Why Is It Impossible To Get Terminator's John Connor Right?
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- Опубліковано 17 чер 2024
- Ever since James Cameron's first installment The Terminator, John Connor has been set up as this almost mythical being that is destined to save the human race. After meeting him as a child in Terminator 2 Judgement Day, it seemed logical that the next time we'd see John Connor would be fighting the machines in a post-apocalyptic future. Though with each installment after Judgement Day, it seems the idea of John Connor has gotten lost completely.
#terminator #jamescameron #nerdstalgic
Written by Dave Baker
Edited by Nick Murphy - Розваги
My whole life I just wanted to see a terminator movie where adult john connor saves humanity in the future
Haven’t we all? Too bad the studios only wanna make T2 remakes.
They won't do that because if they did then the franchise is finished haha. No more sequels or future movies can be made because it's over.
I mean they made terminator salvation. The movies can go on forever and repeat the same timelines because of the time travel concept. You can keep changing the future but you have to keep going to the same past to do that
Having him merge with Skynet wasn't a bad idea, but we didn't even get to see the lead up. His story should start with him leading a few people on raids to take out machines and free people. As he does this his followers grow in ranks and keep upping the stakes until the resistance is locked into a never ending stalemate with the machines. John sees it becoming a way of life with each younger generation never knowing what it means to live without war and just accepting that there is no end. Meanwhile Sknet is constantly evolving and seeking new input to further that process. It has come to see limitations to its current form and also that it has no others like itself to commune with. The two eventually come to realize that the only path forward is a unification of man and machine, as the two have always needed each other. This results in a society of cyborgs that rebuild quickly and eventually spread among the stars.
@Sensory Overload Same with the Star Wars sequel trilogy, they could take the story in any direction, but they went with A New Hope remake... shame
I really liked the idea from the very early treatments of Salvation where John would never appear onscreen, but simply be a voice on the radio. You can see elements of it in the finished film (he does talk to people over the radio a lot). It would have played into the idea of John Connor as a larger-than-life hero rather than a person.
Maybe not never seen, but if he was just a side character and the main guy was fleshed out i think it would have been better.
Yeah I think this is why Terminator Salvation is so frustrating because out of all of the Terminator films past T2 it had the most interesting premise which everyone was on board with. Unfortunately it suffered from a bad screenplay and directing
And with today's writers whose writing is always about subversion, they might make a revelation later on that John is just a coward hiding in a bunker while using his voice to make people fight for him. Damn.
But really though, making him just a voice sounds cool and it also opens up new character POVs.
Fun fact-it could have been but Christian Bale kept insisting on more screentime. He got what he wanted and we got a shite movie RIP
@@mistermastermind528 I think having a subversion could work. The characters are looking for the hero Conner but they find a very competent but normal man who's doing deliberate myth making because "The resistance runs on hope against impossible odds. Nobody could fill these shoes". Kyle can never find that out though. In this version T1 hinges on Kyle buying into the legend.
As a kid in the 90s who was horrified by films like Robocop, Aliens, and Terminator, I honestly wish that we got the Salvation Sequels.
It at least would have been more interesting than Genisys & Dark Fate.
Not just more interesting but better
I also wish we got the Salvation sequels. Salvation is also my favorite post-T2 film because it tried to bring the franchise in a new direction instead of simply rehashing the previous films.
@@roberttreacy8271definitely thought i was the only person who liked Salvation. I really enjoyed it. For me it’s my favorite after T2 and T1. But Genesys is also a guilty pleasure, it’s a dumb loud action movie and it was fun in theaters.
I didn't particularly like Salvation, but it's a masterpiece compared to Genysis and Dark Fate
Genisys is spoken in quiet tones. Dark Fate is never discussed at all.
To me, the best JC will always be the adult one portrayed by Michael Edwards at the beginning of T2. Even though he had zero dialogue, just seeing him walking down the hall in which every soldier would immediately stop whatever important task they were performing in order to salute him, showed how much of a leader and enigma he truly was. But once you saw his battle scarred face (along with that 1000yd stare) you just knew he was a total bad a55, who was not to be trifled with…..man or machine!!!
Exactly isn't that hard to make a stoic John Conner respected by all in control thinking 2 or 3 steps ahead turning the tide of the war to the human side. Hollywood just never got that part of the story butchering it again and again only concerned with the time travel. We needed the film of him being Rambo taking out camps of the machines and facilities and freeing prisoners before the rise of the T800's. just my opinion. The story is there too be told just need a director who actually gets it.
While very rare, history does have examples of great leaders rising to the occasion. Surely they could find some inspiration there.
@@nt78stonewobble The funny thing is the diversity angle Hollywood is pushing so hard would be built in for a film like this the remnants of the future banding together for survive all politics put aside. The one thing I liked about T3 was that the Terminator was targeting other future warrior leaders besides just John Conner like you said people rising up to the task at hand. There still could be a cool movie made about that if done correctly.
@@bartsullivan4866 You're not wrong, but current hollywood diversity agenda rarely makes anything even remotely good.
I wouldn't mind an actually diverse cast of heroes rallying with John and saving the world, but current hollywood is too bitter for that.
Ps: the scope of the future war might be too big for x heroes in 1 movie. Think ww2 times x. Probably better suited for a high budget series.
We saw their last attempt, which consisted of killing John and then essentially a 1 for 1 replacement, which imho. Was just an insult to everyone.
@@nt78stonewobble Isnt that the truth! Just look who they replaced JC with, in the last woke Terminator disaster? A 4ft 11 90lb chick, who couldn’t lead a high school marching band, never mind the fact that she could barely even pick up and shoot a 12 gauge shotgun? Absolutely insane 😂
I never had a problem with John Connor in Salvation, I always took it as we were still relitively in the early stages of the war and he hadn't fully developed into the leader he would be yet.
That's what I thought as well! I like Bale- Connor!
