Extended version: In LA in 2029 AD, the world has become a wasteland of wrecked cars, destroyed buildings and fields filled with skeletons. The voice of Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) starts narrating that 'three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They only lived to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines.' A battle is starting between human guerrilla troops and a technically far superior robotic army, consisting of metal endoskeletons, huge movable tanks as well as giant flying hunter-killer drones. A man is saluted by his soldiers as he crosses a destroyed hallway and starts to inspect the battlefield from a safe distance. Sarah' s voice-over continues: "Skynet, the computer that controlled the machines, sent two Terminators back through time. Their mission: to destroy the leader of the human resistance: John Connor, my son. The first Terminator was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984, before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was just a child. As before, the Resistance was able to send a lone warrior, as a protector for John." The opening titles show playgrounds ablaze with fire, and end with the camera zooming in on the face of a T-800. The scene goes back to the year 1995. A naked man (Arnold Schwarzenegger) appears from an orb of light on the side of the street. It is a Terminator, same model as the one that Sarah mentioned was programmed to kill her, entering a biker bar. As the patrons look at the naked man in bewilderment, Terminator scans the inside of the bar, finally identifying a tall man whose measurements match its own. Terminator tells the man that it needs his clothes, his motorcycle and his boots, much to the hilarity of the bikers. The big man puts out his cigar on the Terminator's chest, to no effect, but it prompts Terminator to break the guy's wrist and throw him into the kitchen. Other bikers take turns attacking the Terminator but it continues to violently beat them up until they break off. Terminator proceeds to the big man, who hands over his clothes and bike in fear. On the way out, the bar owner's attempts to intimidate the Terminator with his shotgun, but the Terminator ends up stealing both the gun and the man's sunglasses, and rides out on the motorcycle into the night. In a different part of town, a police officer calls in a strange electrical disturbance to Headquarters. He finds a strange round hole burned into a fence, and is then approached from behind by another naked man (Robert Patrick), more slender than the Terminator, who quickly incapacitates him. The man picks up the cop's gun, enters the police car in police uniform, and accesses the car's computer to find the address of John Connor. John Connor (Edward Furlong) lives with his foster parents Todd (Xander Berkeley) and Janelle Voight (Jenette Goldstein), for whom he has minimal respect, and leaves on his dirt bike with his friend Tim (Danny Cooksey). Sarah resides in the Pescadero State Hospital, a mental institution where psychiatrist Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen) fills in a group of interns about her past psychiatric history. He amazes them with her story about the first Terminator trying to kill her, and that her son John was fathered by a time-travelling soldier sent from 2029 to protect her. Dr. Silberman asks a few orderlies to prepare Sarah for her review later the afternoon. Sarah does not want to take her medication, to which the orderlies proceed to violently beat her and force-feed the meds to her. The fake police man arrives at the Voight residence, requesting to see John and ask him a few questions. Since Todd and Janelle don't know where John went off to on his bike, they give him John's photograph, and tell the officer that another big man on a motorcycle also came by to ask the same thing. The officer tells them not to worry about that man, and leaves, while John uses an illegal device to steal money from an ATM, so they can play video games at the Galleria Mall. Tim finds a picture of Sarah in John's bag (it's the picture seen in the previous film, the one made at the end of the movie), and John explains that Sarah is a complete psycho because she got arrested for trying to blow up a computer factory. Under the influence of the medication, Sarah has a dream vision of Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) telling her that John is in danger and she needs to save him. The vision ends with her walking behind Reese, ending up outside on a playground full of people, when suddenly, a very bright flash appears in the sky, and wakes her up. During her review, footage of an earlier session is played back, featuring a depressed Sarah, describing a returning dream of children being burned to a crisp and then blown away by nuclear fire. The video ends with a loudly raving Sarah who unsuccessfully tries to convince everyone that the end of the world is near. Sarah says that she has improved now, and no longer believes in her ordeal with the Terminator, nor that the factory where she destroyed it kept