The "Terminator" franchise is the longest-running time travel action film series and has gotten
increasingly convoluted as its heroes continue to fight the war against machines.
If all the alternate timelines of the "Terminator" franchise make your head spin,
here's an explanation for each ending in the series so far.
In James Cameron's action-packed classic "The Terminator," we meet two men who are sent back
to 1984 to change the fate of the planet. One is an unstoppable machine with the face and skin of
a man — that's Arnold's T-800, here to terminate Sarah Connor and stop the human rebellion before
it begins. The other is Kyle Reese, a soldier sent by Sarah's son John, who has been given
the mission of ensuring her survival until she can give birth to the future resistance leader. John
has given Reese a photograph of Sarah to identify her, and he's fallen in love with her before the
two even meet. Luckily for him, Sarah reciprocates his feelings, resulting in John's conception. This
means that if John Connor had never instructed Kyle Reese to go back in time and protect Sarah,
John never would have been born in the first place. It's a confusing paradox, but it's easy
to overlook considering how well everything comes together in the film's final moments.
In the climax of "The Terminator," Reese sacrifices his life to save Sarah,
completing his destiny — at least, in this timeline. After Sarah manages to defeat the
T-800 and escape with her life, a flash-forward reveals that she's pregnant with Reese's child.
Sarah records messages for John, informing him of his complicated
destiny in a scene that sets up their relationship in the sequel.
"If you don't send Kyle, you can never be… God, a person could go crazy thinking about this."
In the final moments, a boy at a gas station takes a Polaroid photo of
Sarah — the same photo that Reese fell in love with. Everything comes full circle.
Regardless of whether you prefer "Terminator" or "Terminator 2,"
it's hard to deny that they're among the best action movies of all time.
Cameron's sequel to "The Terminator ” is a non-stop thrill ride that proves you
don't need convoluted twists to make a compelling time travel story — and as such,
it has the most straightforward ending in the series. In its simplicity,
"Judgment Day" also brings something to the table the other "Terminator" movies lack: hope.
Sarah and John Connor find themselves safe once again after Arnold's Cyberdyne Systems Model
101 — now programmed to protect John Connor rather than kill him — saves them from the T-1000. In one
of the film's most iconic scenes, the Model 101 lowers himself into a vat of molten steel
after explaining that he must destroy any trace of future technology in the present. His sacrifice
fills Sarah with hope: for the first time, she can imagine a future where machines and humans
live together in harmony. It's too bad that things would only get worse for the humans from here.
While it's far from the best "Terminator" movie, "Terminator 3" arguably has the darkest ending of
the series. Instead of finishing on a victorious note like James Cameron's original films,
"Rise of the Machines" ends with Skynet finally achieving self-awareness and global domination.
At the end of the mindless sci-fi romp that is "Terminator 3," John Connor and his future wife
Kate arrive at Crystal Peak — a decommissioned military outpost where they had been told they
would be able to put an end to Skynet once and for all. This was their destination all along,
but in a devastating twist, the structure is revealed to not be Skynet's core: instead,
it is a fallout shelter, and the end of the human race is imminent. The machines won the
moment Skynet became self-aware; there was never any hope of stopping them. Judgment Day is here.
This take on John's destiny is a subversion of the expectations of the other movies.
He was never meant to stop the war before it began — Judgment Day was an inevitability.
Instead, he is meant to survive the apocalypse in order to restart the human race with Kate.
"Terminator: Salvation" is the franchise's take on a war movie, and it’s the only one
that doesn't feature Schwarzenegger in the title role. Starring Christian Bale as John
Connor and the late Anton Yelchin as ​​Kyle Reese, "Salvation" follows the pair and their
allies as they attempt a covert mission to shut down Skynet's machine army. The ending of this
one is fairly straightforward: John Connor nearly gives his life rescuing Kyle Reese,
ensuring his own birth. Then, former death row inmate Marcus — revealed earlier to be
part machine — sacrifices himself in the final moments, literally giving his heart to save John.
According to director McG,
the original ending the filmmakers had in mind was much darker. McG told io9,
"Connor dies, we're in a room with all the people we care about. You take Connor's likeness,
you put it on the living machine of Marcus. He sits up, now looking like Christian Bale,
takes a gun, kills Kate, kills Kyle, kills Star, kills everybody, eyes flare red… the end."
This wasn't the only version of this ending that was under consideration:
according to screenwriter Michael Ferris, one scrapped ending showed Connor's face on
Marcus's body but didn't include the evil turn. The writer and director both seemed to appreciate
how ironic it would be if the leader of the human resistance was turned into a machine.
"Terminator Genisys" was an attempt to reboot the series by doing what
the franchise does best and worst — making a sequel to "The Terminator." What boils
down to an alternate timeline version of Skynet's rise ends up being the most
complicated and convoluted in the series' long history. The confusing writing of "Genisys"
certainly applies to its ending. But to explain the ending, we have to start at the beginning.
After traveling back to 1984, Kyle Reese experiences visions from an alternate childhood
he never lived. This splintering of the timeline leads to Reese taking Sarah Connor from 1984
and traveling to 2017, where the upcoming launch of an OS named Genisys will lead to
the creation of Skynet. With the help of "Pops" — this timeline's friendly version of Arnold
Schwarzenegger's Terminator — they stop an evil cyborg John Connor and take down Genisys. To close
the loop, the trio visits the adolescent version of Reese to get him to remember that Genisys is
Skynet — the memory that set the whole film into motion in the first place. To put it plainly,
Kyle Reese needs to tell the younger version of himself to give the future version of himself
the warning that causes this timeline to exist — if that can be considered plain.
After all these time travel shenanigans, a mid-credits sequence shows it doesn't really
matter, though — Genisys survived the attack, setting up the direct
sequels that were canceled after the poor reception of this fifth "Terminator" film.
The newest "Terminator" movie is known more for its controversial — and secretly great — opening
sequence than its ending. In the film's first moments, Sarah Connor and a teenage John Connor
are relaxing at a beachside bar in Guatemala, enjoying some much-needed R&R. Then, out of
nowhere, a T-800 arrives to kill John once again — but this time, it actually succeeds.
Although "Dark Fate" diverges from the established timeline,
it brought back Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and roped James Cameron back in as
a producer to create the most well-received movie in the franchise since "T2." Still,
the final moments are a bit vague with regards to where the future of the "Terminator" franchise
is heading — and whether or not we'll ever be seeing these characters again.
"I won't be back."
In the climax of "Dark Fate," genetically enhanced cyber-soldier Grace sacrifices herself so future
freedom fighter Dani can use her power source to defeat the evil Rev-9 Terminator.
This is Grace's fate, and it needs to happen so Dani can live and fulfill her destiny.
In the film's final scene, Sarah and Dani visit the childhood version of Grace,
who is currently 10 years old. Dani wants to save her and prevent the events of the
movie from taking place, but Sarah knows that they are inevitable.
Dani must accept that Grace has to die to save the world — if not, Dani will die in her place,
and the machines will undoubtedly win after Judgment Day. A dark fate indeed.
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