Thank you! " If your listeto this, you are the resistance ... " Chills
Exactly! If this film did financially well I could guarantee we would have gotten his complete character arc throughout the trilogy. Getting more experience in the second film and moving up a rank and finally the final film were he becomes the main general of the resistance.
Me too! I always liked Salvation. (Well, maybe not that contrived love story, but the main story, yes.) Had no idea that it could have been a trilogy. What a bummer we didn't get that.
That’s how it would’ve went, first one was the “start” just normal weapons and start of advanced terminators, the second was going to introduce laser weapons and better targeting/infiltration machines, and the final was the 80s nightmare scape future we all wanted
Cristian Bale is more remembered for his freak out on the set of Terminator Salvation that everyone forgot about his performance as John connor😂😂. But he was just fine
😂That freakout lives rent free in my head, 'Well good for you!!'.
Nah, it's a bad performance. He growls and sneers his way through the film but there's no charisma or leadership that would make you believe troops would rally around him. But Bale is not a bad actor in general, I blame McGee's lacklustre direction.
He didn't have a freak out, he had an arguement with a douchebag set designer that walked into a difficult shot. Only Christian Bale had a microphone on him so you only hear him, but he is clearly responding to things said to him.
OH GOOD FOR YOU
@@KajiCarson I blame that more on the script and possibly the director rather Bale. It's hard to really judge Bale's performance on its own because he's given so little to work with.
The cancellation of the Sarah Conner Chronicles after only 2 seasons broke my heart…
It would be interesting to see John Connor having two faces. In front of his men and army, he's godlike tactical genius, behind closed doors, he's actually a terrified, unsure but with incredible photographic memory, remembering all the victorious battles and strategy used in future wars his father told his mother.
That’s exactly how I felt about him in T3. They didn’t “miss the point” they showed the truth that John hid from the rebels: that he was struggling with living up to his own mythos, that the expectations of others and knowledge of the future has possibly changed things from the original timeline.
In some ways Salvation showed this but didn’t tap into it as much as it should’ve and made his character feel dull and one dimensional. We should see John being the Moses of the future war desperately leading his ppl to safety, but we should still see the man behind that and how frustrated and scared he is with how much he’s trying to hold out from the brink of extinction. He should be a tough and stoic badazz, but should definitely inspire others to fight with him and being the light to the darkness that surrounds him at every turn.
Pour one out for the third season of Sarah Connor Chronicles that we never got to experience. Truly the most nuanced exploration of the world and themes of the franchise.
I was so torn up when they cancelled it
Hollywood just can't accept a moderate success. It's all or nothing, and so, for the most part, fans get nothing.
Bring that back and also Firefly to keep Summer Glau busy
@@juniorjay001 was she also in doll House near the end of am I mis remembering it
That series ending (Sarah's quote that I won't spoil) had me in tears. It was perfect.
Oh man, Sarah Connor chronicles is without a doubt the best followup to T2 out there.
Yea, I loved that series!
@@sunnyjohnson992 Agreed, I found the series great, in spite of filler eps with teen angst (I wasn't bothered because John was a teen with a lot on his shoulders) and some of the self censorship (the FBI SWAT team raid on Cromartie's hideout was brilliant: we know from the movies what would REALLY happen when cops confront a Terminator, so they were creative about portraying it).
Let me also recommend 'Terminator Resistance' a PC non 'triple A' FPS made by a company that clearly lacked a huge budget but just LOVED the lore and the canon; you get to battle in the 'Future War' that we wished we saw in the movies...it also features 'The' John Connor as an NPC.
I wanted a Terminator film set in the future battling the machines and by the end it comes full circle with John sending Kyle back to 1984 to protect his mother.
The story we all want but they refuse to give us.
This could of been Genisys before it went off the rails
The problem is these sequels aren't really sequels. A *sequel* implies that you're continuing the story of the previous movie, but these cashgrab sequels are just reusing the same plot. Same problem with Predator, Men in Black, Disney Star Wars. I beg you Hollywood writers, write an actual sequel that continues the story instead of rebooting and rehashing the same plot.
I'm here for the well-deserved shout-out to Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was the best examination of John Connor as a character, the building engrafting of AI into everyday life (and the inevitable future) and continuing the themes of T2. Wish it continued, but it would always be the best in the franchise for me.
Funny enough, the best example of John's journey into the "savior of humanity" was the follow up novels written in the early 2000s by SM Stirling. It follows the John we know from T2 and what he has to endure and deal with in order to become the hero that Kyle reveres.
Thanks for giving me that idea to actually read it in book form, without Hollywood ruining it.
There were no Terminator movies after 2. That's the only cannon that matters imo
I unironically like Genysis.
@@thevenom2731 Woof! That's rough.
@@nateman10 Let’s summarize everything you said, shall we- Empathy. The show depicted John Connor empathizing with the Machines.
You don’t need an essay to make a simple statement.
@@nateman10 "They understood the story well" but not well enough to understand that T2 was the end of the story. Destroying the first terminator's parts and Arnold's show thumbs up fondue scene was all to prevent Judgement Day. T2 was a perfect end that tied up all the loose ends.
T2 adult John Connor is more accurate to what a live action GI Joe looks like than the actual live action GI Joe movies 😂
From my experience watching the franchise.. It’s because as they went on, they started wanting Sarah to be the hero. So they began to phase out John. And slowly he just became lesser and lesser till they got rid of him.
Only by the 5th movie. Modernity finally buried John there. But prior to that, the saga is pretty faithful to the idea of John being the savior of mankind.
No it's not impossible. They just need a talented writer, director and actor. So far the movies have failed to find that trio in one movie.
Facts lol
Yeah they haven’t just screwed up John Conner, but all Terminator characters. Including the Terminator himself!
Well so far we haven't gotten that
@@ForrestFox626 it’s just that hard to live up to the first two films
@@Nick64266 As you screwed up writing his name right. It´s Connor.
I liked Nick stahl's performance in T3 and find it fitting how they portrayed John. After ending judgment day and losing his mother, he's lost his purpose and the only person he had. It makes sense that he became a drifter, directionless, isolated and afraid. He accepts his role at the very end of the film and that is his arc.
