TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY O M I T T E D S C E N E S EXTENDED FUTURE WAR SARAH'S E.C.T. MISSILE DREAM SALCEDA'S DEATH GANT RANCH DYSON'S VISION by James Cameron and William Wisher ---------------------------------------------------------- EXTENDED FUTURE WAR 5/10/90 The original 5/10/90 draft contained an extended future war scene that not only addressed the defeat of Skynet and the backstory of how Reese and the Terminator went back through time as mentioned in the first film, but also the backstory of the second film on how the second Terminator was sent through. Cut from the script after the first draft, the scene -- although rich in action and resonance to the first film and its concepts -- was a narrative tangent to the main story of the film and would have cost an inordinate amount of time, money, and effort to produce. This future scene also had the adult John Connor as its narrator. EXT. CITY STREET - DAY Downtown L.A. Noon on a hot summer day. On an EXTREME LONG LENS the lunchtime crowd stacks up into a wall of humanity. In SLOW MOTION they move in herds among the glittering rows of cars jammed bumper to bumper. Heat ripples distort the torrent of faces. The image is surreal dreamy... and like a dream it begins very slowly to... DISSOLVE TO: EXT. CITY RUINS - DAY Same spot as the last shot, but now it is a frozen landscape in Hell. The cars are stopped in rusted rows, still bumper to bumper. The skyline of buildings beyond has been shattered by some unimaginable force like a row of kicked-down sandcastles. The sky glows, dark as iron. A freezing wind blows through the desolation, keening with the sound of ten million dead souls. It scurries the snow into drifts, stark white against the charred rubble. Fire and ice. The image is without color... lifeless as the moon. A TITLE CARD FADES IN: LOS ANGELES, AUGUST 11, 2029 ANGLE ON a heap of fire-blackened bones. Skulls identify them as human. WE BEGIN TO TRACK, revealing beyond the mound a vast tundra of bones and shattered concrete. Skulls like eyeless sentinels. The rush hour crowds burned down in their tracks. We hear a MAN"S VOICE, gentle, though rich in authority, and tempered by the pain of watching a world die. MAN (V.O.) It all came down on a Tuesday in September of '99. Pretty normal day, except for the end of the world part. Somehow, I don't remember how, we started calling it Judgment Day. I was in Argentina that particular Tuesday. A good place to be, considering everything alive north of the equator stopped being alive... WE DISSOLVE TO a playground... where intense heat has half-melted the jungle gym, the blast has warped the swing set, the merry-go-round has sagged in the firestorm. Small skulls look accusingly from the snow-drifts. WE HEAR the distant echo of children's voices... playing and laughing in the sun. A silly, sing-songy rhyme as WE TRACK SLOWLY over seared asphalt where the faint hieroglyphs of hopscotch lines are still visible. MAN (V.O.) Afterward it got cold. Real cold. Nuclear winter they called it. The few that survived, starved... CAMERA comes to a rest on a burnt and rusted tricycle... next to the tiny skull of its owner. A metal foot crushes the skull like china. MAN (V.O.) The few that survived that saw the Machines rise up... machines of many types but with one purpose... to hunt us down and kill us all like a bunch of cockroaches... TILT UP, revealing a humanoid machine holding a massive battle rifle. It looks like a hydraulically-actuated CHROME SKELETON. A high-tech death figure. It is a combat chassis, the underlying component, or endoskeleton, of a Series 800 Terminator. An antipersonnel weapon controlled by Skynet, a computer which is threatening the human survivors of the war with final extinction. The endoskeleton's glowing red eyes compassionlessly sweep the dead terrain, hunting. Then suddenly snap toward CAMERA. ENDOSKELETON POV (DIGITIZED) as it racks a RUNNING FIGURE across the desolate landscape. Through these eyes we see the world as a computer-generated image. Symbols and graphics rapidly appear on the center display as the machine acquires its target. THE FIGURE, a young boy in rags, is centerpunched by the deadly round. He sprawls to a smoking heap on the blackened sludge. ANOTHER FIGURE, a guerrilla soldier hefting a battered RPG rocket launcher. THE ENDOSKELETON turns, too late. The rocket vaporizes the top half of it. Its bottom half takes a few uncertain steps, then topples to the earth. MAN (V.O.) Our stubbornness makes no sense to their machine minds. We fight when logic tells us we are beaten. But we have a saying... it's not over 'till its over. It keeps us going. The war against the Machines is in its thirty-first year... The figure quickly takes cover at the approaching SOUND of ROARING TURBINES. A shadow blackens the sky as a formation of flying HK (Hunter-Killer) patrol machines passes overhead. PAN WITH THEM toward the jagged horizon, beyond which we see flashes, and hear the distant thunder of a pitched battle in progress. CUT TO: EXT. BATTLEFIELD - DAY THE BATTLE. Human troops in desperate combat with the Machines for possession of the dead Earth. The humans are a ragtag guerrilla army, made up mostly of troops from Southern Hemisphere countries... Africans, South Americans, Australians. The survivors of the nuclear war between the Northern Hemisphere super-powers. This is the reality of the post-Apocalyptic world. North of the equator we all die. We hear radio chatter in Spanish, interspersed with Swahili and other African languages. The occasional Aussie unit can be heard. The humans use RPG launchers, plasma-pulse battle rifles, and home-built armored personnel carriers. Skynet's weapons consist of the massive ground HKs (tank- like robot weapon-platforms) flying HKs, medium weight four-legged gun-pods called Centurions, the humanoid Terminators in various forms (600, 700, and 800 series), and small, fast-crawling kamikaze units called Silverfish that look like 5' long chrome centipedes. The Silverfish snake into gun emplacements and explode. SEQUENCE OF RAPID CUTS Explosions! Beam-weapons firing like searing strobe-lights. Energy bolts crisscrossing frame. Hand-launched Stinger missiles blowing an aerial HK out of the sky. A Sapper team tries to disable a ground HK. They get riddled by its rapidly tracking gun turret. A TEAM OF GUERRILLAS is being overrun by terminator endoskeletons in the ruins of a building. One by one, the soldiers fall in desperate hand-to-hand combat. One of the terminators looms over a wounded soldier, its battle rifle's barrel swinging down toward the guerrilla's head. The man stares defiantly into his death. Then... Suddenly, amazingly, the terminator stops, freezing in place... Aerial HKs tilt slowly, out of control, and crash to the ground. All the terminators stand frozen, unmoving, like a bunch of toy soldiers. The sudden silence takes the humans by surprise. They slowly emerge from their rat-warren emplacements and approach the frozen machines. We hear a voice speaking over a radio headset. It is filled with awed emotion. HEADSET VOICE (O.S.) ... The Colorado Division confirms that Skynet has been destroyed... The war is over... I repeat, Skynet has been destroyed. CAMERA TRACKS along the soldiers, bleeding, frostbitten, wrapped in rags... Valley Forge with better weapons. The wounded soldier in the ruins of the building cautiously approaches the chrome skeleton before him. He pushes against its chest with one finger. It topples with a crash and lies still. The soldier turns to his comrades with an idiot grin. Tears are streaming down his face. A mighty cheer goes up from the men and woman of the Last Army. INT. TIME DISPLACEMENT COMPLEX - L.A. - LATER A STAINLESS STEEL ELEVATOR SHAFT, going deep into the bowels of the earth. Tiny figures stand on an open platform which descends