The Terminator

Kyle Reese:
[Saying the message that John made him memorize] Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to tell you that the future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist.

Kyle Reese:
John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old-torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve... I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you. I always have.

Sarah Connor:
You're terminated, motherf***er!

Sarah Connor:
[recording a tape for her future son] The hardest thing is deciding what to tell you and what not to. But I guess I've got a while yet before you're old enough to even understand these tapes. They're more for me at this point so I can get it all straight.... Should I tell you about your father? Boy, that's a tough one. Will it affect your decision to send him here, knowing that he is your father? If you don't send Kyle, you can never be. God, a person could go crazy thinking about this. I suppose I will tell you. I owe him that. Maybe it'll help if you know that, in the few hours we had together, we loved a lifetime's worth.

Terminator:
The 12-gauge auto-loader.

Clerk:
That's Italian. You can go pump or auto.

Terminator:
The .45 long slide, with laser sighting.

Clerk:
These are brand new - we just got them in. That's a good gun. Just touch the trigger, the beam comes on and you put the red dot where you want the bullet to go. You can't miss. Anything else?

Terminator:
Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range.

Clerk:
Hey, just what you see pal.

Terminator:
The Uzi nine millimeter.

Clerk:
You know your weapons, buddy. Any one of these is ideal for home defense. So uh, which will it be?

Terminator:
All.

Clerk:
I may close early today. There's a 15 day wait on the hand guns but the rifles you can take right now, and you have to fill these out too. [Terminator is loading slugs into the shotgun] You can't do that.

Terminator:
Wrong. [shoots Clerk]

Kyle:
The Terminator's an infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyper-alloy combat chassis - micro processor-controlled, fully armored. Very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue - flesh, skin, hair, blood, grown for the cyborgs...The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these are new, they look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.

Sarah:
Look, I am not stupid, you know. They cannot make things like that yet!

Kyle:
Not yet, not for about 40 years.

Sarah:
[disbelieving] Are you saying it's from the future?

Kyle:
One possible future. From your point of view. I don't know tech stuff.

Sarah:
Then you're from the future too - is that right?

Kyle:
Right.

Sarah:
Right. [They struggle together and she bites his hand in her attempt to escape]

Kyle:
Cyborgs don't feel pain. I do. Don't do that again.

Sarah:
Just let me go!

Kyle:
Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. 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.

Dr. Silberman:
Why didn't you bring any weapons, something more advanced? Don't you have, uh, ray guns? Show me a piece of future technology.

Kyle:
You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go.

Dr. Silberman:
Why?

Kyle:
I DIDN'T BUILD THE F***ING THING!

Dr. Silberman:
Okay, okay. But this cyborg, if it's metal-

Kyle:
Surrounded by living tissue!

Dr. Silberman:
Right. Now, why were the other two women killed?

Kyle:
Most of the records were lost in the war. Skynet knew almost nothing about Connor's mother. Her full name, where she lives. They just knew the city. The Terminator was just being systematic.

Dr. Silberman:
Uh-huh. Okay, now let's get back to-

Kyle:
[interrupts] Look! You've heard enough! I have answered your questions! Now I have to see Sarah Connor!

Dr. Silberman:
I'm afraid that's not up to me.

Kyle:
Then why am I talking to you? Who is in authority here?

Dr. Silberman:
Please, I-

Kyle:
SHUT UP! [glares the camera] You still don't get it, do you?! He'll find her! That's what he does! It's all he does! You can't stop him! He'll wade through you, reach down her throat, and pull her f***ing heart out!!

The Terminator:
I'm a friend of Sarah Connor. I was told she's here. Could I see her please?

Desk Sergeant:
No, you can't see her. She's making a statement.

The Terminator:
Where is she?

Desk Sergeant:
It may take a while. Want to wait? There's a bench over there.

The Terminator:
[looks around, examining the structural integrity of the room, then looks back at him] I'll be back.

Sarah:
Reese. Why me? Why's it want me?

Kyle:
There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah.

Sarah:
I don't understand.

Kyle:
Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.

Sarah:
Did you see this war?

Kyle:
No. I grew up after. In the ruins... starving... hiding from H-K's.

Sarah:
H-K's?

Kyle:
Hunter-Killers: patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal. [pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark] This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherf***ers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah... your unborn son.

The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind has raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight.

The thing that won't die, in the nightmare that won't end.

Your future is in his hands.

In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of this planet devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the Future by changing the Past. The plan required something that felt no pity. No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable. They created 'THE TERMINATOR'

[the Terminator arrives in 1984]

Punk leader:
Hey! My turn! [breaks the telescope lens with his bottle]

[the punk leader plays with the telescope but sees a naked Terminator walking towards them]

Punk member:
Hey! What's wrong with this picture?

[the Terminator approaches the punks as they stand in line]

Punk leader:
Nice night for a walk, eh?

[the Terminator makes direct eye contact with the punks]

Terminator:
Nice night for a walk.

Punk member:
Wash day tomorrow. Nothing clean, right?

Terminator:
Nothing clean, right.

Punk leader:
Hey, I think this guy's a couple of cans short of a six-pack.

Terminator:
Your clothes. Give them to me, now.

Punk leader:
F*** you, a**hole!

Dr. Silberman:
So, You're a soldier, fighting for whom?

Kyle Reese:
With the One Thirty Second under Perry, from '21 to '27.

Dr. Silberman:
That's the year 2027?

Kyle:
That's right, Then I was assigned Recon/Security, last two years, under John Connor.