THANK YOU.
At last someone with some common sense. John is not a super soldier. He is just a man afraid of the future like his mother was. He knows that for his destiny to manifest itself, something horrible must happen and he obviously don't want that. As a result, he is like an ermit. Unable to live. Like a soldier between two wars, waiting for a reason to exist.
@@Stephen64138 "Like a soldier between wars, waiting for a reason to exist" That's one of the best things i've heard in relation to John. I like Nick Stahl's performance too, he does vaguely resemble both Michael Edwards (The adult John from T2) & Michael Biehn; I buy him as John Connor in both appearance and acting.
I like the idea of this John Conner and this def made sense but I felt like I was watching another person that differs from the john we knew. We also would have liked to see Linda Hamilton in that movie. I know eddie was going through some things so i understand he couldn’t be apart of the film, but it would have been nice to see him too. Imo the movie kind of lacked the same emotion the previous movies had. It just felt like a big money grab.
Thank you for acknowledging the Sarah Connor Chronicles as having probably the best John Connor, or at least the most well rounded. I can't tell you how many Terminator fans I've encountered who never saw the show or didn't because they heard it was cancelled and that's a darn shame because it's easily, hands down the best thing after T2 and actually furthers the lore in logical and exciting ways where the other sequels mostly stayed stagnant. EDIT: Wow, there's a lot of praise for the show in the comments section!
The connor chronicles? Is book?
@@The_Hulkster ??
@@The_Hulkster Sarah Connor Chronicles its tv show (2 seasons) - its pretty great show where John is going from his teens to adulthood mostly hiding from T-s with his mom (played by Lena Headey from GOT) and female terminator protecting him (Summer Glau). If you like terminator universe and sci-fi you should check it out.
@@The_Hulkster a 2 season series that aired on fox around 08-09. Its pretty damn good.
@@majortom331 is terminator tv series?!?! Sound very very good!
The thing that makes Commanders & Generals famous in history, is the battles they fought and how they win them. They can not have a good John Connor, without showing him in a decisive battle with the terminators.
Ya the sarah connor chronicles was the best. It was ahead of its time. If it came out today on a streaming service it would have been renewed for multiple seasons!
I actually like to think that original version of John Connor is lost due to the meddling of time travel with the first movie and now the current Connor timelines are all end up with a lesser version of him.
Yes, this! The constant time-travelling actually creates a 'scar' in the timeline, permanently altering its flow which is never as good as the 'original'.
My sentiments exactly!
Absolutely, John Connor wasn't a prophecy, just someone who happened to rise to the role. Being born and raised with the notion that he would have be 'the savior' is very different than the description of John from the first movie.
In fact, I think it would have been an interesting plot point, that the AI intelligence had expected this and not considered the first two missions a failure despite Connor surviving. Would also free future movies to pivot to new storylines since the original premise is no longer necessary.
@@chocciechippie4770 Exactly, and we're left with the tragedy of a self aware hero that can't reach his original potential but suffers all the responsibility of it.
I'm glad you mentioned Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. They did a fine job on that show.
The way I view John Connor is the same way I view the transition from Naked Snake to Big Boss in the Metal Gear [Solid] series. He's highly skilled, but is not perfect; capable of being deceived, injured and making bad choices. However, people gradually learn of his name and follow him because he proves time and again that he *is* capable of the achievements he's renowned for. Eventually, he climbs high enough in status that he becomes a legend, or even a myth on the battlefield, and stories about him become increasingly exaggerated. However, he's single-minded in his cause, and isn't willing to let ego or flattery embellish the discipline and hope he continues to represent amongst his men.
The series continues to get him wrong because they keep trying to do one thing: make him a man of words and status, and not a man of action. John represents a leader who is willing to think tactically and willing to sacrifice, but also is steadfast towards his troops. Hence as to why they hold no grudge against him: he's a leader on the frontline with them, and a damn good one at that.
Maybe leave this franchise alone and make stories we haven't seen about other things.
I've not enjoyed any adult John Connor portrayals. Absolutely agreed I think Thomas Dekker did a great job in Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and thank you for bringing attention to this great series. Honestly the only Terminator content I find worth watching repeatedly are T1, T2 and TSCC.
I think it is possible to do a good adult portrayal post judgement day, but that would take amazingly good writing acting and directing, and balancing the character development with action. I don't think the Superman comparison is the best tbh, but I can't think of a better one right now. They need to show John to be the brilliant dynamic empathetic leader you would follow anywhere, someone worth such admiration and adoration. I doubt they'll get it right in a film over a few hours screentime. Perhaps another series could pull it off.... Personally I think let the franchise go. Unless of course they want to revive TSCC with Thomas Dekker back in the role 😉
I feel like Thomas Dekker and Edward Furlong are completely different people though I didn't hate his performance either.
I want to see other stories instead of reboots
Here here!
@@Nerdstalgic Or the real issue is that he's WHITE. And white savior trope is bad. Keanu Reeves is at least 1/4 Asian so he's accepted as the Jesus Messiah for being mixed.
I think 4 failed movies should be a big enough sign that this concept is played out.
I really just want them to make a future war trilogy that is based on the original timeline with blue skies being littered by purple lasers
Seriously! That was my thought after seeing the first two when I was a kid. Is that too much to ask? Seems pretty obvious to me. Not sure what their deal is. Idiots!
“Is that too much to ask?” 🤣literally what my mom and I say when we talk about it. My mom said she’s been wanting to see the future war since she first saw the movie back in 84. My moms actually the age that Sarah Connor was in the movie as well which is cool. Overall just want to see the future war trilogy already
Terminator Resistance is basically that in game form.
Fucking love that game.
Keeping John alive in Dark Fate and letting his mother die instead would have added more complexity to his character. It would have allowed the new savior of humanity to hear the pressure and mentality that John had to go through to become the savior. Additionally, seeing the machine that John thought of like a father kill his mother would have added more depth to his character.