the remains of the cyborg a secret. However, in a computer lab elsewhere in the city, a computer developer called Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) is asked permission to conduct a test with a fragment of a computer chip, and a metal robot arm that was clearly once attached to a Terminator. Sarah tries to reason with Dr. Silberman to transfer her to a medium-security wing and let her contact her son, but he believes that she is only saying things he wants to hear, and refuses. Sarah breaks out in anger and attacks him, but gets heavily sedated by the staff. Meanwhile, from an overpass, the Terminator identifies John passing by on his bike below, and goes after him. The cop asks a few girls about John, and is told to find him at the Galleria. The cop arrives first at the arcade hall, using the picture to ask people about John; luckily, he also asks Tim, who feigns ignorance and then proceeds to warn John that the police are looking for him. John flees through a series of hallways, but encounters the Terminator, who brandishes a loaded shotgun. John reverses course, but runs into the fake cop, who fires his pistol, but the Terminator shields John from the bullets. It returns several heavy shotgun rounds into the cop, who collapses to the floor. However, the huge gaping holes in his body get filled quickly and he is back on his feet. After a brief struggle through a wall and inside a fashion store, the cop gets the upper hand and throws Terminator out of the shop's window. As Terminator gets up, the cop returns to chasing John who has escaped on his dirt bike. The cop even commandeers a semi-truck in his pursuit of John, who hopes to lose him in a dry canal, but even there the cop follows him by driving in. The Terminator follows them on his motorcycle alongside the canal. A long chase follows, where Terminator manages to jump into the canal, get in front of the truck and pick up John before he gets crushed by it. Then the Terminator blows the truck's tire, causing it to crash into a column and blow up in flames. But after they leave, the cop, who is apparently a fully metal android, walks from it unharmed. John asks the Terminator to pull over the motorcycle, realizing that the Terminator has not come to kill him. The Terminator explains it is a T-800, which John himself reprogrammed 35 years in the future to be his protector in the present. The other guy is a T-1000: an advanced type of Terminator made of liquid metal that will try and get John if he goes back home. Terminator's plan is to leave the city to escape the T-1000, but John insists on calling his foster parents first to warn them. Over the line, John hears his dog Max barking, and senses that something is off when speaking to Janelle, so Terminator fakes John's voice and asks Janelle about "Wolfie". Upon receiving the wrong answer, Terminator tells John that his foster parents are dead. At the Voight residence, it is revealed that the T-1000 has taken Janelle's shape and killed Tod. It goes out to the dog, killing it and seeing that its collar reads "Max"; it knows it has been deceived. The Terminator explains to John that the T-1000 can imitate everything of equal size that it has sampled previously by physical contact. It can't become a bomb or other complex machines with chemicals and moving parts, but it can form knives and stabbing weapons. At the hospital, a detective shows Sarah old CCTV photos of the Terminator while killing 17 police officers in 1984, as well as new pictures taken today at the mall from what looks like the same man. They tell her that John is missing, his foster parents were found murdered, and ask her what she knows about this man. As Sarah remains non-responsive, she is taken back to her cell while Dr. Silberman lets out the detectives. John tells about his childhood, when Sarah dragged him to places like Nicaragua and trained with ex-soldiers to teach him to become the "big military leader". When she was arrested, he started to believe she was crazy, but now he realizes that she was right about everything. He wants to go to the mental hospital to save her, but Terminator refuses, stating that T-1000 will likely go there, kill Sarah and imitate her to get to John. Upon hearing this, John wants to go immediately, but Terminator stops him, as Sarah is not a mission priority. They argue, which attracts two local men, and the ensuing struggle almost costs one of them his life; however, John also learns that the Terminator is mission-bound to obey his orders over any of its own priorities, so he tells the Terminator to help him rescue Sarah. Sarah is strapped to her bed by one of the abusive orderlies, but she has secretly taken a paperclip from the detectives, and uses it to open her restraints and cell door. In the meanwhile, the T-1000 has arrived at Pescadero, and disguised itself as part of the floor. It reshapes itself as one of the passing guards, killing and impersonating him to get access to the high-security wing. Then John and the Terminator arrive, with John making the T-800 swear to stop killing people. Terminator