Hal Vukovich:
This is f***in' great.

Dr. Silberman:
And who was the enemy again?

Kyle:
A computer defense system built for...

Dr. Silberman:
[Silberman's beeper goes off] Damn! [turns off beeper] Sorry.

Kyle:
Built for SAC-NORAD by Cyberdyne Systems.

Dr. Silberman:
I see, And this uh, computer thinks it can win by, uh killing the mother of it's enemy, killing him in effect, before he's even conceived, Some sort of retroactive abortion?

Vukovich:
[chuckling] That guy Silberman cracks me up, last weekend this guy burned his Afghan, he screwed it first, then he set it on fire...

Ed Traxler:
Hey, shut up.

Dr. Silberman:
Why didn't the computer just kill Connor then?, Why this elaborate scheme with The Terminator?.

Kyle:
It had no choice. Their defense grid was smashed. We'd won. Taking out Connor then would make no difference. Skynet had to wipe out his entire existence!

Dr. Silberman:
Is that when you captured the lab complex and found that, uh, what was it called... the time displacement equipment?

Kyle:
That's right. The Terminator had already gone through. Connor sent me to intercept him and they blew the whole place.

Dr. Silberman:
Well, how are you supposed to get back?

Kyle:
I can't. Nobody goes home. Nobody else comes through. It's just him - and me.

Terminator:
I'm a friend of Sarah Connor. I was told she was here. Could I see her please?

Desk Sergeant:
No, you can't see her. She's making a statement.

Terminator:
Where is she?

Desk Sergeant:
Look, it may take a while. Want to wait? There's a bench over there. [points to bench]

Terminator:
[looks around, examining the structural integrity of the room, then looks back at him] I'll be back.

[shortly afterwards, the Terminator drives a squad car into the precinct's reception room, crushing the desk sergeant against the back wall by ramming the car into the desk] Note:
bolded line is ranked #37 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.

[Kyle and Sarah escape the Terminator's assault at a police station and hide in an abandoned house to tend to his wounds]

Sarah:
Would you talk about something?

Kyle:
What?

Sarah:
I don't know. Anything. Just talk. Tell me about my son.

Kyle:
He's about my height. He has your eyes.

Sarah:
What's he like?

Kyle:
You trust him. He's got a strength. I'd die for John Connor.

Sarah:
Well, at least now I know what to name him. I don't suppose you know who the father is so I won't tell him to get lost when I meet him.

Kyle:
John never said much about him. I know he dies before the war-

Sarah:
Wait! I don't want to know. So, was it John that sent you here?

Kyle:
I volunteered.

Sarah:
Why?

Kyle:
It was a chance to meet the legend... Sarah Connor. Taught her son to fight, organize, prepare from when he was a kid. When you were in hiding before the war.

Sarah:
You're talking about things I haven't done yet, in the past tense. It's driving me crazy. Are you sure you have the right person?

Kyle:
I'm sure.

Sarah:
[angry, irritated] Oh, come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean am I tough, organized? I can't even balance my checkbook! Look Reese, I didn't ask for this honor and I don't want it, any of it!

Kyle:
Your son gave me a message to give to you. He made me memorize it. [reciting] "Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to say that the future is not set. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist." That is all. [examines the bandage Sarah has put on his hand] It's a good field dressing.

Sarah:
[bitterly] You like it? It's my first.

[The Terminator is hiding inside a hotel room, looking for Sarah Connor's address while a janitor notices the foul smell coming from inside the room]

Janitor:
Hey, buddy. You got a dead cat in there or what?

[The Terminator turns towards the door; its HUD listing possible responses between "Yes/No", "Or what?", "Go away", "Please come back later", "F*** you, a**hole", and "F*** you". It then decides on "F*** you, a**hole"]

Terminator:
F*** you, a**hole.

[A very pregnant Sarah begins recording a taped message while driving through the Mexican desert.]

Sarah:
Tape 7, November 10...Where was I? What's difficult is trying to decide what to tell you and what not to. But I guess I have a while before you're old enough to understand these tapes. They're more for me at this point just so that I can get it straight.

[pulls up at a gas station; a clerk comes out]

Sarah:
¿Gasolina, por favor?

Gas Station Clerk:
¿Cuánto?

Sarah:
Llena el tanque.

Gas Station Clerk:
Fill 'er up! ¡Sí!

Sarah:
[recording] Should I tell you about your father? Boy, that's a tough one. Will it affect your decision to send him here, knowing that he is your father? If you don't send Kyle, you can never be. God, a person could go crazy thinking about this. I suppose I will tell you. I owe him that. Maybe it'll help if you know that, in the few hours we had together, we loved a lifetime's worth. [stops recording because a boy has just taken a Polaroid picture of her]

Boy:
Usted es muy hermosa, señora, y tengo apena decirle que me dé cinco dólares americanos, pero si no, mi padre me va a pegar.

Sarah:
[to clerk] What did he just say?

Gas Station Clerk:
He says you're very beautiful, señora, and he's ashamed to ask you for five American dollars for his picture - but if he doesn't, his father will beat him.

Sarah:
Pretty good hustle, kid. [raises four fingers] Cuatro.

Boy:
¡Sí, sí! [accepts two two-dollar bills] Gracias. [leaves, but calls back a warning] ¡Miren, miren! ¡Allá! ¡Viene una tormenta!

Sarah:
[to clerk] What did he just say?

Gas Station Clerk:
He said there's a storm coming in.

Sarah:
[contemplatively] I know.

Kyle Reese:
Come with me if you want to live.