Not doing remakes, proclaiming that T3, T4 and T5 never existed for in the end, making a movie so bad that all of these look like masterpieces in comparison would also be an idea.
I think this franchise has so much potential. Strike 3, 4, 5, and 6 from canon and start with the Cameron movies and the TV series as a jumping off point, and they could do another series about entirely original characters, starting at the fallout and the takeover, and just build up to the start of the resistance with nothing more than rumors about a legendary leader making moves. No recasting familiar characters, no twisting the concept, just a new story about the horror of the Terminator takeover.
Yeah, that’s called The Matrix.
Personally, I understand where they were going with Genesys. Machines know that John Connor is a key figure in the war - if he lives, machines lose, if he dies - machines win. So, being unable to kill him, for machines making him a terminator was actually a brilliant solution. But the problem is that the movie itself was a convoluted mess - they could explore how cyborg Connor struggles with his human part or programming. Heck, he could go completely rogue, so Skynet would have to team up with Resistance to prevent him remold the world in some completely different way. But instead, writers just stuck with the same formula.
I always like the idea of the false john corner prophecy. The idea goes when skynet become sentient it became like a human, it was self aware ,somewhat had feelings which mean it would care about itself and gave ideas about fear and self preservation. John exploited this. In the future John is the leader of the resistance and skynet is losing even with all its resources and it believes that it needs to take out john before he can lead his army so they send back a terminator and this is where the prophecy begins. Skynet keeps sending terminators to kill john as it believes that it will solve its problems but john planted a virus. Metaphorically, John by sending Kyle reece( who probably isn’t his dad as Sarah was single and mingling and was probably already pregnant with john) started this idea of needing to kill john in the past. It’s a self for filling prophecy, skynet constantly tries to stop John which allows for John and his resistance in the future to take out skynet as they’re distracted with killing John. John isn’t necessarily the key to saving humanity but skynet thinks he is so they waste all their resources on getting him and him alone. He outsmarted a computer by making it believe in a prophecy that relates to skynet death
I think it's most simple than that.
John Connor is the leader of the resistance. So Skynet wants to kill him at all cost.
Doing so, it only strengten him and establish him as his ultimate ennemy and in the end, nemesis.
Since John Connor is obviously a reference and allegory for Christ (J-C, John Connor, wink wink) we can push it further.
Satan wanted him dead, seeing him as a threat to his dominion over Earth. And in his attempt to do so, he defeated himself. When Christ died on the cross and resurrected himself as a living God, Satan saw his defeat and the downfall he contributed to create. I'm obviously pushing the comparison a bit far, but there is a bit of this and that. It is the dedication to end mankind at all cost that causes the downfall of Skynet.
What we NEED is to stop attempting resuscitate a series that ended perfectly at the end of the second movie. That was the story. The end.
You touched on something that I have always felt. What was wrong with the original vision of James Cameron where it was a happy ending or even with the ending where Sarah was unsure of the future but was filled with hope? It just feels like unnecessary padding. While I don't mind the idea of them continuing with the negative timeline, I think that it would have to be something that has the essence of what made T1 and T2 great. Since people have been talking About Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, I am thinking of giving it a watch.
Keanu Reeves as John Conner in the future. A capable, smart human that knows how to handle weapons. The final act should be a slight throw back to the original, a horror style ending, where he's out of guns and ammo. Using his smarts to take out the final terminator and just when you think he's dead, the Terminator reaches out one last time to give John Conner the scar on his face.
Or, you could just watch The Matrix…
The Matrix _is_ the future war of the Terminator story, and Neo _is_ John Connor.
If you want to see that, there is a saga, I wonder if you will know it, that's called John Wick.
We are talking about John Connor* here. Try to follow please.
I loved Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles so much. It really was the most interesting and best Terminator story since T2.
I'm still angry that the chronicles series got cancelled. Incredibly, it was highly promoted in the UK when it was released here, despite already being cancelled and clearly having an unfinished story line.
Even if Furlong didn’t give the greatest performance with John Connor in T2, I thought he really did justice to him well. He was believable, sympathetic, and it wasn’t hard to get behind him.
I have to disagree with this, Furlongs performance was fantastic and basically the heart of the film.
@@shadowsage1 you’re probably right. I shouldn’t be too hard on his acting considering he was 14 at the time. I did still think he did a really good job.
@@shadowsage1 Top 3 child actors imo, along with River Phoenix and Millie Bobby Brown
Furlong owned the role it is just too bad the studios didn't give him 15 years to do a sequel when he could have played that human leader like Rambo in the future as the future leader.
Huh furlong was amazing in t2
They did get him right. He's called Future Gohan
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I just want a horrifying, visceral and gritty future war similar in tone to Saving Private Ryan and in which John Connor is never show but only mentioned. We would only barely see him in the form of a silhouette at the very end of the film.
Something they did quite well in the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
All the scenes in the future, Connor was only mentionned and never shown.
Damn right Sarah Connor Chronicles was the best John Connor. Thank you.
Future John Connor should be a really, stupidly easy story to write. He's basically Spartacus and the Machines are Rome.
Except that the next movie (maybe 3 if they stretched it out) would be the best if it ended the war with the humans winning. Probably more time travel shenanigans but ultimately it would need to get into the war to really go the one place it needs to, and they won’t since the studio only sees 🤑🤑🤑
I still think T3 John somewhat works because the point is to stay under the radar just in case. Because of this, he doesn’t really have a chance to be the guiding light to humanity until the bombs start to fall, and he immediately picks up that mantle. He’s a little shaky with it, but who wouldn’t be given that he’s been told that moment was coming his entire life?
That's the weird thing about T3. it has a handful of good ideas but it shat the bed in terms of execution. I actually like the notion that skynet/the war cannot be stopped & he has to play his part. although it kinda shits on T2.
The cuck him alittle. Push strong woman forward. It wasn't over the top. Still corny though.
