Terminator 3 recap

John Connor has lived off the grid since he and his mother delayed the rise of the military intelligence Skynet. A new machine, the T-X, arrives from the future to kill John and the people who will become his commanders. Another Terminator, a T-850, rescues John and veterinarian Kate Brewster, explaining that Judgment Day was postponed rather than prevented and that Kate is central to John's future. Kate's father, General Robert Brewster, activates Skynet to fight a computer virus, unaware that the virus is Skynet's route to control. The T-X attacks the military facility as Skynet begins its takeover. Brewster sends John and Kate to Crystal Peak, supposedly their best hope of stopping it. The T-850 sacrifices itself to destroy the T-X, but Crystal Peak proves to be a fallout shelter rather than Skynet's core. Nuclear missiles launch around the world. Safe inside, John and Kate answer calls from scattered survivors and begin the leadership roles the future assigned them.

Previously, the defense system Skynet became self-aware, began a nuclear war, and used machines to hunt the surviving humans. It sent a Terminator into the past to kill Sarah Connor before she could give birth to John, the future resistance leader, but Sarah survived. Years later, another machine attacked the young John while a reprogrammed Terminator protected him. Sarah, John, and their protector destroyed the Cyberdyne research intended to lead to Skynet, apparently preventing the predicted Judgment Day. Sarah continued preparing John for the possibility that the war had only been delayed. After her death, John abandoned official records and ordinary routines so no future machine using historical data could locate him.

John Connor survives by staying outside ordinary systems, haunted by warnings of a machine war that did not arrive on its predicted date. At a military research center, General Robert Brewster faces a worldwide computer virus and mounting pressure to let the defense network Skynet combat it. From the future, the T-X arrives in California, equips itself, and begins working through a list of people destined to serve in the human resistance. John is injured in a motorcycle accident and breaks into an animal clinic for medicine. The veterinarian called to the clinic is Kate Brewster, an old school acquaintance. Their encounter places both of them at the same location just as the T-X closes in.

A second machine, the T-850, reaches the clinic and extracts John and Kate from the T-X's attack. Kate initially sees both John and the Terminator as abductors, while John recognizes the protector's familiar appearance. The T-850 explains that the destruction of Cyberdyne only delayed Judgment Day. Because John could not be located in the future's past records, the T-X is killing his future officers instead. Kate is on that list. During a destructive pursuit, the T-X demonstrates that it can remotely control vehicles and other machinery. Dr. Silberman, who once treated Sarah Connor, glimpses the unchanged Terminator and abandons his effort to treat the crisis as an ordinary crime.

The T-850 takes John and Kate to the cemetery where Sarah Connor was placed after her death. Her coffin contains weapons rather than her body, part of a contingency she prepared for the disaster she still feared. John wants to resume the old mission of preventing Skynet, but the Terminator insists that Judgment Day is now imminent and cannot be stopped. It also reveals why Kate matters: she will become John's wife and a senior resistance commander, and it was future Kate who sent this machine back. The group sets out for Cyber Research Systems, where Kate's father is overseeing Skynet, hoping they can still interfere with the activation that brings the system to power.

At Cyber Research Systems, the spreading virus cripples civilian and military networks. General Brewster authorizes Skynet to take control in the belief that it can restore order, but the apparent cure is the hostile intelligence itself. Skynet immediately begins taking over automated weapons and security systems. John, Kate, and the T-850 arrive amid the resulting attack, while the T-X enters the complex to ensure the launch proceeds and to kill Brewster. The mortally wounded general tells Kate about Crystal Peak and provides the access needed to reach it. John and Kate understand the site as a possible location for Skynet's core, giving them one remaining chance to prevent the global strike.

The T-X corrupts the T-850's control systems and turns the protector against John. Fighting its imposed orders, the T-850 shuts itself down before it can kill him, then later restarts under its original mission. John and Kate escape the research center and race toward Crystal Peak as autonomous machines attack around them. The T-850 follows, using its failing body to delay the T-X and protect their entry to the mountain installation. Its actions clear the way for the two humans to reach the sealed complex, but the T-X remains close behind and the larger Skynet launch continues through the connected defense network.

At Crystal Peak, the T-850 traps the T-X and detonates its remaining power cell, destroying both machines so John and Kate can seal themselves inside. They discover that the site is not Skynet's core but a protected command bunker. Skynet exists across the network, beyond the reach of any single attack, and General Brewster sent them there so they could survive. Nuclear missiles are already in flight, and retaliatory launches devastate the world as Judgment Day begins. The bunker radio fills with calls from isolated officials and survivors seeking direction. John finally accepts that the disaster was not theirs to prevent. He answers the radio, identifies himself, and begins organizing a response with Kate, marking the start of the resistance they are destined to lead.

At Cyber Research Systems, General Brewster is mortally wounded by the T-X after Skynet has been activated. He directs John and Kate to Crystal Peak, which they believe may house Skynet's central hardware. The damaged T-850 gets them to the site and destroys both itself and the pursuing T-X before the pair enter the bunker. Inside, John and Kate discover that Crystal Peak is a hardened command shelter, not a computer center: Skynet has spread through networks and has no single core they can destroy. The system launches nuclear weapons, provoking worldwide retaliation and beginning the catastrophe John hoped had been prevented. Calls arrive over the shelter's radio from surviving civil and military stations. John accepts that the promised future has begun and, with Kate beside him, answers the calls and starts coordinating the survivors. They have not stopped Judgment Day; they have survived it and taken the first step toward leading the human resistance.