In The Terminator, Kyle Reese travels from the year 2029.
Reese is a soldier in the human resistance war against Skynet. He is sent backward through time to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor, whose future son John will lead the resistance. The Terminator is sent to the same earlier period to kill her before John can be born.
The film’s future is shown as a devastated world shaped by nuclear war and machine armies. Its time-travel premise creates the series’ central causal loop: Reese becomes John Connor’s father after traveling to the past, while the T-800’s technology later contributes to the creation of Skynet.
The 2029 date is distinct from the dates used in later entries. Terminator 2 identifies August 29, 1997 as Judgment Day, while other films alter or postpone that event through changing timelines.