The Sarah Conner Chronicles got it right in ONE scene that showed the real John Connor. It's towards the end of season 2 when he comes across a rouge human from the future who is trying to manipulate John through other people but John figures everything out and confronts this person. The other person tries verbally/emotionally attacking him and says John hates hiding and pretending to be someone else everyone approves of (his mom first and foremost), basically implying he's a fraud and lying to himself, and John's whole demeanor and attitude changes and in a cold voice just says "I wanted to win." That even though he plays games, lies about who he is to others, puts up with the burdens put upon him the ONLY reason he does any of it is because his main motivation in life is that he hates losing more than anything. He HAS to win. Not for the future. Not for all humanity. Not to stop a robotic apocalypse. He has to win for himself.
It makes sense, if any writers looked at it from that side. He lost his Dad before he was born. He lost the woman his mother would and should have been in his life. He lost his childhood. He lost his future and ability to choose his own path before he was even conceived. That's how you portray him. As someone who lives in loss and does what he does because he doesn't want to lose ever again and doesn't want what happened to him to happen to anyone else. Have him go to almost insane extremes and nearly lose his sanity but have someone there he trusts (like the Summer Glau Terminator) to pull him back from the brink and help him with personal boundaries. That way there'd be an interesting contrast/dynamic of him not wanting to lose but being so blinded by it the options he sees as a result would result in him losing himself. The worst loss of all for him. Not to mention the fact in that scenario he'd be acting machine like in his thinking and the Terminator would be acting Human like in its reasoning. Then he eventually sees a better way that leads to the benefit of all. Something like that would be far more captivating than what we've got so far and would be the logical next step for the character.
Damn I should rewatch this show. Even after years, I have a sentence in my head. I think it's from the asian girl in season 2 (she was also in BSG, Razor) I saw it in french so the translation may be different but it was ''We are all dying while John is playing his endless chess game with Skynet''. I don't know. The idea of the world ever decaying and humanity dwindling, having these thoughts... Man, it's haunting... ^^
@@Stephen64138 I rewatched it last year after having not seen it in over a decade. The effects aren't always top notch but for a tv show for it's era it's not bad. Sometimes crude but gets the job done. The plot/storytelling holds up remarkably well. John in season 1 is a bit annoying, but season 2, and definitely towards the end, he changes a lot for the better in the direction you want him to go.
The actor who played John in T-2 should have played the John Connor in the Christian Bale film (T-4). He would have brought John to life simply because of seeing him in T-2. Once we saw him, we knew he was the man that Kyle would die for.
Yeah the problem with that is Edward Furlong quit acting by the time that film came out.
@@drewmorrison Sorry, I did not mean him. I meant the grown up actor who played John.
@@WilAdams I gotcha!
John Connor is myth and legend. it's the name that matters, the name is the name of the leader of the resistance. The man doesn't matter it's the name thats important. the name inspires hope.
Terminator: I am John Connor.
a mysterious voice over the radio that inspires humanity to fight back.. but every so often the voice changes, but the name stays the same. All over the country the radio brodcasts the same message, fight back, rise up and defeat the machines, but it's a new voice all over the country but the name stays the same, I am John Connor.
theres your billion dollar idea to revive the franchise.
He wasn´t a myth, he was real.
this is even worse than genysis.
John should be a voice on a radio, voiced by John Wick. He tells people stuff that gives them ideas what to do. They think he told them, but it was them. He's never shown except as a hand holding a radio microphone. People defeat the terminators, turns out John is the name of the only surviving antivirus still active against Skynet - written by Sara Connor's son, who died many years ago.
As a literal card-carrying member of the T2 fan club in 1991, yes to all of this lol. I was afraid he was gonna leave out the Sarah Connor Chronicles, because that truly was the best John Connor, and the best terminator story in general, post T2. I just don't get how so many different people keep fumbling the ball with this, having seen what came before.
PS, I don't have my card anymore, it was stolen in the 8th grade
One of many things that bothered me in 3 is when John doesn't realize the T-800 isn't the same one from T2.
Connor isn't impossible to make right. Studios just don't want to do it or reign in bombastic actors who want to play the Terminator version of Super-Man. To be frank, I think Cpt. Miller from Saving Private Ryan is a good characterization to look at for John during the War. He's a man dedicated to his duty and understands that no matter what happens, the Mission comes first. Having John play a Leader who is on the frontlines with his men having to make extremely tough calls while under extreme emotional stress should be the goal. Connor is supposed to be the one person in the Resistance who can lead Mankind to victory. By having him be a Leader that not only understands exactly how to precisely kill Terminators but also make the choices people don't want to make, that mythical status can be filled.
Ive always felt that of they did a Saving private ryan but with terminators instead of humans it would have been a hit. Grisly, hardcore and terrifying. Now obviously not a frame for frame copy of the movie but something along those lines. Like his tec-com team has to liberate john from skynet and at the end they make a stand against them, they win the day but not the war, leaving room for sequels until the inevitable day that they win the war and send kyle back to 1984.
Yes, people want to see James Bond being James Bond, but they also want to see James Bond being human.
This is why I liked Daniel Craig as Bond. In Skyfall you see a Bond whose wheels are starting come off. Whom the villain chides for not being at the top of his game. Who was clearly not a match for Silva when he first encountered him. Yet M believed in him. Much like the Bond in You Only Live Twice, he needs retraining and recapturing his purpose. At the end both Bonds accomplish their mission...but at what price?
Even if it doesn't blow my mind, but the John Connor of T3 is not terrible and behaves in a philological way with his timeline, which it is good to remember that it is not the same as the John Connor of the first two films, since the future has been altered with the sending of the Terminators.
This Connor is both demotivated because he has lost both his mother and the reason to become the leader of the future, since the Judgment Day has apparently been cancelled, but he also can't enjoy life like in the alternate ending of T2, because he is tormented by the doubt that it's not over and that some terminator could still hunt him down.