rapidly, becoming a speck. ON THE PLATFORM. An imposing man, surrounded by a team of guerrilla officers stands on the platform as it descends. He is JOHN CONNOR. Forty-five years old. Chiseled. Stern. The left side of his face is heavily scarred. An impressive man, and clearly one forged in the furnace of a lifetime of war. The voice we heard continues now. CONNOR (V.O.) My name is Connor. It's my job to lead these people. My mother, Sarah, gave me the job... and she's not exactly someone you say "no" to. I wish to God I had. I've sent thousands to their deaths. But let me tell you about death in this world. We piss on the bones of a billion people. Death's not what it used to be. If there is a God, his love and 45 cents will buy you coffee... The platform reached its destination. Connor and the officers step off. Begin moving down a long corridor. INT. CORRIDOR This place was designed by machines for machines. The architecture is alien, without aesthetics, without even such human basics as doorknobs and lights. Connor leads the team past more frozen terminator endoskeletons, deactivated like the ones on the surface. CONNOR (V.O.) All these machines were controlled by a kind of God, a low-rent self- appointed God called Skynet. Skynet was a supercomputer built for strategic defense back in the Nineties. Today we destroyed it in its fortress in the Colorado Rockies, and all its toys stopped... As they continue on, they pass other teams of guerrilla soldiers. CONNOR (V.O.) This place is one of Skynet's toys. A machine built by machines.It is like nothing which has ever existed before... the first tactical time weapon. Before today, no human had seen this place, but I've been here in my dreams many times. All my life I've tried to imagine what it would look like. Now I'm actually here... INT. TIME DISPLACEMENT CHAMBER Vault-like doors open. Connor strides through with authority and purpose. He is saluted smartly by everyone he encounters, though he wears no insignia of rank. There is a bustle of hurried activity here. The chamber is the size of a high-school gym and consist totally of machine surfaces. Nothing in the design makes any sense. We can't tell what anything does. It is a technology we cannot imagine. CONNOR (V.O.) Skynet, being almost infinitely smart, was also infinitely tricky. It knew it was losing, so it thought of a way to rig the game... Technicians have pulled up floor panels and tapped directly into cabling of the machine, using portable terminals that they have wheeled in. Many of the soldiers in this war against machines are technical specialists... you have to fight fire with fire. CONNOR (V.O.) And now, though we've won the war, there is still one battle left to fight. The most important one. It will be fought in the past, almost four decades ago... before all this began... See, the only problem with time travel is... it ain't over even when it's over. At the far end of the room, a young soldier stands surrounded by a team of technicians. KYLE REESE. Sarah Connor's defender, teacher, and lover in the first film. A simple soldier who is about to walk point-blank into the gaping maw of history. At the moment, he is the center of activity. As he finishes stripping off his battle uniform, the techs begin smearing his body with a conductive so the time-field will follow his outline. Reese looks around at all the activity. Battle and the prospect of death have never scared him. But the importance of what he is about to do terrifies him. The techs move aside and suddenly John Connor is standing beside him. Connor... their grim messiah. Their leader. He fixes Reese with an intense gaze. There is so much he wants to say, but cannot bring himself to. Finally Reese speaks. REESE Did you know I'd be the one who volunteered? Connor nods. CONNOR I've always known. Sarah told me. Reese nods. Suddenly understanding everything. REESE That's why you moved me to your unit? Kept me so close. Connor shrugs enigmatically. One of the techs interrupts them TECH We're ready, Sergeant. THREE ENORMOUS CHROME RINGS, one inside the other, are suspended in a circular hole in the center of the room's floor. John and Reese approach them. Reese steps onto the first ring. It bobs under his weight. We see that the rings are freely floating in a magnetic field. Reese steps to the inner ring and looks into the hole. A vast echoing darkness below. He looks back at John. The messiah is waiting for him to step into the bottomless pit. CONNOR Sometimes you have to put your faith in the machine. Reese takes a breath, then steps into open space and is buoyed up by an unseen field of force. He floats in the middle of the rings. The techs start the time displacement sequence. THE RINGS BEGIN TO MOVE, slowly rotating around each other on different axis like some complex gyroscope. THE FLOOR BEGINS TO SPLIT OPEN, like wedges in a pie which begin to pull back from the center. The rings are spinning faster now, suspended in space in the middle of the receding floor wedges. The rings begin to descend. JOHN AND REESE LOCK EYES as they move apart. Reese is dropping into an unbelievably vast circular space... the time-field generator. John watches him go, until Reese is a tiny figure. The rings are spinning so rapidly now they almost disappear, becoming a sphere of whirling steel. Technicians pull John back from the edge. LIGHTNING BEGINS TO ARC across the vast room below. A huge charge of energy is building up. Everyone takes cover behind blast walls they have set up. They put on goggles like they used to do at A-bomb tests. This is going to be big. The chamber below has become a Hell of energy with Reese at its center. The drone and crackle of the machines builds to thunder, there is a BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT! When the glare fades the floating rings are empty. They slow to a stop, seared and smoking. Reese is gone. FUENTES, one of the officers, turns to Connor. FUENTES Now what happens to Reese? I mean, what did happen? Connor's gaze seems far away from this time and place. CONNOR He accomplishes his mission and in doing so, he dies. FUENTES He is a good soldier. Connor solemnly nods. CONNOR Yes... He's also my father. FUENTES Mother of God! Fuentes stares at Conner in amazement. He has just been given a glimpse into his leader's private Hell. Connor turns from the smoking chamber. He seems suddenly ten years old as his features drain of strength, shoulders sagging. Fuentes shouts an order to a waiting Sapper team. FUENTES Sapper team. Set your charges. Let's blow this place back to Hell. Connor shakes his head no. Mustering his strength. CONNOR Not yet. There's one more thing we have to do. TIGHT ON MASSIVE DOORS OF STEEL, covered with a thin sheet of ice. Locking bolts slam back. Ice shatters like glass as the doors begin to open. We are in-- INT. COLD STORAGE FACILITY Connor walks into the darkness, followed by a few technicians. They are in a vault-like cold-storage room. Hanging in steel racks from ceiling tracks are hundreds of what appear to be men. They are in rows of ten. Within each row, each of the bodies are absolutely identical. Connor signals the techs to remain by the door and walks out among the dark bodies. They are UNACTIVATED TERMINATORS. He stops at a row in which they are identical to the terminator which was sent to kill Sarah (the Arnold model). He walks to the end of the row. There is one empty rack. He faces the terminator in the next rack. Its eyes are closed. John seems distant as he studies that face. Fuentes enters the chamber, pushing past the technicians. Calls for his leader in the darkness. FUENTES John?... John?... TIGHT ON CONNOR, his face pensive as Fuentes calls his name. Fuentes voice slowly dissolves to ANOTHER VOICE. A woman's. Echoing as though from a great distance... CUT TO: This audio transition takes us directly to the scene