The Rev-9 is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Terminator: Dark Fate, the sixth installment in the Terminator series. In its human form, the Rev-9 is portrayed by Gabriel Luna.
History
The Rev-9 is a Terminator model developed by Legion, an artificial intelligence designed for cyber warfare in a future timeline where Skynet's rise gets prevented. Legion dispatched a Rev-9 back in time to 2020 from 2042 with the mission of terminating Dani Ramos, a young woman who will proceed to lead humanity against Legion's forces in the future. Upon its arrival in Mexico City, the Rev-9 goes to Dani's home, only to find that she and her brother Diego have already left for their job at a factory. It kills their father and assumes his appearance as a disguise to infiltrate the factory. There, it nearly shoots Dani but is ambushed by Grace, a cybernetically enhanced human soldier sent from 2042 to protect her. The Rev-9 pursues them in a truck as they escape. During the chase, it exhibits its capability to split into individual units. It manages to kill Diego and corner Dani and Grace, only to be temporarily disabled by the sudden arrival of Sarah Connor, who attacks it using high-grade weaponry. Dani and Grace flee and later meet up with Sarah.
Having lost its targets, the Rev-9 hacks into local surveillance cameras to reacquire them. It discovers the trio are heading to Laredo, Texas, where inevitably they would need to cross the Mexico–United States border. Disguising itself as a United States Border Patrol officer, it arranges their arrest, so that it can ambush them. The Rev-9 arrives at the Border Patrol detention center in Laredo and slaughters numerous Border Patrol agents and detainees but the trio escapes in a helicopter. By the time it is able to locate them again, they have allied with Carl, a T-800 Terminator left behind after Skynet's demise.
The Rev-9 catches up with its targets at a military base where they seek to acquire electromagnetic pulse (EMP) grenades to use against it. In the ensuing battle, the EMP grenades are damaged, while Dani and her allies escape in a military aircraft. The Rev-9 gives chase in a hijacked aircraft of its own, and manages to board theirs, leading to both Carl and the Rev-9 crashing into a river near a hydroelectric power plant while Dani, Sarah and Grace parachute to safety. Although slowed down in the river's current, it catches up with them inside the plant, where they decide to take a stand against it. As they fight the Rev-9, Carl and Grace managed to restrain it and force it into a turbine, causing an explosion that mortally wounds Grace and temporarily disables Carl and Sarah. The explosion also destroys the Rev-9's liquid metal exterior, but its severely damaged endoskeleton continues pursuing Dani, who tries to use Grace's power source as an EMP against it, only to be held down and nearly killed until Carl reactivates and holds it back. Once Dani stabs the power source into the Rev-9's endoskeleton, Carl drags it into a nearby pit, where the device's discharge melts both Terminators, destroying them.
Background
The Rev-9 is portrayed by Gabriel Luna, who began a four-month casting process in December 2017. Rev-9 is an advanced machine sent from the future by Legion (an AI that succeeded Skynet after the timeline alteration following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day) from the year 2042 to terminate a woman named Dani Ramos, among others. Rev-9 has a traditional solid endoskeleton covered with a liquid-metal exoskeleton, somewhat similarly to the T-X from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and is considered a combination of the T-800 and the T-1000. The Rev-9 possesses the ability to fully split these two components into two separate, fully autonomous units. The separation does not significantly weaken either unit, making the Rev-9 one of the most formidable Terminator models yet seen (Its ability to take punishment is slightly lessened when the two are separate, but this only means that it is easier to throw the Rev-9 back or slow it down rather than actually destroying it). Its poly-alloy and endoskeleton can separate and fuse back together at a rapid pace, enabling it to split or merge during combat without ceasing its movements. Director Tim Miller commented on this upgrade, telling CinemaCon attendees, "Our cool new feature... is he can split. So, he's twice as deadly." However, the Rev-9 is at its strongest when it is one unit.