FLM.RED / After the credits
Choosing a different future
A spoiler-filled discussion of Sarah, John and the T-800, from the chase to their farewell at the foundry.
Open the recap & discussion — spoilers
Sarah Connor knows a war with machines may lie ahead. When two Terminators arrive looking for her son John, survival becomes an immediate concern.
A familiar face returns
The liquid-metal T-1000 is sent back to kill young John Connor, a future resistance leader. A reprogrammed T-800 sent by the adult John protects him instead. They flee the T-1000 and rescue Sarah from a psychiatric hospital.
Learning on the road
John teaches the T-800 about people and orders him not to kill. Their bond grows during the journey. Sarah understandably mistrusts a machine that looks like her former pursuer, but sees how consistently it protects her son.
Sarah visits Dyson
After a nightmare about Judgment Day, Sarah goes to kill Cyberdyne engineer Miles Dyson, whose research will contribute to Skynet. Facing him and his family, she cannot do it. John and the T-800 explain the future to Dyson, who agrees to help destroy the research and recovered Terminator parts.
At Cyberdyne
The group infiltrates the company to destroy the technology. Police arrive and Dyson is shot; he remains behind to help the others escape and dies when the lab is destroyed. The T-1000 continues the pursuit to a steel foundry.
A farewell beside the molten steel
After a long fight the T-800 shoots the T-1000 into molten steel. Its own chip could still help create the technology they are trying to prevent, so it asks Sarah to lower it into the vat despite John’s protests. The raised thumb disappearing into the steel becomes their farewell.
The road ahead
Sarah and John drive into the night. She speaks with renewed hope that if a machine can learn the value of human life, people may change too. The unlit road leaves the future uncertain, while giving weight to the choices they have made.
After watching
- How do you read Sarah’s decision at Dyson’s house?
- What makes the T-800 more than a bodyguard to John?
A future still open
The bond between John and the T-800 gives the film’s question about changing the future a personal weight.
Keep the conversation going
Why does the T-800 ask to be destroyed?
Its chip could be used to develop technology leading to Skynet, so it asks Sarah to lower it into the molten steel.