of young John Connor in the Voights' garage in the present- day. The use of a sound dissolve between the two voices calling John's name while holding a tight shot on his face works as a flashback-style transition to bridge the future and the present. ---------------------------------------------------------- SARAH'S E.C.T. 5/10/90 In the original 5/10/90 draft, the transition from future to present occurred through adult John's memory of his childhood, and both young John and Sarah are established in their respective environments before the arrival of the terminators. The transition from Sarah at the hospital to the scenes of the arriving terminators was accomplished through the following scene. INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR Sarah, strait-jacketed and strapped onto a GURNEY, is being wheeled down the corridor by Douglas and the other orderlies. Silberman is right behind her with the interns. Sarah's eyes are full of suppressed rage as she stares up and back at him. SILBERMAN (to the interns) What's fascinating about her case is that the architecture of the delusion-- SARAH Don't talk about me like I'm not here. I'm right goddamn here! SILBERMAN We know where you are, Sarah... (continuing to the interns) ... the delusion seems to have begun with the boyfriend and then been adopted by the patient. He believed he was a soldier from the next century, sent to protect her from a killer machine called a "terminator". Frustrated, Sarah begins struggling against her restraints. Douglas, blocking the action from the doctors, casually smacks her solar plexus with his baton. Sarah gasps for air. Douglas winks at her. SILBERMAN You see, it's all about machines, for her. We're seeing more and more of this new syndrome, a sort of acute phobic reaction to technology. It's a defensive response to the dehumanization of relationships in a high-tech world. They sweep through a set of double doors. The doors swing closed into CLOSEUP. Big block letters stenciled across them read: ELECTRO-CONVULSIVE THERAPY Yes, they still do this shit to people. INT. E.C.T. ROOM Sarah's eyes go wide, clocking the sign on the door as she is wheeled in to a room full of ominous machines. Aging shock therapy equipment. SILBERMAN Sarah, today we're going to be trying ECT... electro-convulsive therapy-- SARAH No! Don't do this. Okay, look, Silberman -- hey! Don't put that -- HEY! She struggles vainly against the gurney straps as a NURSE tapes electrodes to her head. Silberman leans down to Sarah. The interns and the orderlies watch from near the door. SILBERMAN Now relax, we've found this very helpful with problems like yours. Such as this feeling that you're being persecuted-- SARAH I'm not being persecuted, you fucking moron! I'm not a threat to them anymore. I told you. It's my son who's the target! Silberman sighs. They finish placing the electrodes on her temples. SARAH You've got to let me go so I can protect him! He's naked if they come for him now! Please! Why won't you listen? You know how important this is! The nurse sets the dials on the machine. Sarah starts to thrash now, becoming irrational. Starts shrieking at everyone in the room. She sounds exactly like what they say she is -- a whacko. SARAH Goddamnit. Let me go!! I'll kill you, FUCKER!! She screams incoherently as they jam the rubber biscuit down between her teeth so she won't bite through her tongue when the voltage jumpstarts her brain. Silberman is smooth and cheerful as he turns to the interns. SILBERMAN ECT is coming back into favor lately, and we've had good results with it. It looks worse than it is. As soon as the current hits her brain, she's out. It's a bit like punching the restart button on a computer when the program crashes. He nods to the nurse and the current blasts through Sarah's brain, locking every muscle in her body into a painful contortion. It triggers an epilepsy-like seizure and she bucks and flops on the gurney. SILBERMAN She's not feeling anything right now. TIGHT ON SARAH'S FACE, contorted, jerking spasmodically. Then... STROBOSCOPIC FLASH CUTS speeding up in rhythm, images coming at us like a roaring freight-train. TERMINATOR'S STEEL HAND lunging for her in the punch press. A CHROME SKULL, eyes burning red, a demon after her soul. STEEL FINGERS closing on her throat. Then... SARAH'S FINGERS groping endlessly for the switch to the press. Then... TERMINATOR'S RED EYES filling frame. Lightning arcing all around as the press crushes the hideous machine. But even as it dies it has her by the throat. Even now, long after it's dead, it still has her by the throat. The lightning gets brighter and brighter... WHITING OUT FRAME. CUT TO: This ending lightning and whiteout then cuts directly to the lightning arcing outside the trucker bar at night, heralding the arrival of the terminator through time. the stroboscopic flash cuts in the moments immediately preceding this transition were to be shots from the climax of the first film, as Sarah in the throes of her electroshock therapy relives the arcing destruction of the first terminator, a nightmare that is still ever-present in her mend. ---------------------------------------------------------- MISSILE DREAM 9/10/90 Sarah's second nightmare, which occurs at Salceda's camp, was originally more differentiated from the first nightmare she has while at Pescadero. While the essence of the dream and its visceral intent remained intact in the final film -- including her vision of the innocent waitress version of herself and her helplessness against the impending Judgment Day -- the Missile Dream scene from 9/10/90 draft was only a different version on the same theme and would have been a complex visual effects scene to produce, involving bluescreen, many extras, and very large-scale miniatures. The luxury of telling the same nightmare using different imagery was not an affordable one, either financially or, in the end, narratively. SARAH'S HEAD droops. She closes her eyes. TIGHT ON small children playing. Different ones. Wider now, to reveal a playground in a park. Very idyllic. A dream playground, crowded with laughing kids playing on swings, slides, and a jungle gym. It could be the playground we saw melted and frozen in the post- nuclear desolation of 2029. But here the grass is vibrant green and the sun is shining. Sarah, short-haired, looking drab and paramilitary, stands outside the playground. An outsider. Her fingers are hooked in a chain-linked fence and she is staring through the fence at the young mothers playing with their kids. A grim-faced harbinger. Some girls play skip-rope. Their sing-song chant weaves through the random burbling laughter of the kids. One of the young mothers walks her two-year-old son by the hands. She is wearing a pink waitress uniform. She turns to us, laughing. It is Sarah. Beautiful. Radiant. Sarah from another life, uncontaminated by the dark future. She glances at the strange woman beyond the fence. Grim-faced Sarah presses against the fence. She starts shouting at them in SLOW MOTION. No sound comes out of her mouth. She grabs the fence in frustration, shaking it. Screaming soundlessly. Waitress Sarah's smile falls. Then returns as her little boy throws some sand at her. She laughs, turning away, as if the woman at the fence were a shadow, a trick of light. Behind her the earth splits open. In a wide shot we see everyone stop and stare as the ground heaves upward all around them. As far as the eye can see the monstrous caps of missile silos are hinging up, ripping up through the grass and soil. Now the mothers are screaming, pulling their children to them... but it is too late to run. The silo caps open, rows of them marching to the horizon. As if a tranquil reality has split open to reveal another horrible reality which has always been there, hidden beneath it. Thunder shakes the earth. We see the obscene heads