John Connor could be the savior of humanity in the Terminator franchise, but trying to do something with the character yet Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been a major problem that has ruined almost every film or TV show since. After many attempts to revitalize the franchise, Mishandling John remains a recurring and common problem With each new project. For such a simple concept presented in the first film and expanded in the second, the series just can’t help but overcomplicate itself – resulting in diminishing returns.
of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines By the latest entry in the franchise, Netflix Terminator Zero series, each project runs into the same issue: no one seems to know what to do with a story that has effectively already ended. of course The series should have finished at its peak with the original ending of T2Which showed a future where Skynet never came to be. Instead, we continue to get dystopian stories from John as a failure in stories that are either wild departures from what made the first two films great, or uninspired rehashes. John Connor’s journey epitomizes this.
Why John Connor is so important to the Terminator series
John Connor being humanity’s savior is the whole point of the story
in The TerminatorIt is immediately stated that due to the time loop created by sending Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) back to 1984 to impregnate his mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), John closed the circle and Terminatorso called”final battle” is over in the future, John and the human resistance have already won. This was Skynet’s last-ditch effort, but it was destined to fail, as long as John finished the story and sent his father back. The series could have ended with just the original film and it would have made perfect sense.
T2 Expands on the quote from “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves“And Doubles down on John as mankind’s saviorBut in an even more satisfying conclusion. Ignoring the original coda that immediately spells it out, the theatrical ending still implies that Skynet was likely never created in the first place, and the actions of protagonists John and Sarah will spare Earth a nuclear holocaust. However, despite how T1 And T2 Are the only truly beloved entries in the series, the constant desire to continue the franchise for monetary purposes, turning writers to continue to navigate avenues that contradict the entire arc.
Every John Connor Twist was an empty gimmick
Playing the “what if” game with John Connor is no substitute for substance
T3 is where the series’ character missteps begin in earnest. John (Nick Stahl) is dead in the future, all the actions of T2 meant nothing, and it is his wife, Kate (Claire Danes), who is responsible for sending the heroic T-850 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time. John is a metaphorical punching bag over and doesn’t really accomplish anything by itself. The next film featured John (Christian Bale) as humanity’s greatest hero, but the original end of Terminator Salvation would have killed him off in the early days of the war, further sidelining the once central character.
Terminator Genisys Took this a step further and made it Jason Clarke’s John the main villain of the film by merging him with Skynet. so too, Terminator: Dark Fate Decided to kill John from the start to get him out of the way, only to replace him with a carbon copy. This film is a lesser version of the T2 story, where Skynet is renamed as Legion, the T-1000 is the Rev-9, and instead of Sarah teaming up with a good Terminator to save her son, a boy from California, they protect Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) – a girl from Mexico With the same character traits as John.
The TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles Keeps John’s importance and worth intact better than anything else, but even that ends on an unresolved cliffhanger. Likewise, in Terminator ZeroThe timeline explanations essentially toss all the previous characters aside for another “What if“Which focuses on Japan. All the new characters are just merged concepts of what was before themWith Malcolm Lee filling in for John and Miles Dyson, Misaki as the heroic Terminator, and Eiko as a combination of Kyle Reese and Sarah. Time and time again, the twists have failed to deliver narratively or dramatically.
Writing off John Connor is the easy, but lazy way out
“Taking Connor then would make no difference.”
The attempts to rewrite history probably arose because It can be difficult to write a story where the hero is destined to winAs it feels like there are no stakes or surprises. In order to create tension and an unpredictable element, the writers take the easy way out, sideline John or completely dismiss his story, and replace him with a new hero who has no expectations of his accident. Then, with a promise to do better next time and a new novelty stunt or superficial marketing tactic to drum up interest, always with a rewritten timeline for a blank slate, the cycle repeats itself.
All this results in lackluster redoes of T1 And T2 Which come more like a Marvel What if or DC Other worlds One-shot comic, rather than a true sequel. If no one can crack the code to make a true sequel with John’s character written as he was intended to be, then The Terminator story is truly finished and should not continue. Similar to how these Star Wars Sequel trilogy only retold the same basic plot of the originals, recreating the magic is not as simple as tossing the chosen one apart and reducing their history. It will always fail to live up to the classic it will inevitably be compared to. That future is indeed written.