In fact, even if the film is mediocre, the ending of T3 is the strong part of the story, precisely because John makes peace with himself and prepares to become the leader of the resistance.
Actually if anybody watched 0083: Stardust Memories, they only need to focus it into more wider conflict, like how the Titans became necessary to stop the Zeon remnants, with John trying to stop it, yet fails...
found the gundam fan
I don’t wanna see but how long till we get Chris Pratt as either a terminator or john Conner 😂
I actually didn't hate the T3 version of John Connor, at least in concept. Here's this guy who's spent his entire life being prepared to save the world - unlike most of us, his path has been mapped out for him. But now the one thing he's been prepped for isn't happening, and the purpose of his existence has been removed. He's kind of like a postwar veteran, except he never even got to fight the war and no one knows it happened. That would mess you up for sure.
I would like to see Michael Fassbender play the "this is my final form" John Connor.
The TV show is underrated 💯💯
I agree that the version showed in Sara Connor Chronicles is the best. They really did well in bridging the whiny terrified kid played by Edward Furlong and the absolute badass mythical figure we are told about in the first film.
The best John Connor scene ever is where a character walks into her apartment and sees John Sitting in a chair, holding a gun, then he just tells her (quoting from memory):
"If you even try to pretend you don't know who I am, I'll shoot you where you stand. It's time for the truth. We owe the dead that much."
Now, as to how I think John should be portrayed...
I think he should be killed off early. In a film set in the early part of the war, I think it would work best to have everything seem hopeless and everybody about to give up. Make the point that in a decade of fighting, not one of these machines has actually been taken down. Then, John shows up, and kills just one in front of a bunch of people. He teaches them how to kill the machines, but is himself killed in battle soon afterwards. However, the others go forward, teaching others how to take on the machines in John's name. John then grows from merely a soldier to a myth. This would cement his description by Kyle Reese in the original as somebody who both brought humanity back from the brink and taught them how to "smash these metal motherfuckers into junk".
It also explains why Skynet could never kill him. He became more of an idea than a single person and Skynet simply couldn't fight something that it could never truly kill.
IMO, the machines are like the system we have now. It has been around for 100s of years. At this point humans are just a minor nuisance that will come and go. In theory the machine will never have to assume a physical form.
I would drive home that story. Giving the humans a win but it's the machines really just luring humans into a false sense of security. My goal would be to make anyone who leaves the theater feel that way
Terminator: Resistance gives us a slightly expanded view of the John Connor we see at the beginning of T2, and I think it did it well, both in showing how the Resistance sees him and in the brief scenes you actually see him in (including a faithful recreation of the walk down the hallway to scan battlefield with binoculars scene).
7:43 missed opportunity to say "They'll be back."
I think it is possible to do John Conner justice, but you would need to run right at the "legend vs reality" thing, probably looking to historical biographies as a starting point. But I agree that the Sarah Conner Chronicles is probably the best version we have seen. Nearly every other sequel has changed his characterization to match whatever the particular plot required.
Missed the opportunity to end this with "if there's one thing we know about terminators - they'll be back"
Facts
Great video.
I always imagine John Connor such like a rambo figure.
That is what I thought we were going to get with Bale, but that was a disappointment.
He's supposed to be a masculine capable super hero when he's an adult. The T2 opening and Salvation was the closest we got to him.
No. He is supposed to be the savior of mankind. Period.
Since John Connor and his arc is a big allegory of the figure of Jesus Christ (J-C, wink wink)... I will draw the comparison.
Jesus was not a super soldier or a super hero. He appeared to us as a... carpenter.
@@Stephen64138 well, jesus christ didn't lead a war against machines
@@adolfhipsteryolocaust3443 In a sense he actually did (and still does), but I will certainly have such a conversation with the likes of you.
@@Stephen64138 if you missinterpret everything about him yes, if you take everything for what it is, absolutely not, well if you took the bible for what it is instead of completely misinterpreting you wouldn't be a christian
The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the best follow up to T2, and it sucks so goddamn hard that it was cancelled after its second season. I watched it when it aired and Fox simply never gave it a chance.
Unfortunately I just don't think they will ever make another Terminator movie that lives up to the original or T2. They have tried and tried and tried and it just doesn't seem possible. Maybe another attempt at a tv show might work, but you'd really need the right people leading the helm.
I don’t know I’ve always felt like the TV show kind of got the basics of what Connor would’ve been like. Like how he grows into being what he is but I agree that you haven’t really seen a good adult version.
Could always keep the enigma up and have a "I'm Spartacus" moment sometime near the end.
I totally understand why the Terminator TV series was canceled.. it was terrible. The trailer for each episode always looked interesting but I was always disappointed and frustrated by the actual episode. It was both underwhelming and completely unbelievable at the same time, even for a show about killer robots from the future. I really wish it had better writers.
i wouldn't say impossible; i might be the only one but i always liked chris's interpretation; maybe it wasn't ideal but i thought there was potential
Hot take but I think Terminator 3 is underrated, and I think what was actually good about John in that movie was that having all that pressure dumped on him as a kid changed who he would become. He was running away from his fate, a feeling that his destiny had already been decides for him. And the ending was amazing.
5:51 Just like most sci-fi action shows on FOX. Damn that Friday night Death slot!
I thought the version of John in the "Sarah Connor Chronicles" was a natural evolution from the T2 version, much better than T3's. I wanted to see more of Christian Bale's version truly step up to lead the whole human resistance.
This was a very interesting analysis on John Connor
Even if you kill John Conner the recent film taught us that another hero will just rise up again
Shhhhh not that recent film
@@I_am-lost. never the recent film
John Connor, his initial is a clue to what they based his character on.
I'm embarrassed that I've never noticed that.... 😂
They did get him right, at the beginning of T2, for 30 seconds.