demonstrates his liberal interpretation of this order by wounding the guard outside in order to get access to the hospital. Sarah has made her way to Dr. Silberman by beating up several orderlies, using him as a hostage to get past the guard booth out of the high-security ward. Silberman manages to get away, so Sarah runs off and loses a group of orderlies chasing her, and escapes further into the building, trying to get out through an elevator. However, suddenly, the Terminator comes out, and Sarah naturally thinks it is there to kill her again. In a panic, she flees back to where she came from, and gets overpowered by the orderlies and Silberman who have found her again. Terminator violently beats them up, and John assures her that the Terminator is there to help them. Suddenly, the T-1000 comes up, oozing through a door with bars in the hallway (much to the amazement of an incredulous Silberman), so John, Sarah and the Terminator escape into the elevator. T-1000 gets into the shaft and assaults them through the roof with blades it creates from its arms, but they finally reach the garage and escape with a police car. T-1000 gives chase on foot, but after several close calls, they finally manage to leave him behind. As it returns to the hospital, it greets an approaching motorcycle cop, complimenting him on his vehicle. Sarah admonishes John for coming to the hospital to rescue her as he is way too important for that, much to John's grief. Terminator asks about John's crying, but John says it's nothing. They take shelter for the night in an abandoned gas station, to tend to Sarah's wounds and those of the Terminator, who says that his will heal over time so he can continue posing as human. John asks him if he can learn to act more human too: Terminator says that his CPU is a learning computer, but Skynet sets it to read-only when they are sent out alone (they don't want their soldiers to do much thinking). On John's suggestion, they open the T-800's metal skull and access his chip to reset it, but Sarah wants to use that opportunity to destroy it, as she doesn't trust the Terminator. However, John manages to show some leadership qualities by convincing her otherwise. The next morning, they leave in an old abandoned car to go south to hide from the T-1000. John takes the opportunity to teach Terminator some cooler ways of communication (like "Hasta La Vista, baby" when outshining someone). After a while, they stop at a gas pump and fast-food restaurant, where John tries to teach Terminator how to smile (but the result is less than convincing). As they eat, John notices a couple of young boys playing with toy guns. It prompts him to contemplate whether humanity will make it as a species; Terminator responds that it is in humanity's nature to destroy themselves. As they leave again, Sarah asks the Terminator about who is responsible for building Skynet. The Terminator tells her that it is Miles Bennett Dyson, a high-ranking employee at Cyberdyne Systems, who will invent a new microprocessor in a few months that revolutionizes the entire military computer system. Cyberdyne computers will completely replace human functions and decisions in strategic defense systems as the Skynet program goes online on August 4th, 1997. It learns at such a fast rate that it becomes self-aware on August 29th. As the humans try to shut it down in a panic, Skynet starts a nuclear strike that plunges the Earth's nations into a nuclear war. Sarah says that she wants to know everything there is to know about Dyson. In the meanwhile, an unsuspecting Dyson is hitting a dead end while working at home on his microprocessor. He explains to his wife Tarissa (S. Epatha Merkerson) that his new invention will be such an advanced learning machine that it can replace people as pilots, and thereby eliminate human errors. But given that the project is currently going nowhere, he agrees to leave it for now, and take his wife and two children to the water park, as promised. Sarah, John and the Terminator arrive at a desert trailer park that is strewn with old, stripped vehicles. It belongs to Enrique Salceda (Castulo Guerra) and his family, a long-time friend who took Sarah and John in long ago. Terminator is introduced as 'Uncle Bob', and looks at one of Enrique's toddlers in fascination. Sarah tells Enrique that they need the weapons that she left there for safekeeping, as well as clothes, food, and a truck. John and Terminator are put on weapons detail, so Terminator opens an old weapons cache that is filled with Sarah's guns. Sarah tells Enrique that his compound is no longer safe; they will cross the border tonight, and he and his family will need to leave as well. While the Terminator makes a selection of weapons (including a huge minigun that almost makes it smile), John explains that he grew up in places like this, learning to work with weapons and explosives until his mother got busted. He asks Terminator if it ever gets scared of dying, but it responds that it is only concerned with staying functional until its mission is complete; something John can relate to. They