History
Future War (2029)
“Reese, DN38416.”
Kyle was born sometime in 2003, apparently, his mother died in childbirth, while his father died when he was a young child. He survived the capture and killing of his fellow humans only to serve as a slave in one of Skynet‘s concentration camps, where he and others were forced to load huge numbers of dead bodies into Skynet’s furnaces to be incinerated. Reese’s freedom would come when a resistance movement, led by John Connor, freed him and the others from Skynet. After leaving the camps, Reese was given the dog tag number DN38416 and served in the 132nd division under Perry from 2021 to 2027 before transferring as a sergeant to Tech-Com under John Connor himself. He also assisted in stealing and reverse-engineering most of the Skynet technology, pulling raids on gun shops and stealing most of the laser-rifle equipment with his troops for the Resistance. His troops are also responsible for stealing the time-traveling technology that Skynet has developed.
John Connor and the resistance would eventually rally enough remaining humans and resources to launch an assault on Skynet. The final assault would eventually allow the human resistance to cripple Skynet. The Resistance was able to smash Skynet’s defense grid allowing them to enter Skynet’s main complex and attempt to destroy it.
Skynet however would have a final move left: using time displacement equipment, Skynet would send one of its most feared machines (the Terminator) back to May 12, 1984, a Thursday, to kill the young Sarah Connor, known to have been the eventual mother of John Connor, the leader of the Resistance, and thus prevent the birth of Connor and his future rebellion. Kyle personally volunteered for a one-way mission back to pre-apocalypse Los Angeles to save Sarah Connor, mostly because he has her picture of her given by John.
Los Angeles (1984)
“Come with me if you wanna live.”
Once he had gone through, the time displacement equipment was destroyed, leaving only him and the Terminator in 1984. Arriving unarmed and not knowing what the Terminator looks like in its human disguise. After tracking Sarah to a club at the same time as the Terminator, Reese provides Sarah with a rushed explanation of the reason for the Terminator hunting her and his own role in events, but they are subsequently captured by the police after the Terminator’s car crashes and Sarah and Kyle are surrounded. With the Terminator having fled the scene, Reese is questioned by criminal psychiatrist Dr Peter Silberman, who puts Reese’s story of the Terminator and the Future War down as nothing more than a psychotic delusion, although complimenting the scale of it due to the explanations for the lack of future technology.
Although Sarah briefly doubts Reese herself, when the Terminator attacks again, Reese manages to escape and retrieve Sarah while the Terminator tears through the station staff. Having grown up in the future where the machines had all but wiped out the human race, Reese is both physically and mentally hardened. His body is scarred from numerous battles with Skynet, and he has a number of burns as a result of the time travel process.
“John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn’t know why at the time. It was very old – torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you. I always have.”
Though hard and battle weary, Reese had a love for Sarah despite having never met and only through a photo could identify. The affection Reese felt for Sarah was based on the legend that surrounded her and on the image of her from the photograph given to him by John Connor. Though initially hostile towards Reese, Sarah grows to trust and love him as he becomes the only thing between her and the Terminator. On the run from the Terminator, Reese and Sarah share a night of intimacy, in which her future son and human leader John Connor is conceived. However, Reese’s life is cut short when both he and Sarah are forced to confront the Terminator. A chase ensues with the Terminator following first on a motorcycle and then in a semi-tanker truck. During the chase, Reese is hit by gunfire. After apparently thinking that they destroyed the Terminator, they run to an automated factory, later revealed to be owned by Cyberdyne Systems where the now-metal endoskeleton of the Terminator pursues them inside.
Kyle turns on all the equipment as cover while the Terminator batters its way through the door. After Sarah accidentally turns on a machine, their hiding place is discovered and the Terminator finds them. After reaching the stairs of a crawl way, Reese tells Sarah to run for cover while Kyle tries to beat the Terminator with a metal rod.
The Terminator slashes Kyle to the floor, and Reese reaches for a pipe bomb and lights it up, placing it into the Terminator’s abdomen. The Terminator explodes except for its lower midsection and Reese rolls down a metal stairway head first. A short time later, after Sarah removes a piece of shrapnel from her leg, she tends to Kyle and finds he had broken his neck, his dead body with face covered with blood from the fight with the Terminator and the shrapnel/debris from the explosion.
However, the Terminator’s midsection is still functional and begins to chase Connor again. Sarah then crushes the Terminator in a mechanical press and later tearfully sees Reese’s dead body being zipped up in a body bag and taken away. Although Reese died not knowing Sarah was carrying his son that was his future commander, his strength and courage gives Sarah enough for her to teach her unborn son for the pending future he will bring. By impregnating Sarah with John, Kyle created a predestination paradox in the same way that the discovery of the Terminator’s remains in the factory gave birth to Skynet.
Deviating timelines
Terminator: Salvation
Kyle Reese was a pertinent player in the survival of the human race and the formation of the Human Resistance.
Other Media
Films
The Terminator (1984)
Kyle Reese, a human Resistance fighter, is sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor. He is played by actor Michael Biehn.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Kyle Reese made a cameo in T2 that was cut from the film. When Sarah is having a nightmare about Judgement Day, Kyle appears in a dream state version of her prison cell and reminds her of the coming danger, and the need to protect their son. However, as Kyle begins to walk out of the cell, Sarah desperately follows him only to be led to a courtyard of kids playing before they are destroyed by a nuke.
Television
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
On the Terminator TV series, Kyle Reese appeared in four episodes.
Video Games
The Terminator (Sega CD)
The Mega-CD/Sega CD version of The Terminator video game was coded by Virgin Games USA and released in 1993. It was based on the David Perry engine. The game has a CD quality music soundtrack.
The plot is based on that of the movie. The player is Kyle Reese, who travels back in time to Los Angeles 1984, to protect Sarah Connor and help stop the Terminator. The game is a side-scrolling action platformer/shooter. The player travels through levels battling enemies. Scenes from the film are played to move the story along.