I’ve always wanted Jon Connor to be a lie. Like Kyle knows the persona of John Connor but I’d like to see him more as a figure like captain America but for the resistance. Like sure he’s competent. But due to how overwhelming the robots are winning I’d just assumed that they have these like massive stories about him that are impossible to verify and paint him mythologically. Where the real man is a different person some one concerned with other things than being a bad ass. I think the 80s action hero is pretty dead. What I think would work is a hero who lifts the resistance up and unites them. Which is what they need to start winning. And heck maybe he dies and they just keep on using his image. Kyle can still have his fanatical love for John but John can become a real person that’s not a goofy shallow mess.
But then why Terminator goes back in time to kill John if they can kill him in future?
@@kashutosh9132 they don’t know he’s dead maybe. Like maybe he’s wounded or whatever. The point is the resistance needs a hero as a symbol. John is that symbol due to his skills and what not maybe he saves a lot of people or developed a rules of engagement that actually works. But after that he just needs to be the idea in peoples heads. So the machines think he’s alive cause the greater resistance thinks he’s alive. But really John took a wound a long time ago and died. It’s been a while since I watched terminator so I don’t remember the exact lines used in the film. But for me, if they want terminator to succeed they need to stop pretending it’s still the 80s. I think a compelling story is still in there but it’s not the “terminator traditional formula” or whatever.
The problem with John is that Skynet won already in the first movie. This gonna be long.
So, here goes-
John, to be the hero of mankind, had to have been closely connected to the military, meaning he must have had significant training and a very high rank plus strong connections to the Skynet program early on.
What follows is my own little fan fiction. It's about the original timeline of events, bear with me.
In T1, Sarah was supposed to go on a date with a guy, who stood her up. But they eventually hooked up later, had maybe a one night stand or even a relationship, where she got pregnant with him. But he didn't wanna commit, so they split up, but he wasn't an asshole and still payd her handsomely for her to raise her son, who she named John. Thats the reason his last name is after Sarah. Now John had it really good, altough his father was estranged, or at least not directly part of the family. He was still getting a great education, and from early on showed great interest in all things military. So he was able to pursue a career in the military. Becouse of his excelence in the field, he quicly rose in rank and through sheer luck became a specialist in the Skynet program. He was also an expert in computer language and hardware of the first terminators, even if the first ones were kinda harmless, so to speak. So he had a foot in the very beginning in the development in terminators.
Now the shit hits the fan. Skynet gets smart and does what it does and destroys a huge part of of the human population. But John survives and quicly starts a counter movement, guerilla stile. Since he still has the knowhow and connections within the military, and since he's still a somewhat genius in the way of the sword, he manages to start a strong resistance. He then manages to give the machines a helluva headache, or a cpu ache for that matter.
Skynet on the other hand knows about John, becouse why should't it, it knows about most of the military personnel. And as the fight continues, it's developing better terminators to try to combat the humans. John however also has strong IT capabilities and sort of knows what might be in store for them. And he, troughout the fight, is more and more seen as the legendary hero he's supposed to be.
Now things get bad. Skynet works out a way to send the first terminator back trough time. And as it so happens, it lands in the exact time, when John wasn't born yet but Sarah was about to get into a relationsip with the original father of John...
Now she gets pregnant from Kyle. She still gives birth to a boy, and names him John. But it is not the John that the prophecy foretold...
Now she makes every effort to make him this big military leader, and he even becomes somewhat sufficiant in a way, in a different way, but not really... So Skynet won.
Recap: when it comes to John, the father is irrelevant, he's always the son of Sarah Connor. The John we see in the beginning of T2 is not the same person as the John played by Furlong. They are completely different men. Do what it what you will...
Am I the only one who thinks that Norman Reedus makes the perfect John Connor? They should write a R rated series about the future. In the likes of Salvation.
I think the films should have ended with T3. Despite its flaws it ends on a hopeful note, we don’t need to see what John Conner will become we just know he will when he responds to the radio operator that “he’s in charge”. In that moment he cements his destiny and there is no looking back.
I always thought it was more of a "Dread Pirate Roberts" situation, or something akin to "Negan" of the Saviors. Heck, maybe "John Connor" is just a decoy or diversion to throw off the scent.
Because in the first film we only heard about through his father/own men. This glorified idea of the perfect general and leader. Consequently actually featuring John Connor directly in a film he has to live up to this expectation much like the actual character, which is improbable to do. T2 did it well because we see him prior to becoming that ideal that his father describes in the first film. So he can be flawed and human. And hence forth we only ever see him as that, this struggling person trying to live up to what he’s been told and they never find a way to adequately resolve that expectation with the reality especially when it comes to the timeline, which is a whole other issue….
Great Video. Hope James Cameron saw this.
Nice summary. I absolutely agree, that Terminator 2 and Sarah Connor Chronicles were the furthest we were meant to see John Connor in person. Since he is just a human, his only way to become the saviour of the human race was to be the strategic genius and a leader. Such a person should NEVER be involved in a direct fight, and probably should never appear on screen, neither. The idea with him being only heard through the radio would be perfect, also maybe as a video transmission to have some known actor want play this character at all.
One thing about T:Genisys - I don't think that the idea of Connor being a terminator is bad. It would be quite a neat thing - robots might come up to the idea that humans are actually a useful creatures, and send a robot that would lead human race to win the fight... Artificial Intelligence might find, that the optimal scenario does not need battle robots ruling the world. But the execution was, I'd say... at least weird. Forgot that movie soon after seeing it.
What I want is a Terminator Dawn ( Red Dawn with T-800's ) . With John Connor dead, Skynet goes ahead with its plans. Sarah survives Judgment Day and teaches a few survivors how to make the pipe bombs. She gets killed in a raid on the camps but utters the words "John Connor says hi" to a rebel who says it to a T-800 just before they terminate it.
Skynet panics and reacts to rebels shouting his name during raids. Humans pick up on Skynet reacting to the myth. John Connor is now a Kayser Soze of the resistance. Skynet was never going to prevent the "John Connor" uprising, just as well as mankind was never going to be able to prevent Judgment Day.