of the missiles thrusting up out of the holes in the ground. Walls of fire erupt as the fat cylinders rise like awakened monsters from the earth. Sarah stares in numb horror as the tail-nozzles clear the silo rims, and a wall of flame roars out, devouring the cowering mothers and children. Incinerating them and rolling on, toward her. She screams and we hear it now, shrill and terrifying, mixing with the thunder as the flames wrap around her, blasting her apart and she... Wakes up. ---------------------------------------------------------- SALCEDA'S DEATH 9/10/90 Salceda's Death scene from 9/10/90 draft was scheduled but never filmed due to both scheduling and cost considerations; scheduled for the first week of principal photography, the scene would have involved a great number of mechanical makeup and pyrotechnic effects, not to mention a fair number of complicated visual effects plates for computer graphics shots. Since its only narrative purpose was to show how the T-1000 follows them to Dyson's house and a number of the T-1000 gags in the scene were reprised more effectively elsewhere, it was deemed redundant to the plot and unnecessarily complicated for the first week of shooting. EXT. SALCEDA'S CAMP - NIGHT SALCEDA'S DOG, teeth bared, barks a furious warning. The SOUND of machine gun fire erupts drowning him out. YOLANDA, clutching a .45 Officer's Colt, sweeps Paco and Juanita up in her arms and races away. SALCEDA is firing an MP5K on full auto, its strobing barrel flash lighting up the camp. CAMERA PUSHING IN ON HIM AS... THE T-1000 calmly walks toward him, unbothered by the stream of bullets. Unhurried. Salceda, amazed, is backing toward his truck, and the stacks of crated grenades and ammo boxes beside it. The T-1000 keeps coming. Steps right up to Salceda, knocks the weapon away and slams him to the ground. Salceda sprawls against one of the open wooden crates. T-1000 kneels before him. Points its finger. THUNK. Salceda screams, pinned to the crate by a two-foot long steel needle through his left lung. T-1000 Where is John Connor? SALCEDA John who? THUNK!! Another needle slams through him. Salceda struggles to breath against the excruciating pain. T-1000 (almost soothingly) I know this hurts. Where is John Connor? Salceda's hand gropes in the open crate of grenades behind him. He clutches one. Then apparently ready to cooperate he clutches T-1000's shoulder and struggles to pull himself closer, up along the impaling spikes. Behind the T-1000's neck, Salceda pulls the grenade's pin with his free hand. The spoon flies off... CLINK. SALCEDA FUCK YOU!! The truck, Salceda, and the T-1000 vanish in a MASSIVE EXPLOSION as the grenade sets off the other munitions. A huge ball of fire ascends into the night. YOLANDA, huddled with her children, the .45 held before her in a combat grip, screams as-- A CHROME HEAD rolls out of the inferno and comes to rest in the dirt, the liquid metal mouth gulping like a gaffed fish. A figure appears, silhouetted by the fire... or most of a figure. We TRACK WITH the polished black cop shoes toward the head lying in the dirt. A hand enters the frame. The head dissolves and fuses with the hand, like two blobs of solder running together. She stares in shock at the thing approaching. She slowly lowers the useless pistol. The T-1000 walks right up to her. It reaches down and picks up little Juanita. Gives her a friendly smile. T-1000 Do you know where John Connor is? The child mutely shakes her head no. T-1000 nods, unperturbed. Points toward the road. Juanita follows with her eyes. T-1000 When they reached the main road, did they go north... (indicating) ... or south? She points north. T-1000 smiles. Sets her down, unharmed. T-1000 Thank you for your cooperation. With that, the T-1000 turns and strides to its motorcycle parked a few yards away. Yolanda and her children silently watch as the Cop from Hell climbs onto the bike and roars off into the night. CUT TO: The reabsorption of T-1000's gulping head was one of the favorite moments that was reluctantly lost when the scene was cut; it served no narrative purpose and was merely a variation on the reabsorption of the chrome hook hand, just as the skewering of Salceda is a less involving take on the skewering of Sarah at the steel mill later on. In a very telling moment at the end of this scene, T-1000 demonstrates the subtlety with which it goes about its mission, shifting gears from the brutal interrogation of Salceda to the gentle questioning of Yolanda and the kids. ---------------------------------------------------------- GANT RANCH 7/18/90 The story action in the Salceda Camp scene was originally part of a much longer and drawn-out portion of the film in the 7/18/90 draft, and took place at the mercenary ranch of Travis Gant, the "crazy ex-Green Beret" John refers to in the final film. Although there was a good deal more character exposition and development of the "fathers" theme -- including the discussion of a prior romantic relationship between Sarah and Gant -- the scene slowed the pacing of the narrative down considerably and was ultimately streamlined and simplified into the Salceda's Camp scene. It is interesting to compare the two scenes side by side to note the condensation of narrative and the retention of the essence of the story despite the scaling- down of its scope. Salceda appears in this version as merely one of Gant's men. EXT. DIRT ROAD - DAY The desolate hills southwest of Brawley. TERMINATOR steers the pickup along a narrow dirt road which winds precariously through the hills. It is designed to discourage casual visitors. They approach a heavy metal gate which blocks the road. It is flanked on both sides by a high chain-link fence topped with razor-wire. There is no call box or phone. Only a NO TRESPASSING sign with a bunch of dried rattlesnake heads decorating it, their jaws wide, fangs gleaming. SARAH Don't get out. They saw us coming three miles back. On cue, a jeep rounds the bend beyond the gate and roars toward them. They hear a thundering whop-whop of rotors and a Vietnam-era Huey roars over the hill next to them and hovers overhead, blasting them with its rotor wash. Three men dismount from the jeep and walk forward. One carries a shotgun, the other two M-16s. Above them, in the door of the Huey, another guy has an AK-47 trained on them. Terminator steps out with the shotgun. Sarah gets out and goes to the gate, waiting for the sentries to reach her. She speaks to the lead man, SALCEDA, through the gate in perfect, almost unaccented Spanish. SARAH (subtitled) Tell Gant I'm here. Salceda, a Mexican wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a flak vest, grins at her. SALCEDA (Spanish/subtitled) He doesn't want to see you. SARAH Just tell him, pendejo. And tell him I have John with me. The sentry speaks into a walkie-talkie. We hear her name mentioned, but not much else. John waits at the truck with Terminator. JOHN This place is run by a guy named Travis Gant. An ex-Green Beret. A total wild man... he's got connections all over Mexico and Central America. The sentry is nodding, holding the walkie up to his ear. We don't hear the other end of the conversation over the helicopter. He looks at Sarah and shrugs. The sentries open the gate, waving the chopper off. SALCEDA (to Terminator) Put the shotgun back in the truck. Sarah nods to him to comply. SALCEDA You ride with me. Enrique will bring your truck. One of the sentries walks past them to their truck as they move to Salceda's jeep. CUT TO: EXT. DIRT ROAD IN THE JEEP, bumping along the winding road. Sarah, John, and Terminator jammed in the back, holding onto a roll bar. JOHN What makes you think he'll help us? SARAH He'll help us. JOHN (to Terminator) The last time Gant and Sarah were in the same room he was in a drunken rage and coming after her with a sheepskinning knife. TERMINATOR Why? SARAH