start fixing the truck they will be using to cross the border, and talk some more about John's previous father figures, with segues into the lack of his real father in his life, Kyle Reese. Although he and Sarah were only together for one night, John sometimes catches her crying for him. The Terminator asks why people cry, so John tries to explain that it comes from pain, but not just the physical pain. They fool around some more as John teach Terminator a high-five and a thumbs-up, while Sarah, sitting at a wooden table, looks on: "Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop, it would never leave him, it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice." Sarah starts carving some letters into the table while watching Enrique's kids play. She briefly rests her head, and falls asleep. She finds herself back on the playground, but separated from the other people by a fence. One of the people is a young version of herself, playing with an infant John. She tries to warn them by yelling and loudly thrashing the fence, but no sound comes out of her mouth. Suddenly, a blinding flash of light appears in the sky, coming from the familiar mushroom shape of a nuclear explosion. Sarah and the people scream as they instantly catch fire, while the shockwave of the bomb turns buildings and vehicles into instant rubble; and just when the wave blows all the charred remains of people away, like in the dream she described earlier, Sarah awakens with a shock. She looks at the two words she carved into the table: NO FATE. The message is clear to her. Sarah packs a rifle and a bag, throws them in the car and leaves, much to John's shock and surprise. Enrique tells him that he and Terminator will leave south tonight, and that Sarah will catch up with them later. Pondering at the picnic table, they note the words NO FATE; John explains that it is a message from his future self to Sarah, one that he had Kyle memorize: 'The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.' They deduce that Sarah intends to change the future, and is going after Miles Dyson. They leave in a hurry in the fixed truck, but Terminator says that here is a danger that the T-1000 anticipates this move, and will be waiting for them; also, Dyson's death may actually prevent Judgment Day. John doesn't want to hear it, and scolds the Terminator for still not understanding that people have feelings, and actually care whether they live or die. Sarah arrives at the Dyson residence, and sets up her laser-sighted rifle in the garden. She is ready to shoot Miles, who is sitting at his computer, but as she fires, he is briefly distracted by his son playing, and the bullet misses. Sarah opens automatic fire on Miles, who hides behind his desk and yells at his wife and son to flee the house. As Sarah empties her clip, she take a sidearm and enters the house, shooting a fleeing Miles in the arm. His son comes back to shield his father, but in spite of Sarah's earlier resolve, she can't bring herself to kill Miles in front of his wife and son, and curls up in a corner. John arrives with The Terminator, who does a quick check and determines that Miles injury is only a flesh wound. John embraces his mother, who is realizing that she was about to become a Terminator herself, and is finally able to return her love for him. John instructs Terminator to show Miles and Tarissa who they are: in a grotesque demonstration, Terminator makes several cuts in the flesh of his arm, and pulls away the skin to show the metal arm underneath, much to the couple's shock. The group sits down at the kitchen table as Sarah narrates: "Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down: Skynet, Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It's not everyday you find out that you're responsible for three billion deaths. He took it pretty well." Dyson argues that he couldn't have known that his invention would cause such misery, but Sarah scoffs that it's always men who build terrible weapons without regards for the possible consequences. Dyson agrees to quit at Cyberdyne and stop working on his microchip, but Terminator convinces him that no one must be allowed to finish his work: all the research and files at Cyberdyne and his house will have to go. Dyson also mentions the chip at the Cyberdyne vault: although he was never told where it came from, it must have been from the previous Terminator. All work on his new microprocessor was based on this defect chip, so it must be destroyed to stop the development of Skynet. Sarah narrates: "The future, always so clear to me, has become like a black highway at night. We were in uncharted territory now... making up history as we went along." Sarah, John, Miles and Terminator arrive at Cyberdyne, and after incapacitating the guard, they make their way to the research lab. However, another guard has just returned from his round, finds his bound and gagged colleague, and trips the silent alarm. Not only does this alert the police, it also resets all code-protected doors and devices inside the building. John uses his illegal ATM device to retrieve