- Judgment Day:
- The Terminator—second Cyberdyne Model T-101 introduced—was captured by John Connor and the Resistance in the future and reprogrammed before then being sent back to protect John as a young boy. First tracking John to his foster parents' house and then to the local mall, the Terminator smuggles his shotgun in through a box of roses, counters the T-1000's first attempt on John there and then rescues him again in a high-speed chase. The Terminator then tricks the T-1000 into giving away that he's murdered John's foster parents and is imitating his foster mother and tells John that he can't help him save his mother Sarah because the T-1000 will get to him easily. Pledging not to kill anyone and helping save Sarah anyway, the Terminator then helps blow Cyberdyne up so as to undo Skynet's existence while also wounding or attacking an army of cops all without causing any deaths. After finally destroying the T-1000, the Terminator has himself sacrificed as another means of preserving the future, proving to Sarah he developed compassion for humans that she didn't think a killing machine could have.
- The T-1000 is a sleek Terminator with a proclivity for subterfuge and deceit, using its knowledge of human behavior and shapeshifting capabilities in its hunt for John Connor. Tracking down John by cleverly using police officer get-up to ask for information around town, the T-1000 nearly kills John several times over, only thwarted by the reformatted T-800, aka "Uncle Bob". The T-1000 murders John's foster parents and tries to lure him home disguised as his mother, then tracks down his real mom, Sarah, under the correct assumption that John will run to her. Even when evaded consistently, the T-1000 always finds new ways to track and hunt its prey, stealing cars and helicopters to assist while quickly disposing of anyone in its way. The T-1000 thrashes "Bob" in a physical fight, stabs Sarah to draw John out, and transforms into Sarah herself in a final attempt to assassinate John. With its unique use of its liquid metal physiology and an amusingly deadpan attitude, the T-1000 is a terrifying, awesome presence, and one of the premier Killer Robots in film history.
- Rise of the Machines:
- The Terminator—third Cyberdyne Model T-101—ended up killing John in the future through the deceptive use of manipulating his feelings toward the Terminator who protected him as a kid. Captured and reprogrammed by John's widow Kate Brewster, the Terminator goes back in time to the early 2000s to protect both John and Kate as young adults from the T-X—latest model sent by Skynet. Hitting T-X with a car first and then forcing her to crash the big truck she's pursuing in, the Terminator also keeps an unwilling Kate hostage until she fully understands the gravity of the situation and uses basic psychology on John when he's doubting himself by threatening him because "anger is more useful than despair". The Terminator also at first refuses to help try saving Kate's father because it'll put them in danger—while he also nearly calls John's bluff on threatening to kill himself—only relenting when Kate asks him to. Overcoming an intrusive reprogramming by T-X at another point, the Terminator then eventually uses an unstable fuel cell to take both himself and T-X out while succeeding in getting John and Kate to the shelter where they'll begin the resistance after Judgment Day to save the future.
- The T-X is an advanced cyborg sent back in time to kill an adult John Connor and his future lieutenants. Tracking down and murdering several of the lieutenants, the T-X discovers John and his future wife Kate Brewster and chases them, using her ability to control machines to attack them with several vehicles and almost succeeds in fighting off the T-101 before he crashes her vehicle. The T-X then murders and impersonates Kate’s fiance to trick the police into leading her to Kate and John and is only barely stopped from killing Kate. The T-X then goes after Kate’s father, General Robert Brewster, impersonating Kate in order to kill him and then has several robots kill everyone in the military base to protect the newly uploaded Skynet. Defeating the T-101, the T-X then takes control of him and forces him to attack John. When John traps her with an electromagnet, the T-X is able to escape despite being almost completely immobilized. Even when forced to tear off her legs, the T-X is almost able to kill John before being defeated by the T-101. Showing great intelligence on top of her overwhelming strength, the T-X proves to be one of Skynet’s most dangerous agents.
Other Film Continuities
- Dark Fate: The Rev-9 is the charismatic amalgamation of past Terminators sent from the alternate future by the supercomputer Legion to kill Daniella "Dani" Ramos before she eventually leads the Resistance against it. Using charm and a personable disposition, Rev-9 first tracks down Dani at the factory she works at after murdering and disguising himself as her father, fights off the augmented human Grace sent to stop him, and uses his separable exoskeleton to doggedly continue pursuit during an extended car chase. Rev-9 then disguises himself as a border patrol agent, gets Dani, Grace, and Sarah Connor arrested when sneaking into America, sways agents when he's beeped at a metal detector, and takes multiple agents out when they try to restrain him. He also uses multiple tactics to continue pursuit in the air and puts up an immense fight against both Grace and the rogue Terminator "Carl" as well. Refusing to relent on his determination in fulfilling his mission, Rev-9 fully proves his own declaration of how "[his] whole body's a weapon".
