Rev-9 Terminator: Powers, Actor and Fate in Dark Fate

A Rev-9 is the advanced shapeshifting Terminator in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), played by Gabriel Luna and credited as Gabriel / REV-9. Fans also search for it as "Gabriel" or "Rev-9 Terminator", because the credit pairs a human first name with the model designation. Tim Miller directed the film, and the Rev-9 is its main antagonist.

The model is built around one distinctive trick. The Rev-9 can split into a liquid metal body and a hard endoskeleton, so a single machine can attack in two forms at once. That separates it from the T-800 / Carl (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is a cyborg assassin. The T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) is a liquid metal killer, played by Robert Patrick.

In the film the Rev-9 is sent after Dani Ramos, a young factory worker in Mexico City, and Grace, an augmented human soldier from 2042, arrives to protect her. The next section follows the chase in full.

The Rev-9 appears only in Dark Fate, so for a full introduction to the film see Terminator: Dark Fate. For the wider range of machines, the terminator models page sets the types side by side.

In Terminator: Dark Fate, the Rev-9 hunts Dani Ramos from Mexico City to the U.S. border and finally to a hydroelectric dam. Grace, who arrives from 2042, explains that a defense AI called Legion started a nuclear war in her timeline, and that Dani is destined to lead the human resistance against it. That is why the Rev-9 wants her dead.

The Rev-9 kills Dani's brother Diego early on, and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) arrives in time to help the survivors escape. Sarah has been receiving tip-off messages about Terminator arrivals, and they lead the group to the U.S. and Mexico border. There they meet the T-800 that killed her son John in 1998, who now lives as a man named Carl and has developed a conscience. Carl joins the group against the Rev-9.

The group then tries to get an EMP weapon, but the Rev-9 destroys it. Next, the Rev-9 captures Carl on a cargo plane and forces the others to jump out, and they parachute down near a hydroelectric dam. The final fight takes place there. Carl and Grace drag the Rev-9 toward a turbine, and Grace is mortally wounded in the struggle.

The arc is simple by design: one objective, Dani Ramos, and a machine that keeps coming. Each stage removes one of the group's options, first the EMP weapon, then the plane, then Grace's strength, until the dam is the only place left to finish it.

The Rev-9 hunts Dani Ramos and is opposed by Grace, Sarah Connor and Carl, the reprogrammed T-800. Dani, played by Natalia Reyes, is the future resistance leader, and everyone else in the film is either protecting her or standing in the way of the Rev-9.

Grace, played by Mackenzie Davis, is the first defender, an augmented soldier from 2042 who arrives to guard Dani and Diego. Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, joins after the Rev-9 kills Diego, and she brings decades of experience hunting Terminators sent to the past. Carl, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is the T-800 that killed her son John in 1998, and he becomes the group's heaviest fighter.

The film therefore sets the Rev-9 against both an older Terminator and a human who has been augmented to stand beside machines. Among earlier machines, the T-1000 of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) is the closest comparison, since it is also a liquid metal killer, though the Rev-9 adds its split form. The Rev-9 connects to the larger Terminator story through Legion, the defense AI that started a nuclear war in Grace's timeline.

For the people on the other side of the chase, see the pages for grace terminator, dani ramos terminator and sarah connor terminator.

The Rev-9 is destroyed at the hydroelectric dam in Terminator: Dark Fate when Dani Ramos uses Grace's power core as a weapon. Grace tells Dani to do this as she is dying, and Carl holds the Rev-9 in place while Dani carries it out.

The blast also destroys Carl, the reprogrammed T-800, so the machine's defeat costs the group its strongest fighter as well as Grace, who dies from her injuries. Dani and Sarah are left to prepare for the coming war.

No later film has featured the Rev-9. The next Terminator project is a James Cameron idea still in development, with no studio, cast or title confirmed (see new terminator movie), so the character's status is simply destroyed.

In my opinion, the Rev-9's best scenes are the cargo plane sequence and the dam fight, and the film's answers to it are an EMP weapon, a turbine and Grace's power core.

A machine that can split in two sounds unstoppable, yet the film beats it with things it sets up in the open. The EMP weapon is the plan that fails, because the Rev-9 gets to it first and destroys it. The turbine is where Carl and Grace drag it, and the power core is what finally ends it. The cargo plane scene works because it takes away Carl, the group's strongest fighter, and forces everyone else out of the aircraft, so the dam becomes a fight with no safety net.

Is it stronger than the T-800? Within the film, yes, since Carl alone cannot stop it and the group only wins by combining Carl, Grace and Dani. Is it the strongest Terminator overall? The films never stage a match against the T-1000, so that stays a debate rather than a fact.

To see the character at its best, watch the cargo plane sequence followed by the dam fight, then compare it with the steel mill finale of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.