John Connor
John Connor is a fictional character and the male protagonist of the Terminator franchise. Created by writer/director James Cameron, the character is first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator and first appears in its 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In the character's first appearance, John is portrayed by Edward Furlong as a child, and briefly by Michael Edwards as an adult in a small role. Other actors have portrayed the character in subsequent films, including Nick Stahl, Christian Bale, and Jason Clarke. In addition, Thomas Dekker portrayed John Connor in the two-season television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
The character serves as a protagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and Terminator Salvation, the antagonist of the film Terminator Genisys, and has a brief cameo in Terminator: Dark Fate.
Creation
In a 2021 interview, James Cameron said that the song "Russians" by Sting inspired him to create John Connor: "I remember sitting there once, high on E, writing notes for Terminator, and I was struck by Sting’s song, that "I hope the Russians love their children too." And I thought, "You know what? The idea of a nuclear war is just so antithetical to life itself." That’s where the kid came from."''Terminator'' film series
In the fictional universe's narrative, John Connor is a messianic figure who will lead the Resistance to defeat an empire of robotic Terminators amassed by the rogue military AI Skynet following a cybernetic revolt doomsday event known as Judgment Day. When his mother, Sarah Connor, is the target of a time traveling Terminator unit in the first film, John sends resistance fighter Kyle Reese to protect Sarah, knowing Kyle and Sarah would later conceive him. With foreknowledge from his parents, John fends off Terminator assassination attempts in the second and third films before Judgment Day. In the fourth film, John fights with the Resistance in a postapocalyptic setting after Skynet has taken over.As the series' central plot heavily involves time travel, the story of the character is often non-linear and portrays many possible outcomes, for example Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles continue from the ending of Terminator 2 but are depicted as taking place in alternate timelines, while Terminator Genisys revisits and changes the events of the first film. Terminator: Dark Fate also continues from the events of Terminator 2 in another alternate timeline.
''The Terminator''
In The Terminator, John is mentioned and is the basis of the film. The Terminator is attempting to kill Sarah Connor because the latter will be his mother, but John does not make a physical appearance. At the film's end, Sarah is shown to be pregnant with John.''Terminator 2: Judgment Day''
In his first appearance in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John is a 10-year-old child and a juvenile delinquent living with foster parents while Sarah Connor is in a prison hospital for the criminally insane. Though he is informed of his destiny—namely, his future conflict with Skynet—young John is skeptical of his mother's claims about his fate as humanity's leader. While in an arcade with a friend, the Model 101, a reprogrammed android sent by John's future self, and the T-1000 fight over him. This starts a chase sequence where the Model 101 and John try to lose the T-1000; the event validates Sarah's warning to John about Skynet.Later that night, Sarah puts an escape plan into action just as John and the Model 101 arrive to save her, and the three escape. John instructs the Model 101 on how to behave like a human being, teaching it sayings such as "Hasta la vista, baby!" He forms an emotional bond with the Terminator, coming to regard it as a father figure. John later helps avert Skynet's creation and assists in the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems. With the help of Skynet's creator, Miles Dyson, he breaks into a safe to retrieve the first Terminator's damaged arm and CPU, which Dyson—unaware of what it would lead to—was using to create the new technology. After Cyberdyne is destroyed and the T-1000 is melted in a steel mill, John throws the remnants of the first Terminator into the molten steel. He begs the Terminator not to destroy itself as well, despite the Terminator's warning that allowing it to continue existing creates a risk of Skynet being recreated at some future date. John ultimately bids his friend farewell with a hug, and watches as the Terminator is lowered into molten steel.
In a flash-forward at the beginning of the film, John is briefly seen as an adult played by Michael Edwards. Dalton Abbot portrays the character as a toddler in a dream sequence. An alternate ending takes place in 2027, in which John is a U.S. senator and father to a daughter in a world where Skynet was never able to start its war on humanity.
''Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines''
John is portrayed by Nick Stahl in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Now a young adult, John has been living off-the-grid after the second film's events, even as the original Judgment Day deadline in 1997 came to pass without incident. His mother Sarah eventually developed leukemia and died before the events of the film. In the film, John crosses paths with Katherine "Kate" Brewster, a former classmate from when he was living with his foster parents. He is attacked by a T-X Terminator, which was sent from the future. Unlike predecessors, the T-X's objective is to terminate his future Resistance officers as secondary targets because John's location is unknown. When the T-X encounters John, the T-X changes priority to focus entirely on him and Kate. Because of this Terminator being dominant and feminine, John personally coins the T-X as "Terminatrix."A protector T-850, a doppelgänger of John's previous protector, is also sent back in time to protect him, explaining that Judgment Day had only been delayed and is now only hours away. The T-850 also states being sent from the future by Kate, John’s future wife and second-in-command; John had actually been killed by that very Terminator on July 4, 2032, as Skynet believed to be the most suitable for such a mission due to John's emotional attachment to said model. John and Kate intend to halt Skynet's launching. The two mistakenly believe Skynet's core is in a facility, only to find themselves locked and protected in a secure bunker as the first nuclear assault is launched on the United States as a result of Skynet's manipulations. Skynet is pure software and has already spread to every server worldwide, making it impossible to shut down. It is via the radios in this bunker that John begins to broadcast messages to lay the groundwork to help survivors and organize the Resistance.
''Terminator Salvation''
John is portrayed by Christian Bale in Terminator Salvation, now an older, battle-experienced Resistance soldier. Kate Brewster, who serves as a medic, is now pregnant with his child. Kate also assists command with her Tech-Com unit. Since Judgment Day, John has been broadcasting radio messages to both the Resistance forces and surviving refugees in an effort to maintain morale and hope. The story also features new character Marcus Wright, and the teenage Kyle Reese. John starts as one of the many foot soldiers who make up the Resistance movement based in California.Despite having extensive prior knowledge of the machines and Skynet's capabilities, John is largely dismissed by General Hugh Ashdown, who runs the resistance organization, considering Connor a delusional false prophet at best and a dangerous liability to their operations at worst. Nonetheless, there are pockets of people within the Resistance who have come to believe in John's experiences and judgment based on their own firsthand experiences serving with him. In addition, the Resistance's majority is gradually losing faith in the Resistance Command due to Ashdown's ruthless and vicious tactics that cost many of his own soldiers and civilians' lives. Toward the middle of the film, John learns that Kyle has been placed in a detention center by Skynet, which is aware of Kyle's future role as John's father, classifying Kyle as its primary target and John as its secondary objective even over the Resistance's current leaders, and sets out to rescue Kyle, with Marcus leading him to the base. Upon arrival, John faces off with a T-800 crafted in the unit's image that he and his family have encountered previously. John is hurt during his encounter with the T-800 and receives multiple cuts to the face, mirroring the same scars seen on John's face in the opening scenes of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Marcus helps him destroy the T-800 but John's heart is too badly damaged due to injury and Marcus offers his own to John. In addition, after the Resistance Command is caught in Skynet's trap, John's Tech-Com unit takes over the authority with no opposition. John's ending statement is that though this battle has been won, the war is far from over.
''Terminator Genisys''
John is portrayed by Jason Clarke in Terminator Genisys. Following a confrontation with a T-5000 on the war's seemingly final day, just as Kyle Reese is being sent back to save Sarah Connor, John is forcibly transformed into the T-3000 cyborg as a result of a Skynet program to use nanites to convert living flesh into machine matter. Although all other recorded test subjects for this process were left irreversibly insane and then died during the transformation, John came through the process reasonably intact, albeit now a sociopath dedicated to ensuring Skynet's rise at humanity's cost.Skynet then sends the T-3000 back in time to ensure its creation in the altered timeline, John now believing that the future requires man and machine to come together like he has. He travels back in time to 2014 and joins Cyberdyne Systems to help create a new version of Skynet, working with Miles Dyson and Danny Dyson to perfect development of the new Genisys system, turning Skynet into a massive digital network rather than a single computer system. Three years later, despite his superior physical strength, he was destroyed by "Pops", a T-800 reprogrammed and sent into the past by an unknown party to protect Sarah, when both of them were trapped inside a prototype time machine. With the machine just capable of generating the electromagnetic energy that prevented non-living tissue travelling through time without actually generating a temporal portal, Connor is ripped apart while trapped at the heart of the machine after earlier battle-damage disrupted his ability to maintain his organic shell. It is ambiguous as to whether a version of the character will exist in the altered timeline, with John himself stating that his existence is a paradox that is no longer tied to Sarah and Kyle conceiving him.