The Terminator was a movie that blended horror with sci-fi action, and the result was a cinematic masterpiece. Many fans to this day are more fascinated with the titular killer than the rest of the characters, but it’s a mistake to overlook them. Some, like Kyle Reese, can elicit their own feelings of terror and dread, simply through their quotes.
Kyle Reese was a battle-hardened soldier sent from the future to protect the life of Sarah Connor, one of Skynet’s strongest adversaries, and the mother of humanity’s savior. He’d seen enough horrors to become physically and psychologically scarred by the ordeal, and the way he recounts his experiences is nothing short of bone-chilling.
10 “Come With Me If You Wanna’ Live.”
The T-800 might be most famous for having uttered this franchise-elevating Terminator quote, but it was Kyle Reese who did it first. It happened shortly after he opened fire on the first T-800 in the Tech Noir nightclub, sending him flying through the glass window and onto the sidewalk.
While it was incapacitated, Kyle Reese knelt down next to Sarah and uttered this line, which would later become synonymous with the franchise. In this case, it had a much more terrifying context, given the near-invincible cyborg they were up against.
9 “Do Exactly What I Say! Exactly! Don’t Move Unless I Say! Don’t Make A Sound Unless I Say!”
Sarah Connor didn’t know what to expect from Kyle Reese when she first met him. It was under extreme duress, with the Terminator in hot pursuit. He might have saved her from death, but there was no telling what his intentions were, either.
While speeding down the streets of Los Angeles, Kyle began yelling at Sarah in order to instill a sense of fear in her. To both Sarah and the audience, it seemed to work, though Reese had the best of intentions, rather than the worst.
8 “You’ve Been Targeted For Termination!”
This line was the first clear indicator that Sarah was in deep trouble, and she had reason to believe it. Several women named Sarah Connor were murdered during the course of the following day, and she realized that she was next. She just couldn’t tell who the assassin was.
Reese’s line had a ring of distinct truth to it. She had just narrowly escaped being gunned down in cold blood, in front of dozens of people. Obviously, her life was on the line, and this was no longer just a matter of “what if.”
7 “It Can’t Be Bargained With. It Can’t Be Reasoned With… And It Absolutely Will Not Stop, Ever… Until You Are Dead!”
Sarah still wasn’t convinced that Kyle was being upfront with her about the reason for her assassination attempt, and that made him impatient. After all, time was ticking, and the Terminator was hot on their trail. If she had any chance of surviving, she needed to understand what she was up against.
He pulled no punches when he described the Terminator, and what its mission was. There was no way to bargain against its programming. It was a machine, doing a machine’s job, and no amount of talk, debate or compromise was going to change its mind. It would kill her if it found her.
6 “There Was A Nuclear War, A Few Years From Now. All This… This Whole Place, Everything… It’s Gone. Just… Gone.”
When the situation had calmed down in the underground parking lot, it gave Sarah and Kyle a chance to actually have a conversation. He revealed to her the reason for him going back through time to protect her, and it involved the worst of all nightmares – a nuclear holocaust.
His words were solemn, depressing, and full of despair. To Kyle, the wonders of the past world must have been beautiful, especially since he saw what they would later become. The quote had an impact on Sarah, as well, who realized that Kyle had seen something horrible, even if she believed him or not.
5 “Nobody Goes Home. Nobody Else Comes Through. It’s Just Him, And Me.”
After a short police chase, the Terminator ended up retreating from his target, which ended up being one of the most nonsensical plot arcs of The Terminator. Afterward, while being interrogated at the police station by Dr. Silberman, Reese tried his best to reason with them, and make them understand who he was. Deep down, he must have known the people of that time would never have believed such an outrageous story.
Yet, he tried his best, with honesty and conviction. When Silberman asked how he was going to get back to his own time, Reese replied with this quote, which signified that he was the only one capable of taking on the Terminator in the modern age.
4 “You Still Don’t Get It, Do You? He’ll Find Her! That’s What He Does! That’s ALL He Does!”
Silberman’s interrogation was becoming too much for Reese, who knew that they were sitting ducks in the police station. He needed to get back to Sarah, fast, and get her out of there before the Terminator showed up. He demanded to see Sarah, but that was simply not an option.
The pre-recorded tape was later played to Sarah, and she watched as Kyle looked straight into the camera and began screaming at it. His words instilled a feeling of utter, sheer terror of the Terminator, one aspect of the film that still holds up today.
3 “You Stay Down By Day, But At Night You Can Move Around. Still Have To Be Careful, Because The HKs Use Infra-Red.”
After narrowly escaping the police station with their lives, Kyle and Sarah fled off the grid, and hide out in the middle of the night until morning. While there, Sarah asks him to tell her about the world he comes from, not knowing the experiences he’d share.
He started out with this line, which eventually leads into a nightmare dream sequence showing Reese going up against a Terminator infiltrator. It’s a hellish scene that depicted the very real world he had come from and the nature of humanity’s battle against an unfeeling foe.
2 “Cover, So He Can’t Track Us!”
After blowing up the tanker truck that the Terminator was driving, Kyle and Sarah thought the nightmare was over. However, the Terminator had survived in its endoskeleton form, proving definitely that it was one of Skynet’s most dangerous machines.
Once inside, they barred the door to slow the Terminator down. Kyle then began switching on all the machinery, to Sarah’s confusion. He replied to her with his line, indicating that the Terminator could easily track them without any distractions. It was another terrifying example of how lethal the Terminator actually was.
1 “Run Sarah. RUN!”
Eventually, the Terminator found and cornered the two inside the facility, and began stalking them up a flight of steps. Knowing that her life was probably going to end, Kyle decided to sacrifice himself to buy her some time. He told Sarah to run, but she refused.
Kyle wasn’t having any of it, once again shouting at her to run. He then faced the Terminator with nothing but a lead pipe in his hand, which wasn’t enough to stop it. Finally, he lit the last of his pipe bombs and blew the Terminator up, which ended up killing him in the process.
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