T-RIP is the future counterpart and the prototype of the T-800 Series. He is the true main antagonist of the 2009 film Terminator: Salvation.
History
As the resistance prepares for a massive invasion of Skynet forces to culmite in the destruction of Skynet Central, Skynet deploys a series of machines to capture two humans above all others: Kyle Resse and John Connor, while searching thought the prison cells of the Skynet Facility.
Connor finds one cell still occupied, but then Connor gets knocked back, when the machine inside bursts out, revealing itself to be a prototype T-800 Infiltrator. He shoots it multiple times on the chest but to no avail as the machine grabs him by the neck threw him on the side of the room. He smashes the butt of his gun at the T-RIP's face, with little effect & the machine responds by throwing him across the room.
John manages to retreat to the laboratory, where he encounters a disoriented T-600, firing aimlessly after Kyle stabs it in the neck. T-RIP follows him & rips the T-600 in the process in half. John then blasts it twice with a grenade launcher, causing its flesh coating to burn off & exposing its endoskeleton. John blows up a hole & escapes alongside Kyle & Star through the Terminator factory under the laboratory.
T-RIP continues to stalk them for some time, while hiding amongst the T-700 within the factory. After having a false alarm on the elevator, it ambushes John & Kyle from behind. Kyle shoots it with a grenade launcher, temporarily disabling it, as he & Star escapes on the elevator, with John stays behind to buy him some time. The T-RIP however, attacks hims once again, this time disarming him & smashing him on the floor.
John tries to escape and confronts the machine upon a catwalk with a shotgun, but is unable to stop it and is subsequently thrown down to the lower level where it grabs him by the throat and almost kills him. John is saved by the timely arrival of Marcus, who charges the T-RIP and pins it down, allowing John to escape. The T-RIP ignores Marcus at first and tries to reacquire John, but Marcus's persistence hinders its progress as he struggles to hold it back.
The T-RIP fights him back and slams Marcus against some machinery before hurling him into a metal drum, resulting in the skin on his hand being melted off. Enraged, Marcus charged the T-RIP as it approached Connor's position. He shoved the machine into a pilon and proceeded to beat it with a piece of railing. The T-RIP grabs his wrist, however, and pushes him away. It then picked up a cinder block and slammed Marcus repeatedly until the block shattered, after which it scanned Marcus' body, discovering his beating heart and identifying it as a point of vulnerability.
The T-RIP delivered a crushing blow to Marcus' chest, the sheer force of which effectively stopped his heart and terminated him temporary. It then tracked John to his last known location, but found him missing upon arrival. The T-RIP then mimicked Kyle's voice to lure the Resistance leader into its trap. Connor cautiously followed the voice, only to find the T-RIP waiting for him. He fired several times with his pistol, but the machine was not daunted in the slightest.
John spotted his grenade launcher on the lower level beside Marcus' body and so he jumped down, landing hard with the T-RIP right behind him. John managed to grab the launcher and fired at the vat of metal above the machine, causing it to spill over it. The T-RIP was momentarily consumed by the metal, but rose out of the mass and continued its advance, so Connor fired his last remaining pistol bullet at a coolant pump nearby, freezing the metal on the machine's body and effectively freezing it for awhile.
Before it froze completely, however, the T-RIP dug its fingers into John's face, creating the legendary scar on his left side. Connor then retreated to Marcus' side and tried to revive him via defibrillation, while the T-RIP was slowly breaking free from the metal coating. After John succeeded in defibrilling Marcus with a power cable, the T-RIP broke completely free and impaled Connor through the chest with the same piece of railing Marcus had used earlier to fight it.
Marcus, enraged, avenges John by grabbing the railing stabbing it in the neck & decapitating it, as both men ran off to safety afterwards. Its chip was later destroyed alongside the facility when the Resistance blew up Skynet Central.
Gallery
Trivia
- Despite being prototype of T-800, T-RIP was shown to be more powerful than his counterpart in the first movie, as he nearly killed John at his last moment. This was likely due to being constructed from remains of various Terminators that sent back in time to kill John previously.
- T-RIP is portrayed by Roland Kickinger (as a human with a CGI makeup of Arnold Schwarzenneger's face) & later by Buster Reeves (in his endoskeleton form).
- Originally, T-RIP was intended to accompany a cyborg Serena Kogan in their fight against John & Marcus & a different T-800 was intended to fight Marcus.
- In the film's novelization, it was John Connor who killed T-RIP, not Marcus.
- In the film's original script T-RIP succeeded in killing John Connor.
- An alternate scene featured T-RIP's face getting blown away by John upon encounter, in case Arnold Schwarzenegger disagrees to use his face for digital makeup, which might lead to people believing he might be returning for the film series rather than continuing his work as a governor. This was still seen in the novelization.