Awesome / Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

• John and Kate arrive at Crystal Peak and attempt to get the main door open, when suddenly the T-X crashes a helicopter into the hangar door of the facility and steps out to pursue them. Not long after, the T-850 plows into the hangar in a goddamn Sea King helicopter twice the size of the T-X's heli, causing explosions and flames and crushing the T-X underneath. He then steps out of the wreckage, and proclaims "I'm back!" Damn near worth the ticket price alone.
• There's also the scene in the graveyard where the T-850 pulls up in a hearse and shoots the T-X point blank with an RPG.
• The car chase - John in a pick-up truck and the T-850 on a police motorcycle, vs the T-X in a big rig construction crane. The T-X uses the size of the vehicle and its on-board machinery to tear apart cars, buildings, and electrical posts on both sides of it to leave as much destruction as possible behind it and shake the T-850, and eventually hooks him onto the crane arm and hauls him through the front display of an auto dealership, and he still hangs on. The chase hits its climax when the T-850 briefly commandeers the truck and drops its hook into a manhole while the crane arm is at the front of the truck, causing it to tear up the street behind it until the entire thing flips over.
• When the T-850 is being controlled by the T-X, he gets to John and is about to kill him with his fist raised. However, John has been engaging in a "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, and he seems to be failing at it, until...
  John: WHAT IS YOUR MISSION?!
  T-850: (eyes shifting, fighting his invading impulses) To ensure the survival of John Connor and Katherine Brewster. (raises his fist to crush John's skull)
  John: You are about to FAIL that mission!
  T-850: (slams his fist just to the right of John's head) I - I cannot.
  John: You know what you have to do! And you know my destiny! (the T-850 is visibly shaking from the battle waging inside of him) I have to live! (is thrown aside, so the T-850 can pound the truck)
• Also consider how the T-850 deals with his defeat by the T-X in lieu of the above in the video-game adaptation, Terminator 3: The Redemption. How does he handle being thrown into a prototype time displacement chamber and catapulted to a dark future where humanity has been exterminated by Skynet? He singlehandedly blasts his way through Skynet's entire army to its central core by hijacking tanks, assault aircraft and at one point an entire warship, and uses Skynet's own time machine to return to the present. After stopping the T-X moments before she can bump off John and Kate, he has the following to say of the ordeal:
  T-850: "I'm back."
• How the T-X is terminated. The T-850 has a hold of her as she's trying to escape, and he takes out his final hydrogen fuel cell in his body, to which he then drags her back toward him and then shoves the fuel cell straight down her throat. He has enough time to make the T-X look at him and deliver one hell of a Pre-Mortem One-Liner before it is all over.
  T-850: You are terminated. *T-X screeches in FEAR* (boom)
  • Building on that, there's a subtle nod (subtle, in this case, mainly because of the action surrounding it) at just how awesome the Terminator's raw power has become. One arm is holding a frantic half of a far more advanced killing machine, and the other is holding up a hydraulic door big enough to make the press that did in the first Terminator look like a nutcracker.
  • Also, there's just something so awesome about how, unlike the first movie, an actual Terminator is saying it.
  • As a Rewatch Bonus, you can see the T-850's exposed eye glow brighter as it says its final line.
  • Let us not forget the look of the T-X upon realizing it is going to die, the T-850 has caused a normally unfeeling killing machine to feel fear.
• The Terminator calling John's bluff when he threatens to shoot himself if they don't try to prevent Judgment Day:
  "Based on your pupil dilation, skin temperature, and motor functions, I calculate an 83% probability that you will not pull the trigger."
• Also in the graveyard scene, the Terminator sick of John whining and moaning while under the influence of SWAT Teargas. He grabs John by the throat, strangling him and repeating what John said to him earlier:
  Terminator: You're right, you aren't the one I want. I'm just wasting time.
  John: Fuck you, you fucking MACHINE!!!!
  • Though it later turns out that Terminator was using Reverse Psychology on Connor.
• Kate, who has been mostly The Load for the whole movie, has her own when she grabs an AK and unleashes hell on a drone that is attacking her and John.
  John: You remind me of my mother.
• The Twist Ending, and John finally accepting his destiny as leader of the human resistance. You can almost see him go from a scared delinquent and disaffected drifter to the savior of humanity in one sentence.
  SAC Nellis: Connor? What the hell is happening? Who's in charge there?
  John: I am.

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