Kyle Reese

Lore & Background

According to Terminator Genisys, Kyle Reese was born in 2004. He eventually becomes a sergeant (dog tag number DN38416), working in the Tech-Com facility of the Resistance. He served with the 132nd under Perry, from 2021 to 2027. He is one of the personal soldiers to John Connor, and is often selected for personal infiltrator missions by John.

Reese learned to make explosives as a child. He also assisted in stealing and reverse-engineering most of the Skynet technology, conducting raids on armories and stealing most of the laser-rifle equipment with his troops for the Resistance, along with the time-traveling technology that Skynet had developed. In 2029, Skynet has been defeated by the Human Resistance, but manages to send one of its infiltrators back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor before she can give birth to John Connor; the Human Resistance decides to send a soldier back to defeat the Terminator and protect Sarah's life.

Reese personally volunteers for a one-way mission back to pre-apocalypse Los Angeles to save her. Before he had been sent back, he was told that the time displacement equipment would be destroyed, stranding him and the Terminator in 1984. Arriving naked and unarmed, and not knowing what the Terminator looks like in its human disguise, Reese steals clothes and a police-issue shotgun. He locates and follows Sarah, shadowing her until the Model 101 attempts to carry out its mission.

Reese rescues her from the Terminator's attacks in a nightclub and in a police station, warning her of the impending doom of the human race and of the future significance carried by her and her unborn son. Though initially hostile toward Reese, Sarah grows to trust him as he becomes the only thing between her and the Terminator. The two grow closer as they continue to run from the Terminator and Kyle eventually reveals that he volunteered for the mission.

Though battle-hardened and world-weary, Reese had fallen deeply in love with Sarah, a woman he had only known through a photo given to him by John, and traveled back in time to meet her. After Reese tells Sarah of this history, the two consummate their relationship and ultimately conceive John. The Terminator tracks them down and chases them through Los Angeles; Reese is wounded by gunfire but manages to blow up a fuel truck driven by the Terminator before it can run over Sarah.

However, its now-bare metal endoskeleton emerges from the fire and pursues them into an automated factory. Reese attempts to fight the Terminator but is overpowered, though he manages to wedge the last of his homemade pipe bombs into its chassis and set it off; the explosion kills Reese and blows the Terminator apart. The machine's upper body continues to crawl after Sarah, who crushes it with a hydraulic press to stop it once and for all. Later, while being loaded into an ambulance, Sarah watches Reese's body be wheeled away by first responders.

Reader's Guide

Kyle Reese stands as the ultimate embodiment of sacrifice and the terrifying cost of war. Though battle-hardened and world-weary, Reese had fallen in love with Sarah, whom he knew only from a photo John gave him.

Did You Know?

• Kyle Reese is portrayed by Michael Biehn in The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jonathan Jackson in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009), Anton Yelchin in Terminator Salvation (2009), and Jai Courtney in Terminator Genisys (2015).
• In Terminator Salvation, Kyle Reese is portrayed as a teenager and is the leader of the Los Angeles Resistance cell, which only consisted of two people.
• In Terminator Genisys, it is revealed that Reese is of Irish descent on his mother's side.