We were breaking up at the time. EXT. GANT'S RANCH/COMPOUND - DAY The jeep passes through an arched stone gate and enters the courtyard of Gant's run-down hacienda. The place might have been nice once, but it's a dump now. A lot of military-surplus jeeps and other vehicles are parked around, and we see surveillance cameras, razor wire, and other styling touches which make the place look more like a military compound than a ranch. There are more men, mostly Hispanic. A few white guys. Dress varies from biker denims to military fatigues. There are women, children running, and dogs. Terminator, John and Sarah get out of the jeep. The dogs do not dig Terminator at all. They are barking and whining, slinking around, keeping their distance. Two men come out of the main house, one striding ahead of the other. In the lead is TRAVIS GANT, followed by his first lieutenant, INGRAM. Gant is in his late thirties, lean and muscular. He wears combat boots and cammo pants, no shirt, a denim vest, and a greasy bandana rolled into a headband. He is tight lipped, no nonsense, and even though his hair has grown out and he only shaves every other day, his bearing is utterly military... no fat, no nonsense, no wasted movement. His eyes are concealed by dark aviator-style shades, and he wears a Detonics custom .45 holstered at his hip. Ingram is younger, an almost baby-faced ex-Marine punk with a bad attitude. Gant walks up to Sarah, glancing once warily at Terminator, and plants himself right in front of her. GANT Man, you are one fuckin' section- eight crazy fucking bitch, coming here, you know that? (changing tone) Hi John, long time. JOHN Hi, Travis. Gant turns back to Sarah, talking lower. Very tense. He leans close to her, so no one else in the compound can hear them. GANT Your picture's all over the TV, you know that? You and your psycho buddy, there. Man I do NOT need this! I got a business to run. I can't afford any heat up here. SARAH So deal to us and we're on our way. GANT What do you need? SARAH Guns... heavy stuff. Explosives... and com gear, travel documents. And I need you to get us across the ditch and arrange a trip south. Costa Rica. Peru. Whatever you can set up. GANT How about the fillings out of my fucking teeth?! Man, you are unbelievable! John sees them standing close together and says to Terminator... JOHN This is going better than I thought it would. ON SARAH AND GANT, TIGHT. GANT I can't believe you had the balls to come back here. And dragging that poor kid along. You still feeding him all that crazy shit about a nuclear war and how he's gonna be the savior of all mankind? SARAH He is. GANT Still a goddamn loony tune. You always were. A good fuck, but a loony tune. Just get out of here, Sarah. SARAH I need your help, Gant. GANT Forget it. When the Ice Capades open in Hell, you call me. Gant turns to walk away, yelling to Ingram and the others. GANT Get her out of here! SARAH Wait! Gant pauses. She gestures to Terminator to walk forward. Ingram and the sentries raise their weapons. SARAH Tell him what you are. TERMINATOR Series 800 terminator. Model 101. Cyborg tactical infiltrator. GANT Oh my God. A killing machine from the future. Watch out, guys. Gant snorts, shaking his head. Looks between Terminator and Sarah like they are a sorry pair of losers. GANT Man, you two deserve each other. SARAH (to Gant) Give me your .45. I need to show you something. Gant looks at her warily. But there are ten of his people around with automatic weapons, so he unholsters the pistol and hands it to her. Sarah shows it to Terminator. SARAH Can I shoot you in the head with this? TERMINATOR If it will help. SARAH Turn around. He does and she levels the pistol in a two-hand grip at the back of his head, point blank. Sarah clicks off the safety. Gant can't believe what he's seeing here. She's really going to do it... GANT Bullshit!! POW! POW! Terminator's head jerks a little with each hit. John winces. The cyborg turns to them, calm and unhurt. TERMINATOR No problemo. Gant just stares, his mouth hanging open. He slowly goes up to Terminator. Gets right up to his face. He looks right into the eyes. Touches the skin of the cyborg's cheek. Walks slowly behind him, not knowing what he expects to see. It all comes crashing in on him. We see it in his face. He believes. Gant turns to Sarah. GANT (weakly) Come inside. John winks at Terminator. Gives him a BIG THUMBS UP. Terminator imitates the gesture, then tries a wink. It needs work. INT. GANT'S HACIENDA - DAY Gant leads them into the kitchen, yelling to the house in general. GANT Yolanda?! We got company! He is in shock, going to one cupboard then another, then back to the first. His body moving while his brain reels. GANT Where's the fucking tequila? He pulls a bottle out of the cupboard and grabs more glasses than he can carry, gets them to the table. Sarah helps him. A WOMAN comes to the doorway... Hispanic, about 25, and seven months pregnant. She looks stonily at the scene, wary of the strangers. A two-year-old boy toddles up behind her, hand jammed in his mouth. GANT That's Yolanda. Mrs. Gant. (he arches his eyebrow at Sarah) Go figure, huh? JOHN (Spanish/subtitled) Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm John, this is Sarah, and this is-- (indicating Terminator) Uh... my uncle. Bob. Uncle Bob. Yolanda smiles. John has broken the ice. He has a way of controlling situations, understanding people. Gant is ripping the cap off the tequila bottle. The two- year-old toddles to him and grabs his cammo pants, sliming them with drool. Terminator watches the tiny kid, fascinated. What is it? GANT And this is Paco. Honey, take Pacolito. Thanks, baby. She takes the child and retreats. Wife as domestic slave. After Sarah, the guy obviously wanted somebody more tame. Gant sits heavily at the table, moving like the breath is knocked out of him. He pours himself a tall shot and downs it in one gulp. GANT So... everything you always said. The war... the future... it's all real? He looks at Terminator, who nods "yes". Gant grabs the other glasses, pouring while he talks. GANT Wheww! Damn. I feel like I been kneed in the balls here. This is big. (to Terminator) Drink? Terminator gestures "no" at the proffered glass. Gant realizes his mistake. This cyborg shit takes getting used to. GANT Yeah, right. Sarah pours for herself. A straight shooter. She tosses it back. SARAH I tried to tell you. GANT I know. You did. Many times. John signals to Terminator "let's go". He wants to leave Sarah and Travis alone to work this out. As always, his instincts are solid. He takes Terminator by the sleeve of his jacket and they drift away. John calls from the front door... JOHN Any place I shouldn't go? GANT Su casa, John. You know that. Anything I got's yours. EXT. MAIN HOUSE Terminator and John walk out on the porch. Ingram, standing just outside the door, eyes them coldly. He has heard Gant's shouted carte-blanche but he doesn't like it. As they walk down the steps Terminator looks at John... TERMINATOR Uncle Bob? INT. HOUSE Gant and Sarah at the kitchen table. He takes off his dark glasses and his eyes are somehow appealing, not hard like we might have expected. GANT When you first laid that shit on me, about John, I thought you were section-eight for sure. Psycho waitress that thinks her kid's fucking Napoleon. SARAH (she smiles) You didn't exactly throw us out. GANT Naw. I start cuttin' people off just cause they're crazy an' I'd lose all my friends. Now I see why you were always serious as a heart attack. Carrying that kind of shit around, by yourself, year after year. I'm impressed kid. CUT TO: EXT. COMPOUND John and Terminator walking across the compound. John calls to some guys he knows, yelling in fluent Spanish. They wave to him. TERMINATOR How long did you live here? JOHN Four years. But we spent a lot of time in Nicaragua, Costa Rica... places