Marcus Wright Terminator: Character Profile

Marcus Wright is a death row inmate turned human-machine cyborg in Terminator Salvation (2009), played by Sam Worthington. He is the second billed character in the film, which opened in the US on May 21, 2009 and was directed by McG, with Christian Bale as John Connor, Helena Bonham Carter as Serena and Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese.

He starts the story in 2003 as a condemned prisoner who signs his body over to Dr. Serena Kogan, a researcher at Cyberdyne Systems. By the time he wakes up, Skynet has launched its nuclear war, and he finds himself in a ruined world with no memory of the years in between.

The film reveals him to be a cyborg, a human-machine hybrid, and he belongs to the new kind of Terminator that Skynet has been building from captured people. He is a different case from the T-800, because he began as a human prisoner and Skynet rebuilt him. You can see where he sits among the machines on our terminator models page.

Marcus is the film's outsider. John is already a Resistance officer in 2018, and Kyle is a young survivor on Skynet's kill list. Marcus belongs to neither side at first, which is why the story keeps asking whether he can be trusted. For the wider cast of machines and humans, see the full list of terminator characters.

Marcus Wright spends Terminator Salvation moving from a lost amnesiac to a Resistance ally: he wakes in 2018, learns he is a cyborg that Skynet built to bait John Connor, and turns on his maker. His first stop in the ruins of Los Angeles is a meeting with Kyle Reese and a mute girl named Star. Skynet machines seize all three, and Marcus is hurt in the attack.

That injury is what gives him away. Once John's soldiers see he is a cyborg, they never fully trust him again. Marcus bargains with John: he will help free the prisoners Skynet is holding, and in exchange he keeps his life. Around him, the Resistance is planning its strike on Skynet's San Francisco headquarters, and John has found out that Skynet's kill list names both him and a young Kyle Reese.

Then Marcus learns the purpose of his own rebuilding: Skynet made him as a lure to bring John into a trap. He throws off its control and sides with the humans. At the Skynet base, a T-800 drives its hand through John's chest, and Marcus rips the machine's head away. John then destroys the base with explosives, and the group gets out.

Marcus Wright is most closely connected to John Connor, Kyle Reese, a mute girl named Star, Dr. Serena Kogan and Skynet. John comes first, because the whole plot turns on whether he will trust Marcus. Their relationship starts as a bargain, with Marcus offering his help in exchange for his life, and it ends with Marcus giving John his heart. Because Skynet built Marcus to reach John, the trap is aimed at the same man he later protects. To follow John's side of the story, read the profile of John Connor.

Kyle and Star are his first companions in the ruined city. Kyle Reese is the young survivor who is later sent back to 1984, as shown in The Terminator, and meeting him early gives Marcus a reason to fight beyond his own survival. Star travels with them and does not speak.

Dr. Serena Kogan is the link to Marcus's past. She is the Cyberdyne Systems researcher he gave his body to in 2003, and she is the reason his story starts before the war does. Skynet itself is the final connection, since it made him and then lost control of him. The distrust of John's soldiers, meanwhile, shapes how the Resistance treats him throughout.

Marcus Wright dies in Terminator Salvation (2009), the fourth film in release order. After the base is destroyed, John's heart is too badly damaged to keep him alive, and Marcus offers his own heart for the transplant. He dies so that John can live.

John then radios the Resistance to say that this battle is won but the war against the machines goes on. The ending sets up further fighting against Skynet, and Marcus does not return in any later film in the series. His status in the franchise is deceased, and his only appearance is Salvation, which you can place using our terminator movies in order guide.

Marcus Wright's best moments in Terminator Salvation are his bargain with John Connor, the reveal that Skynet built him, his fight with the T-800 and his final heart transplant. In my opinion, the bargain is the best of them, because it is the one scene where both men are honest about what they want. John's soldiers distrust a cyborg, and Marcus only asks for his life in return for helping the prisoners, so neither side is pretending. That honesty gives the film its moral center.

The reveal comes second. It works because the film has already made us side with him, so the discovery lands as a betrayal of Marcus himself and not only of the Resistance. His decision to break free of Skynet's control then reads as a choice, which is the main thing separating him from the machines.

The third is the climax, when he tears the head off the T-800 that stabs John, and the fourth is the heart transplant that ends his story. His arc is one of the few in the saga where a cyborg's sacrifice is the plot's final move, and the comparison with the T-800 that lowers itself into molten steel in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is hard to miss. The T-800 there gives a thumbs up as it sinks; here Marcus gives a human heart.