- Cameron is a no-nonsense, efficient Terminator reprogrammed to aid the Resistance, serving as John Connor's most trusted confidant in both the apocalyptic future of Skynet's reign and the present in which he and his mother fight to prevent the A.I.'s rise. Introduced helping them to evade the Terminator Cromartie and fake their deaths to the rest of the world, Cameron proceeds to act as the Connors' personal enforcer and hatchet woman throughout the series as she brutalizes and murders whoever stands in their way, and is so competent that she investigates and ruins a decades-old conspiracy over the course of a single night without John or Sarah ever knowing. Cameron is fully willing to abandon innocents to be senselessly killed or go behind the Connors' backs should it aid their goals, but nonetheless remains an irreplaceable asset when it comes to eluding and eventually executing Cromartie and other Terminators like him. Even upon malfunctioning and reverting to her original murderous programming, Cameron remains a stoically ruthless soldier who relentlessly pursues her quarries, only to quickly return to aiding John with barely a hitch once she's repaired. Continuing to learn and adopt human characteristics throughout the series while she remains the Connor family's loyal troubleshooter, Cameron proves herself to be a worthy addition to the iconic benevolent Terminators of the franchise and one of the most enlightened of their number.
- Cromartie is the most persistent and brilliant of the T-888 Terminators that Skynet sends into the past to ensure its rise. Introduced in the pilot posing as a teacher at John Connor's new school, Cromartie nearly kills John by smuggling in a gun hidden in his own skin, then pulls himself back together after being completely destroyed in order to continue the hunt. Cromartie proceeds to leave a trail of bodies as he creates a new human disguise, ruthlessly obtaining the needed resources and allowing his new identity to be cleared of suspicion before murdering and replacing him, all while picking up ways to further his pursuit by learning to impersonate FBI agents. Interrogating their associates and using whatever databases he can hack into to monitor the Connors' activates, Cromartie slowly but surely narrows down their location, drawing them out or chasing them down to repeatedly almost kill John. Even when he comes under scrutiny, Cromartie is able to effortlessly massacre his way through an FBI strike team, sparing only James Ellison so he can be used to track his targets—a strategy Cromartie is so convinced of that he even betrays Skynet to ensure Ellison's safety. A Determinator like no other, Cromartie proves himself to be one of the most deadly and nigh-unstoppable forces that John and Sarah ever come across.
- Season 2: "Catherine Weaver" is a rogue T-1001 Terminator determined to bring down Skynet's cruel reign. Stealing the identity of a wealthy CEO, the T-1001 uses her company to begin combatting the robotic infiltrators sent into the past to crush the human Resistance. Weaver's shapeshifting abilities allow her to buy certain landmarks that will become integral to the Resistance and ensure they stay intact from Skynet's interference, while ruthlessly assassinating anyone who unwittingly impedes humanity's survival. Further employing former FBI agent James Ellison after convincing him that the real Weaver's husband was killed by a Terminator, Weaver has him hunt T-888 infiltrators and recover Cromartie's body, using it to house a new A.I., dubbed John Henry, engineered to fight its malevolent "brother." Despite her cold detachment in murdering whoever gets in the way of her mission, the T-1001 proves willing to try to understand humanity by attempting to serve as a loving mother to the real Weaver's daughter, all while brilliantly incorporating whatever lessons or resources she comes across in this endeavor to further John Henry’s benevolent development.
- "Self Made Man": Myron Stark is a T-888 charged with assassinating the Governor of California at Pico Tower in 2010, only for a temporal error to send him to 1920 and accidentally kill the tower's constructor. Undeterred by this disastrous obstacle, Stark sets to building the tower himself and acquiring the needed land from the constructor's father, the wealthy land developer Rupert Chandler, by starting his own construction company. Orchestrating several bank robberies to fund his activities, Stark quickly builds up a massive business able to easily rival Chandler's own empire, treating all his workers fairly and paying double the normal wages to encourage productivity. Successfully driving Chandler to bankruptcy, Stark buys the land and constructs Pico Tower before hiding himself within its walls for decades, awaiting the day of the governor's predestined arrival in order to enact his assassination.
Other Media
- Dawn of Fate: Alexander "Alex" Stone is a former member of the Resistance, who grew angry at John Connor and the Resistance for leaving his brother Gabriel for dead. Secretly joining Skynet, Alex revealed to it the secret locations of the Resistance's bases and led the Terminators inside, leading to many people getting killed and the Resistance being forced to retreat. Evading Justin Perry, Alexander ambushed and captured Kyle Reese, later on acting calmly when Catherine Luna held him at a gunpoint and forced him to release Kyle. Escaping from the Resistance and Skynet with Gabriel as the Resistance destroyed the Skynet Brain, Alexander revealed that he was Playing Both Sides and manipulating Skynet as well, all so he could free Gabriel from its control.
- Terminator/RoboCop: Kill Human: RoboCop himself is the protagonist of the story and a more villainous take on the character. Upon waking up in the future and seeing that Skynet has completely annihilated humanity, RoboCop sets out on a mission to prevent it from ever happening. Traveling to the past, when the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day occurred, RoboCop singlehandedly starts changing the timeline by meeting Dick Jones when he was young and giving him enough data to build a fortune and OCP corporation, which RoboCop leads through Dick. Setting up the trap for T-1000, RoboCop quickly puts T-800 out of action, before he captures T-1000 and prepares to destroy all Skynet's technology to erase it from the timeline, including T-800. Demonstrating lack of care for John Connor and eventually getting him killed along with Dick Jones, RoboCop sacrificed his humanity and life to stop Skynet from ever existing.
