The Terminator ending explained

What happens

Kyle dies destroying the machine's body, and Sarah crushes its skeleton in a factory press. Months later she is pregnant, driving through Mexico. The child is Kyle's son, so the future she fears was made partly by the past.

The last image

Sarah drives on toward a gathering storm, a changed woman heading into an uncertain future.

Two readings

1 · Fate is fixedThe time loop suggests the future was always going to happen, with Kyle fathering the very leader he came to protect.

2 · Choice still mattersSarah keeps acting, so the storm may be something she can still face and change.

What it says

The ending turns the chase into a question about fate versus choice. Sarah stops running and prepares, so the hope lies not in the machine's defeat but in an ordinary woman who chooses to carry what comes next.