The Terminator (1984)

Michael Biehn: Kyle Reese

Photos 

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Quotes 

• [after Sarah tries to escape and bites Reese's hand, in a stolen car] 

  Kyle Reese : [42:46]  Cyborgs don't feel pain. I do. Don't do that again.

  Sarah Connor : [weakly]  Just let me go!

  Kyle Reese : 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!

• Kyle Reese : [36:41]  Come with me if you want to live.

• Kyle Reese : [8:44]  What day is it? The date!

  Cop in Alley : 12th... May... Thursday...

  Kyle Reese : [viciously]  WHAT YEAR?

• Sarah Connor : [in a stolen car]  Reese. Why me? Why does it want me?

  Kyle Reese : 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 Connor : I don't understand.

  Kyle Reese : 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 Connor : Did you see this war?

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

  Sarah Connor : H-K's?

  Kyle Reese : Hunter-Killers. Patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put in camps for orderly disposal.

  [pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark] 

  Kyle Reese : 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 motherfuckers 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.

• Dr. Peter Silberman : [56:24]  Why didn't you bring any weapons, something more advanced? Don't you have, uh... ray guns? Show me a piece of future technology.

  Detective Hal Vukovich : [watching from a monitor,chuckling]  Ray guns?

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

  Dr. Peter Silberman : Why?

  Kyle Reese : I didn't build the fucking thing!

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

  Kyle Reese : Surrounded by living tissue!

  Dr. Peter Silberman : Oh, right, right.

  Dr. Peter Silberman : [shuts off the VCR screen on which the police and Sarah have been watching the interview]  This is great stuff. I could make a career out of this guy! You see how clever his part is? How it doesn't require a shred of proof? Most paranoid delusions are intricate, but this is brilliant!

  Dr. Peter Silberman : Why were the other two women killed?

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

  Dr. Peter Silberman : Uh-huh. Well, let's go back to what I was...

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

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

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

  Dr. Peter Silberman : Please, I...

  Kyle Reese : [interrupts again]  Shut up!

  [He glares into the camera] 

  Kyle Reese : You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her! That's what he does! That's ALL he does! You can't stop him! He'll wade through you, reach down her throat and pull her fuckin' heart out!

• Sarah Connor : [in a motel room]  Are you sure you have the right person?

  Kyle Reese : I'm sure.

  Sarah Connor : [angrily]  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 Reese : Your son gave me a message to give to you. He made me memorize it.

  [reciting message] 

  Kyle Reese : 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.

• Kyle Reese : [to Sarah while driving a stolen car]  I'm here to help you. I'm Reese. Sergeant Tech-Com, DN38416. Assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for termination.

• Kyle Reese : [hiding inside a cave not from the road]  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.

• Kyle Reese : [in a stolen car]  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 Connor : [frustrated]  Look, I am not stupid, you know. They cannot make things like that yet.

  Kyle Reese : Not yet, not for about 40 years.

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

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

  Sarah Connor : Then you're from the future, too. Is that right?

  Kyle Reese : Right.

  Sarah Connor : Right.

• Dr. Peter Silberman : [in a interrogation room inside the police station]  Why this elaborate scheme with the Terminator?

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

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

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

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

• Sarah Connor : [checks the grocery bags Kyle has brought back to the hotel room]  What've we got? Moth balls, corn syrup, ammonia. What's for dinner?

  Kyle Reese : Plastique.

  Sarah Connor : That sounds good. What is it?

  Kyle Reese : Nitroglycerine-base; it's a bit more stable. I learned to make it when I was a kid.

• Kyle Reese : [in a stolen car, while being chased by the police and the terminator]  All right, listen. The Terminator's an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored; very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue: flesh, skin, hair, blood - grown for the cyborgs.

  Sarah Connor : Look, Reese, I don't know what you want from...

  Kyle Reese : Pay attention! I gotta ditch this car.

• Kyle Reese : [to the Terminator]  Come on, motherfucker!

• Sarah Connor : [in a stolen car]  What's it like when you go through time?

  Kyle Reese : White light. Pain. It's like being born, maybe.

• Sarah Connor : [in a motel room]  Kyle, the women in your time, what are they like?

  Kyle Reese : Good fighters.

  Sarah Connor : That's not what I meant. Was there someone special?

  Kyle Reese : Someone?

  Sarah Connor : A girl, you know.

  Kyle Reese : No. Never.

  Sarah Connor : Never? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. So much pain.

  Kyle Reese : Pain can be controlled - you just disconnect it.

  Sarah Connor : So you feel nothing?

• Sarah Connor : [in a stolen car, while being chased by the police and the terminator]  This is a mistake. I haven't done anything.

  Kyle Reese : No, but you will. It's very important that you live.

  Sarah Connor : This isn't true. How could that man just get up after you just...

  Kyle Reese : He's not a man - a machine. Terminator, Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.

  Sarah Connor : A machine? Like a robot?

  Kyle Reese : Not a robot. A cyborg. Cybernetic organism.

  Sarah Connor : No, he was bleeding.

  Kyle Reese : Just a second. Keep your head down!

• Sarah Connor : [awakens from a dream while hiding inside a cave not from the road]  I was dreaming about dogs.

  Kyle Reese : We used them to spot Terminators.

  Sarah Connor : Your world... it's pretty terrifying.

• Kyle Reese : Sleep. It'll be light soon.

  Sarah Connor : Okay. Talk some more.

  Kyle Reese : About what?

  Sarah Connor : About where you're from.

  Kyle Reese : All right. You stay down by day, but at night, you can move around. The H-K's use infrared so you still have to watch out. But they're not too bright. John taught us ways to dust them. That's when the infiltrators started to appear. The Terminators were the newest and the worst...

• Sarah Connor : [hiding inside a cave not from the road]  Tell me about my son.

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

  Sarah Connor : What's he like?

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

  Sarah Connor : 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 Reese : John never said much about him. I know he dies before the war.

  Sarah Connor : Wait. I don't want to know.

• Dr. Peter Silberman : [52:57]  So, you're a soldier? Fighting for whom?

  Kyle Reese : The 132nd under Perry. From '21 to '27.

  Dr. Peter Silberman : That's the year 2027?

• Kyle Reese : [1:20:17]  Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it.