the vault key from a box, while Terminator blows an access hole into the lab with his M-79 grenade launcher. At that time, the T-1000, now dressed as a motorcycle cop, arrives at the Dyson residence, finding it deserted and all computers and papers gone up in flames. Its police walkie-talkie calls upon all units to go to the Cyberdyne building where a robbery is in progress by multiple armed suspects. Sarah and Terminator are gathering and smashing all the files and hard discs from the lab, while Miles destroys the model of his microchip himself, after all the years that he has worked on it. John has finally retrieved the vault key, but notices the huge police force standing outside, including a circling helicopter. While Terminator and Sarah are wiring up barrels of explosives for remote detonation, John warns them about the police, so Terminator steps out to deal with them (as promised, with non-lethal means). It breaks a window on the second floor, and destroys all police cars with the minigun and grenade launcher, and disperses the police with tear gas grenades. As its internal processor notes, there are no casualties, and it goes back inside. A SWAT Team, however, prepares to go inside the building. John and Miles manage to open the vault with their keys, and take both the chip and the Terminator arm with them. They get back to the lab, where Sarah and Terminator have just finished setting up the explosives. As they get ready to leave, the lab door suddenly bursts open, with the SWAT Team members pouring in and opening automatic fire. John and Terminator flee outside and Sarah manages to take cover, but Miles is hit several times, and stoops to the ground in shock. He shows Sarah that he is holding the detonator before she makes a run towards the lab's clean room, but John and Terminator note on the CCTV that there is no exit from there. Terminator bursts through a wall to get Sarah out, and they leave towards the elevators. The SWAT Team members close in on a dying and hyperventilating Miles, who is now holding a piece of his microprocessor model over the detonator, saying that he doesn't know how long he will be able to hold it. The SWAT Team immediately pulls out, and as they exit the building and John, Sarah and Terminator take an elevator down, Miles' breathing slows down, until he finally drops the weight on the detonator. The Cyberdyne building explodes in a blinding ball of fire. After temporarily stalling, the elevator reaches the first floor, but the SWAT Team is waiting farther ahead in the lobby, and fires off several rounds of tear gas. John and Sarah protect themselves with a gas mask, while the Terminator goes out to deal with the SWAT members, saying its signature line "I'll be back." It sustains heavy machine gun fire that tears up one side of his face, but it is finally able to neutralize the team with some strategically placed leg shots and tear gas grenades. It goes outside, commandeers the SWAT Team van, and drives it through the front entrance to pick up John and Sarah. In the meanwhile, T-1000 has arrived at the scene, and driven its motorcycle up the stairs of the burnt-down building, finding the lab having been totally destroyed. It suddenly hears the SWAT van leave and the police firing upon it, so it wastes no time, accelerates its motorcycle and drives it off the edge of the second floor towards the hovering helicopter. It jumps off, clamps itself to the canopy, breaks the glass with a quick head-butt, and under the incredulous eyes of the pilot, it oozes through the hole and into the cockpit. It tells him to get out as its reforms into its human shape, and starts flying in pursuit of the van. John and Sarah are in the back of the van as the Terminator drives it over a freeway, avoiding other cars and trucks at high speed, while Sarah fires an M-16 back at the T-1000. They are unable to shake it off, even when driving under an overpass, and the T-1000 eventually manages to shoot Sarah in the thigh. The Terminator hits the breaks, causing the helicopter to crash into the back of the van, destroying it. The van moves on, but damage to the back causes a tire to blow, making the van swerve and finally slam on its side. A tanker truck driver has stopped behind the helicopter wreckage, looking in amazement as the T-1000 walks from it unharmed, but unfortunately, T-1000 fatally stabs him and takes hold of his truck to resume its pursuit. John, Terminator and a wounded Sarah commandeer a smaller truck from a passing driver, and drive off with the T-1000's tanker truck in hot pursuit. Terminator's guns and grenade launcher are insufficient to keep the truck at bay, so it tells John to take the off-ramp, steps over to the T-1000's cabin and turns the wheel, making the truck tip over. John and Sarah drive their truck into a factory, slamming into a fork lift, as the T-1000's truck slides over the floor, hits a gate and breaks in two, with Terminator jumping off and rolling to safety. The crash causes the truck's cargo of liquid nitrogen to be released, freezing the T-1000 to the floor as it tries to walk