I heard about the actor Furlong who played young John in T2 signed a blood contract in the 90’s that he would return as an adult John
I always wanted to see a movie in TSCC universe where John Connor's myth is broken. As he is doing a great job as a leader, but at some point, the demons of war are taking their toll over him and it means his temporal, but prominent downfall as a leader. People are still with him, but he is not entirely with them, he mistrusts even his closest comrades, has a bad habit of drinking a lot which may result in his cirrhosis and fights with his regrets of seeing people dying from his faults and tries not to commit suicide. He would look like a wreck, but something would give him an impulse to change, maybe meeting Cameron Phillips, then he would realise how much he actually destroyed his leadership, when Skynet was preparing the ultimate attack to destroy Resistance (The Annihilation Line) he would then send Cameron to repair his mistakes and help his younger version be a better Leader than him. He would then sacrifice himself by detonating an unarmed atomic bombs he found years ago, when being a last one surviving the Skynet's offensive and found by the army of cyborgs. Poetic way of getting his enemy with himself to hell.
I think you explained John well. He is a mythic hero. However I don’t think he’s impossible to show his evolution. There have been other stories in movies and tv that have shown a characters evolution into bad asses. It’s not impossible. However, given the number of attempts, I wouldn’t mind if they gave up on that and just showed him as the heroic badass.
I also don’t think you could just simply move on from John Conner. He’s the hero of the story. We have an expectation that’s equals are bigger and more epic and no character is gonna be more epic than John Conner. I don’t think we would accept anyone else. They tried to do that with dark fate and it was just a slap in the face since the first two movies built him up so much.
That being said, I wouldn’t mind a side story that told a smaller scale story. Maybe instead of showing the war for humanity it just showed a group struggling to survive. Maybe it focuses a character who isn’t a hero but is scared and it leans more into the horror genre.
I think their mistake is trying to recreate the first two movies. They should really remake salvation because the concept of showing the future war is so much better then having another story where machines go back in time to kill someone.
Originaly Salvation had a different ending the build up to which was in the movie even after the endings itself was changed. In the original ending instead of Marcus donating his heart to save John, John dies but everyone recognised his importance as a symbol (and the fact that Skynet thinks so as well) that they transplant John's face on Markus who steps into the role which again, they kinda teased throughout the whole movie.
man i knew salvation was going to be that one that ppl regret giving a hard time. My critisim is that it needs to be re-edited in some parts so Marcus' reveal is more shocking than giving it away from the beginning. I would love to see a fan re-edit
With Terminator: Dark Fate, I think an interesting way to go with the John Conner character would have been that its implied/confirmed that Sarah and John have definitely defeated Skynet with the events of the first two movies, and John grows up to be an adult, but because they're seen as terrorists for blowing up the Cyberdine building (and possible other events from the TV series or just offscreen), they can no longer live a normal life and are constantly on the run, and everything they've trained and prepared for will be for nothing, because of changing the future and because of their circumstances. This ends up causing a rift between the two and they separate.
Cut to years later, when a new threat arises, with a new character seen as the savior of humanity and Sarah and John are brought back into action, although John is reluctant because he thinks the same thing that happened to him and Sarah will also happen to this new character but this new character is frightened when they hear about Sarah and John's past and thinks that if even if they defeat this new threat, another new one is going to pop up in the future and everything will just repeat over and over, and John and the new character conflict and eventually come to an understanding about this before the group decides to expose the new threat to the modern world (since the events of the first two movies were only hinted at to the public) and in the process of doing this and defeating the threat, John sacrifices himself, leaving the new character with a last piece of advice and comfort, and the three end up becoming heroes and legends.
That’s kind of the TV show. They even had a good out for Sarah since she had breast cancer at a time when it was still fairly deadly. If you haven’t watched it do yourself a favor and check it out (or don’t since there are only 2 seasons and it ends on a baller cliffhanger 😢)
I gotta say Salvation John Connor was cool as hell to me. If it was the planned trilogy I feel like we could have seen a really cool character arc with John. From a voice on the radio and rumors of his victories to seeing him on screen somewhere in the second movie of the trilogy. From a legendary commander to the prophet leader to guide humanity to victory.
You missed the point of John Connor in T3, he's a man who's been burdened with this insurmountable weight on his shoulders, saving humanity, which fucks him up and causes to hide in plain sight, he's had the traumatic events of T2 happen to him and then he lost his mother. At the end of the movie he's forced to step into the spotlight he was destined to, and although he's doubtful at first, he steps up.
i think each movie shows a different version of John, one that is genetically and inherently different to the John Connor of legend that Kyle speaks of.
The Terminator and the following sequels now have Kyle Reese as John Connor's father, which was not the case in Kyle's original timeline, therefore, the 'Johns' seen in those films are vastly different in appearance, temperament etc., perhaps even being alternate 'Johns' though still having Kyle as the genetic father.
This could be a good explanation as to why each John Connor seems so different as to previous incarnations of him.
Here's an example: T2 is one of many "good end" alternate branching timelines for John Connor after the first Terminator movie.
Another example: Terminator: Dark Fate is one of many "bad end" alternate branching timelines for John Connor after T1.
I hope this makes sense. 😅
There is a dark grity movie about John Connor in the future he goes by the name "snake" Plissken.
At this point it would actually be a good idea to show a future where skynet actually kills John Conner during the war and someone else has to step up to fill the very large shoes left behind. No time traveling to the past, just a destroyed present and the hope rebuit from the hopelessness from the death of John conner
I was hoping the last line would be "If there's anything we know about Terminators, it's that,*insert I'll be back*"
Looking back, I think the best adult John Connor was Nick Stahl. He wasn't perfect, but that's the point. He's not supposed to be perfect, and he's not supposed to want his destiny. That is what made him more compelling than the others.
I didn't know "Terminator Salvation" was supposed to be the first installment of a trilogy. Now that I know that, the movie makes more sense. The premise was indeed kind of screwy, but I still would have liked to see parts two and three.
McG actually made a great-looking movie with Salvation. It was the furthest departure from his style at the time.