like that. Wherever Travis had business. I thought this was how people lived. Like everybody grew up doing weapons training. Riding around in helicopters. Learning how to blow shit up. TERMINATOR Gant taught you? JOHN My mom and him, yeah. When she got busted I got put in a regular school. The other kids thought I was a little weird. INT. HOUSE/ KITCHEN Gant stares at her, thinking back. It's one of those moments where someone is utterly familiar and yet somehow suddenly a total stranger. GANT Yeah... now I look back I can see your whole plan. Find some guy that knows weapons and tactics, some dumb bastard, and get him to teach you how to run a military operation... so you could pass it on when the kid was old enough. Brilliant. And I was the dumb bastard. SARAH Travis... GANT Everything had a purpose. Coming on to me, getting me to teach you, take you out on runs. Christ, I didn't care. Long's you wrapped them legs around me, I'd a done anything. Damn, you didn't give one shit for me really, did you? In her expression, her contained sadness, we see that she did not. SARAH I'm sorry, Travis. GANT You took me for a ride, got what you needed, and got off. We can see his pain. He thought they had something. Even though it ended badly, he remembered good moments. His new knowledge has led to a bitter re-evaluation. Now he knows those moments were hollow even then. SARAH I did what I had to do. GANT Yeah. I guess you did. You wanna know what's crazy about it? SARAH What? He pours again, for both of them. Tall. GANT You did it exactly right. You knew what you had to do and you did it. You got nerves of fucking stainless steel, baby. I'm proud of ya. I really mean that. They lock eyes... a moment of connection. She is forgiven, although it is a painful forgiveness. He grins at her, suddenly, a crazy kamikaze grin. Clinks her glass. GANT To the future! Fuck it if it can't take a joke! Right? He tosses back the tequila. EXT. COMPOUND John and Terminator pass some stripped Hueys, rusting on blocks. The functional Huey sits on the grass beyond. Salceda is supervising the unloading of some crates from the chopper. JOHN It's sad, me mom and Travis. She won't let anybody take the place of my real dad. TERMINATOR Kyle Reese. JOHN Yeah. He's dead. (brightening suddenly) Hey! Did you ever meet him? Up in the future, I mean. TERMINATOR No. Sorry. John shrugs. He thinks he's being casual, but his longing for some kind of parental connection is obvious. JOHN I wish I coulda met him. I guess I will, when I'm older, cause I send him back through time and all. He hasn't even been born yet. Man, it messes with your head. TERMINATOR (remembering the phrase) It messes with your head. JOHN Yeah. My mom and him were only together for one night, but she talks about him every day. She still loves him, I guess. I see her crying sometimes. She denies it totally, of course. Says she got something in her eye. They reach a bunker-like concrete building. There is a combination lock on the heavy steel door, like a bank vault. John starts twiddling the dial on the lock. TERMINATOR Why do you cry? JOHN Left 3 to 48. (looking up) You mean people? I don't know. We just cry. You know. When it hurts. Right 2 to 90. TERMINATOR Pain causes it? JOHN Uh-unh, no, pain is like a... like an alarm that tells you when there's damage. This is different... And left one to 20. It's when there's nothing wrong with you but you hurt anyway. Because you love somebody, and they're gone or whatever. You get it? TERMINATOR No. John completes the combination and tries the latch. It unlocks with a CLUNK. JOHN He should change this combination. INT. ARMORY John precedes Terminator into Gant's armory. A long concrete room lined with every imaginable kind of weapon. Racks of rifles, pistols, rocket launchers, mortars, RPGs, radio gear. At the far end boxes containing ammo, grenades etc. are stacked to the ceiling. Terminator gets real alert. Scanning the walls, wondering where to begin. TERMINATOR Radical. JOHN Yeah. I thought you'd like this place. Terminator picks up a MAC 10 machine pistol. Slaps in a magazine. John grabs an AK-47 and racks the bolt with a practiced action. Inspects the receiver for wear. Doesn't like what he sees. Puts it back. His movements are efficient. Professional. Uninterested. JOHN Hey, do you feel any different yet? Like you're learning stuff? TERMINATOR I don't know. I feel the same. JOHN Have you figured out yet why you can't go around killing people? Terminator is still stumped. He takes a shot in the dark. TERMINATOR Because it hurts them? JOHN Nooo. Because it hurts the people who love them. Get it? That's the value of human life... we have feelings, people love each other. (a beat, then--) Are you afraid of dying? Terminator pauses a second. The thought never occurred to him. He searches his mind for the answer... TERMINATOR No. Terminator slings the M-79 and starts looking for the grenades. John is idly spinning a Sig Saur 9mm pistol on his finger... backwards and forwards like Bat Masterson. JOHN See, that's the problem. You don't care if you live or die, and so you think everybody's like that. TERMINATOR I have to stay functional until my mission is complete. Then it doesn't matter. John picks up a 2nd generation Starlite scope. Switches it on. Twiddles the gain. Looks through it. JOHN Yeah. I have to stay functional too. (sing songy) "I'm too important". (he puts the scope down) She won't even let me play football. It's a drag. EXT. COMPOUND - LATER - DAY Sarah has changed. Boots, black fatigue pants, T-shirt. Night patrol jacket. Shades. She looks hard. She and John have their weapons and supply selections laid out for cleaning and packing. Maps, radios, documents, explosives, detonators... just the basics. Gant strides up. GANT It's set. Soon as it's dark we'll cross the ditch in the Huey, and I've got a Citation meeting us at that strip in San Lupe. SARAH Thanks. Sarah eyes the preparations one last time and walks away. CUT TO: INT. T-1000'S POLICE CRUISER - DAY The T-1000 sits as before. Monitoring the police radio. Listening to Sarah's tapes. Scanning John's letters and papers. SARAH (V.O.) ... if we're ever separated, go directly to Gant's ranch. Travis will take care of you until I get there... T-1000 stops scanning the letter in its hand. It zeros in on the sentence it just heard. Stops the cassette recorder. Reaches to the computer terminal on the dash. Types "Travis Gant" with a KNOWN ACQUAINTANCES cross- reference to "Sarah Connor". TIGHT ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN. Gant's vital statistics come up. Date of Birth. License. Number of arrests. And an address out in Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border. TIGHT ON T-1000 staring at the screen. Suddenly, the barrel of a REVOLVER appears through the open window beside it. It's aiming right at its head. The owner is a helmeted C.H.P. OFFICER. CHP Freeze! Police! The T-1000 calmly complies. ANGLE ON CRUISER from a few yards away. The motorcycle cop stands outside the cruiser's window, aiming his revolver. We see his motorcycle parked off to the side of the empty road. A SECOND MOTORCYCLE COP pulls into shot, rolling into CLOSEUP. He's wearing a headset/microphone under his helmet. We hear him calling in the report. 2ND CHP Roger, that's a positive I.D. on the vehicle. Suspect is in custody. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - MINUTES LATER - DAY The T-1000 thunders along on a CHP Kawasaki 1100, doing about a hundred and twenty. PAN WITH IT until it recedes toward the horizon. CUT TO: EXT. GANT'S RANCH/COMPOUND - DAY Sarah seems to have the weight of the whole world on her shoulders. She sits at a picnic table. Draws her boot knife. Starts to carve the words... "There is no--" NOT FAR AWAY, JOHN is field-stripping and cleaning weapons, packing for the trip. UP ON THE HUEY NEARBY, Gant and Terminator are flight- checking the aircraft, Gant covered with grease, changing a part in the rotor-head. Terminator helps him install the component. GANT So you're supposed to stay with the kid forever, and teach him, protect him, and keep him out of trouble? TERMINATOR Correct. GANT Buddy, sounds like you just got yourself elected father. TERMINATOR Father? GANT Women'll do that. TERMINATOR I'm not even human. GANT No, it's fucking brilliant. Think about it. She knows you'll never stop... that you'll always be there. And you'll never hurt the kid. You'll never shout at him, never get drunk and hit him. Never say you can't spend time with him 'cause you're too busy. And you'd die to protect him. You're the ultimate parent. TERMINATOR You're better suited. The boy likes you. GANT Naw. I ain't the guy. Forget it. She wrote me off a long time ago. Too many bad habits. Gant laughs and takes a long pull from the tequila bottle. He looks at Terminator, the solemn cyborg from the future. GANT Anyway, considering what's ahead for that kid, you're a better role model... God help him. HOLD ON Terminator, thinking about what's been said. TERMINATOR You are a father. Do you have any advice? GANT Talk about the blind leading the blind. My advice? Lighten up -- the kid's world is so goddamn grim -- smile once in a while. TERMINATOR Smile? GANT Yeah. Smile. You know. (he whistles to one of his men) Hey, Enrique... your sister still sucking off donkeys in Tijuana? ENRIQUE (with a shit-eating grin) No man, she's cutting down. Your mother's taking all the business. GANT See. That's a smile. TERMINATOR POV (DIGITIZED) The real-time image continues while a replay of Enrique grinning runs in a window. It expands, so that Enrique's mouth fills the window. Replays again in slow motion. A vector-graphic of lips smiling appears, along with an array of symbolic data. Terminator tries it. The result is dismal. A rictus-like curling up of the lips. Terminator's next effort is a marginal improvement. GANT I don't know, maybe you could practice in front of a mirror or something. ON SARAH, AT THE TABLE, as she looks up from her carving, thinking. She watches some kids playing in a sprinkler nearby. They are children of some of Gant's men... shrieking as the cold water hits them and loving it. Sarah sees Yolanda walking Pacolito by the hands. Backlit, stylized. Carefree, despite the para-military setting. She looks over at John, cleaning guns... sees the future. ANGLE ON kids playing. TIGHT ON John inserting a part. SARAH leans back against a tree trunk. Closes her eyes. TIGHT ON small children playing. Different ones. Wider now, to reveal a playground in a park. Very idyllic. A dream playground, crowded with laughing kids playing on swings, slides, and a jungle gym. It could be the playground we saw melted and frozen in the post- nuclear desolation of 2029. But here the grass is vibrant green and the sun is shining. Sarah, short-haired, looking drab and paramilitary, stands outside the playground. An outsider. Her fingers are hooked in a chain-link fence and she is staring through the fence at the young mothers playing with their kids. A grim-faced harbinger. Some girls play skip-rope. Their sing-song chant weaves through the random burbling laughter of the kids. One of the young mothers walks her two-year-old son by the hands. She is wearing a pink waitress uniform. She turns to us, laughing. It is Sarah. Beautiful. Radiant. Sarah from another life, uncontaminated by the dark future. She glances at the strange woman beyond the fence. Grim-faced Sarah presses against the fence. She starts shouting at them in SLOW MOTION. No sound comes out of her mouth. She grabs the fence in frustration, shaking it. Screaming soundlessly. Waitress Sarah's smile falls. Then returns as her little boy throws some sand at her. She laughs, turning away, as if the woman at the fence were a shadow, a trick of light. Behind her the earth splits open. In a wide shot we see everyone stop and stare as the ground heaves upward all around them. As far as the eye can see the monstrous caps of missile silos are hinging up, ripping up through the grass and soil. Now the mothers are screaming, pulling their children to them... but it is too late to run. The silo caps open, rows of them marching to the horizon. As if a tranquil reality has split open to reveal another horrible reality which has always been there, hidden beneath it. Thunder shakes the earth. We see the obscene heads of the missiles thrusting up out of the holes in the ground. Walls of fire erupt as the fat cylinders rise like awakened monsters from the earth. Sarah stares in numb horror as the tail-nozzles clear the silo rims, and a wall of flame roars out, devouring the cowering mothers and children. Incinerating them and rolling on, toward her. She screams and we hear it now, shrill and terrifying, mixing with the thunder as the flames wrap around her, blasting her apart and she... Wakes up. All is quiet and normal. The children are still running through the sprinkler nearby. Less than fifteen minutes have gone by. Bathed in sweat, Sarah sits hunched over the table. Every muscle is shaking. She is gasping. Sarah struggles to breathe, running her hand through her short hair which is spiky with sweat. She can escape from the hospital, but she can't escape from the demon which haunts her. She looks down at the words she has carved on the table, amid the scrawled hearts and bird-droppings. They are words Kyle Reese told her, which John Connor made him memorize before they came across time. They are: "There is no fate but what we make." Something changes in her eyes. She slams her knife in the table top, embedding it deeply in the words. Then gets up suddenly and we-- CUT TO: INT. ARMORY The door opens and Sarah walks in out of the afternoon sun. SERIES OF TIGHT SHOTS: A big FN FAL .308 rifle is snatched from a rack. A laser-designator is clipped onto the barrel. A tritium-reticle night-scope is snapped into place. Long .308 bullets are rammed one by one into a magazine. TIGHT ON SARAH, looking at the last bullet. She pushes it down into the magazine with her thumb. Sitting on top, it will be the first one fired. A 20 cent bullet which could save 3 billion lives. She slaps the magazine into the rifle and chambers the first round. Slinging the heavy weapon over her shoulder she exits. LONG LENS on Sarah walking toward us. In the sunlight now, she pulls a pair of dark glasses from her jacket and puts them on. In her night-patrol fatigue pants, boots and glasses she is all business. She strides across the compound with grim purpose. Her face is an impassive mask, her lips set. She has become a terminator. JOHN LOOKS UP from his work in time to see Sarah throw the rifle into the back seat of a hard-top jeep, jump in and start it. She slams it in gear. GANT AND TERMINATOR look up as the jeep brakes hard alongside the Huey. They are up on top of the cowl, adjusting the cyclic linkage. Sarah roars up in the jeep. She yells to them without getting out. SARAH Fly John out tonight as planned. Then come back and wait for me here. I'll be back by dawn. GANT Where you going? (she roars off) Hey!! Where -- god-DAMN-it. MOVING WITH SARAH as she leaves the compound. We see John running after her... yelling. Can't hear his words. She looks in the rear-view mirror but doesn't slow down. CUT TO: EXT. COMPOUND - MINUTES LATER - DAY John, Terminator, and Gant ponder the message carved into the top of the picnic table. Sarah's knife is still embedded there. Ingram looks on, wondering what the big deal is. JOHN "No fate but what we make." My father told her this... I mean, I made him memorize it, up in the future as a message to her-- (he sees Gant's expression) Never mind. Okay, the whole thing goes "The Future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." GANT What's it mean? TERMINATOR It means she intends to change the future somehow. John snaps his fingers as it hits him... JOHN Dyson!!! GANT What? JOHN Miles Dyson. She's gonna blow him away. Son of a bitch! GANT Who's Dyson? JOHN (to Terminator) We gotta stop her. (he spins to Gant) Travis, you stay here in case she comes back. Keep her here till we get back. We need a jeep. Gant is amazed to be getting orders from a ten-year-old. Even more amazed to be following them. GANT Take that one. He points to an open jeep nearby. John motions to Terminator and breaks into a run. JOHN Come on. Let's get our stuff. CUT TO: INT./ EXT. SARAH'S JEEP - DUSK Sarah speeds through the darkening desert. Her face is a mask. Grim and expressionless. In her dark glasses, she looks severe. Pitiless as an insect. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT TRACKING WITH A JEEP, Terminator and John heading into L.A. TERMINATOR Why do you want to stop her, John? It may work. JOHN I don't care!! Haven't you learned anything?! There's gotta be another way. Think! PAN THEM BY as they pass, revealing the lights of the city ahead. CUT TO: EXT. GANT'S RANCH Gant, deep in thought, approaches the back entrance to the main house. He sees Enrique asleep in a chair on the back porch, rifle across his knees. Gant works up to him like a cat, and surprises him by swiping his cap. Only Enrique doesn't surprise so well. His head lolls over and Gant sees the dilated pupils, the trickle of blood from the corner of one eye. Gant gets a shot of adrenalin that revs him into hyper- alertness in two seconds. He drops into the shadows next to the chair and scans the surroundings rapidly. In the bushes, twenty feet away, another one of his men lies crumpled and motionless. Gant pulls his Detonics .45 and thumbs the safety off, then slips his walkie off his belt. He cups his hand over it and whispers. GANT Main gate? Miguel? Don't talk, just key your walkie if you copy, over. (there is no answer) Salceda? You copy? Franco? Come back. His answer is static. Not good. Gant takes a couple grenades from Enrique's harness and slips them in a vest pocket. He cat-steps to the house. INT. GANT'S HOUSE Gant enters the dark house. His radar is turned up all the way. He hasn't felt his heart pounding like this since Khe San. He crosses the living room. Pauses in the corridor. Silhouetted in the kitchen is a motionless figure... Yolanda. He puts his finger to his lips and motions her to him. As she comes toward him Gant wonders at the last second why she doesn't look particularly afraid... an instant before Yolanda's hand snaps out into a two-foot steel needle which punches through his abdomen and pins him to a solid oak door with a THUNK! He whips up the ,45 but THUNK! His forearm is skewered, pinned to the door at his side. The pistol clatters to the floor. He stares, face to face, into the eyes of the T-1000 as it morphs into the cop-form. Maybe this is an acid flashback, except it hurts too goddamn much. He knows suddenly that very special fear, not just death, but of an incomprehensible death in a deranged universe. T-1000 Where is John Connor? Gant squirms on the skewers like a bug, gasping with the pain. GANT John who? THUNK! Another needle slams through him, sprouting directly from the cop's chest. It pins him through the left lung. T-1000 Where is John Connor? Gant struggles to breathe against excruciating pain. GANT Don't know... gone. (THUNK. Another needle) Aaaarrgh! THUNK. Another. Gant screams now, feeling rapier thrusts through shoulder and groin. He can't believe the pain. His hand fumbles into the pocket of his vest. Sweaty fingers find a grenade there. He pulls the pin. The spoon flies out and clinks on the floor. T-1000 looks down and looks up, into Gant's eyes. GANT FUCK YOU!! EXT. GANT'S HOUSE The front of the house EXPLODES in Ingram's face. He was running toward the front door with his MPK machine-pistol at ready. The blast knocks him on his ass. He sits up, slashed by flying glass, to see the inside of the house engulfed in flame. Then he sees something on the ground, just outside the shattered front door... A chrome head. Ingram's expression goes bugshit. The chrome mouth is moving, gulping like a gaffed fish. A figure appears in the doorway... or most of a figure. We TRACK WITH the polished black cop shoes toward the head lying in the dirt. A hand enters frame. The head dissolves and fuses with the hand, like two blobs of solder running together. IN CLOSE-UP, the T-1000 rises into frame, whole again. INGRAM snaps out of his stupor and crawls in a frenzy for his machine pistol. He starts screaming and firing, screaming and firing as we TRACK IN ON HIM. The MPK clicks empty. It is swatted out of his hands and s steel needle pins him to the dirt. T-1000 Where is John Connor? INGRAM I don't know, man... aaaargh... they were talking about some guy... Dyson or something like that... INGRAM'S POV as the impassive cop face hovers above him. T-1000 Thank you for your cooperation. The cop's hand comes into frame, the index finger pointing straight at us. RACK FOCUS to the tip of the finger as-- SSSNICK! A flash of steel FILLS FRAME, then blackness. CUT TO: ---------------------------------------------------------- DYSON'S VISION 9/10/90 Dyson's dying vision in the 9/10/90 draft was originally a much more stylized and lyrical death scene that emphasized the man's character making peace with himself and with his family at his sacrifice for the good of mankind. Although a powerful scene, it was ultimately never filmed as the exploration of Dyson's character and his relationship with his family became secondary to the main thrust of the narrative. INT. LAB Dyson is lying amid the ruins of his dream. Sprawled on the floor, he has his back propped up against the desk. He is bathed in his own blood, which runs out in long fingers across the tiles. His breathing is shallow and raspy. He still holds the book, trembling, above the switch. In his lap is the picture from his desk. He has pulled it from the debris next to him. A tear trickles from his eye. His wife and children smile up at him through broken glass. DYSON'S POV-- He sees only the picture. WE PUSH IN SLOWLY. The sounds from outside are fading... megaphones, the helicopter, distant sirens, all become fainter... replaced by a ROARING SOUND which swells as the image of the picture grows dark. Darker and darker, the blackness rushing at us now with the sound of thunder. It gets louder and LOUDER. Like a black train pounding at us, only it is a rolling cloud of red and black... blood-red fire boiling up through a cloud-mass black as iron. It is the cloud-column of a hydrogen bomb, FILLING FRAME, shaking our senses with its power. And then... It begins to recede. The thunder rolls away, dying into a wind which is like the last winds of a great storm, ebbing into a smooth breeze as the iron clouds swirl away, giving way to an image of gauzy light. As if behind a soft veil we see-- Danny and Blythe running toward us, laughing, in slow motion. Tarissa is behind them, smiling. They are in bright sunlight, an image of motion and life, a slice of memory so vivid and precious a man needs only this to face eternity. We see their hair blown by the wind, the wind which blows through history now, changing it... We tilt up into a pure blue sky until the sun comes into frame, spearing straight into the lens with pure light and we... CUT TO THE PUPIL OF HIS EYE, the sun becoming a glint of light in that pupil, as we do a SNAP-PULLBACK to see Miles Dyson at the moment of death. His face is almost blank, his gaze fixed, seeing what we cannot see, seeing a future which has changed... there is the faintest hint of a smile, the instant the light fades from his eyes and he is gone-- His arm drops and the book hits the switch... ----------------------------------------------------------