through. In an effort to proceed, it breaks off several limbs until it remains motionless. Terminator destroys it with his sidearm, using the words "Hasta la vista, baby." As the pieces of the frozen T-1000 spread out, they suddenly realize they are inside a steel mill; sparks fly around, and the ambient temperature slowly melts the broken pieces back into liquid metal, as they ooze together and the T-1000 reappears again in his fake cop format. John and Terminator move further inside the steel mill to avoid the T-1000, dragging the wounded Sarah with them. Although T-1000 seems fully functional again, it does seem to have suffered some negative effects from the freezing: whenever part of its body touches something like a railing or an industrial floor, that part involuntarily mimics that object. Terminator tells John and Sarah to go ahead while it will make a stand, much to John's anguish. As soon as T-1000 arrives, Terminator engages it in a fierce fist fight, but it simply cannot inflict any permanent damage onto it, as T-1000 simply reforms with every beat. Eventually, it pushes Terminator's left arm into a giant cogwheel, crushing it and immobilizing its foe, and leaves off to find John. Terminator picks up a steel rod and simply amputates its own arm to set itself free. Sarah and John get to a higher platform, as they see T-1000 approaching. Sarah uses a chain to lower John onto a conveyor belt below, but decides to stay behind and fight to give John more time to escape, much to John's anguish. She uses her shotgun to fire at the T-1000 a few times, but eventually it gets close enough to pierce her shoulder with its index finger. The android tortures her to get her to call John back, but she refuses, and just as it is about to pierce her head, Terminator arrives and uses its steel rod to skewer the T-1000. A new fight ensues as Sarah scrambles off to safety, but with only one arm, Terminator is even less of a match to the quick and agile T-1000, which uses the iron bar to mercilessly pound its enemy to the ground. Then, it uses a suspended steel bar to crush Terminator's head several times, during which it loses its left eye. As it drags itself towards the grenade launcher that it has dropped, the T-1000 finally eliminates Terminator by driving the steel rod through its back; Terminator's red eye light goes out as the android deactivates. While Sarah is fighting her injuries and starts reloading her shotgun, and John is looking for a way out of the conveyor belt, Terminator manages to reactivate itself by finding an alternate power route within its circuits. It removes the iron rod from its body and grabs the grenade launcher. John hears Sarah calling for him, and after a brief climb to the highest platform, he finds her struggling to stay upright. Just as he wants to approach her, another Sarah appears behind the first, brandishing the shotgun, telling him to get out of the way. John notices that the first Sarah's' feet seem fused to the grated floor, indicating that she is, in fact, the T-1000. Real Sarah fires many rounds into her counterpart, which changes back into the fake cop, and her shots bring T-1000 teetering to the edge of the platform, but before she can shoot it off, her shotgun clicks, signifying it is empty. John and Sarah make ready to run away again, but as they turn, they see Terminator arriving from behind on a conveyor belt. It shoots T-1000 with the grenade launcher, and the exploding grenade turns the android in a grotesque shape of limbs and a head, which loses balances and plunges into a vat of molten steel below. The effect is devastating: the T-1000 thrashes and shrieks as it goes through all its previous iterations: Janelle, the hospital guard, the motor cop, then a weird collection of heads and finally a face that turns inside-out, before completely dissolving and dissipating. John helps the half-destroyed Terminator get up, which says that the T-1000 got "terminated". They throw the metal arm and the chip in the molten steel as well, believing that Judgment Day is finally averted. However, the Terminator reminds them that there is still one more chip that must be destroyed, pointing at its skull. It gives Sarah the controls of an electric pulley connected to a chain, stating that it cannot self-terminate, and she must lower it into the steel. John cries and begs Terminator to stay with them, but it states that it must end here. Finally, John orders his friend not to go. After a long pause, the Terminator states that it now understands why he cries; but it is something that it will never be able to do. John gives Terminator a final hug, and Sarah shakes hands with it, as it steps up the chain and is slowly lowered down into the steel. The heat slowly dissolves the android, and as its head disappears below the steel, Terminator does a final thumbs-up to his young protegee before its internal processor shuts down. Sarah and John look down into the steel as John cries, with Sarah looking into the camera for her final narration: "The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too."
Read more →
