John Connor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| John Connor | |
|---|---|
| Terminator films and Sarah Connor Chronicles character |
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| Four on-screen versions of John Connor (clockwise from top left): Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, Christian Bale and Thomas Dekker. | |
| First appearance | The Terminator |
| Created by | James Cameron |
| Portrayed by | Edward Furlong Nick Stahl Thomas Dekker Christian Bale |
| Information | |
| Aliases | John Reese John Baum |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 10 (T2:JD) 15 (T:TSCC Pilot Episode) 19 (T3:ROTM) 33 (TS) |
| Date of birth | February 28, 1985 |
| Occupation | Student (T2) Student/Fugitive (TSCC, T3) Resistance Officer (T1, TS) |
| Spouse(s) | Kate Brewster |
| Relatives | Sarah Connor (mother) Kyle Reese (father) Derek Reese (paternal uncle) (TSCC) Tim Reese (paternal uncle) (TS) |
John Connor is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Terminator science fiction franchise. In a fictional post-apocalyptic future first referred to in The Terminator, powerful, intelligent machines have dedicated themselves to the eradication of humanity, and John Connor is the leader of the human resistance movement known as Tech-Com that opposes them. Skynet, the supercomputer mainframe of the machines, decides that John Connor is the focal point of the rebellion and that his termination would end the opposition. After repeated failures at terminating John during the war, Skynet decides to use a temporal displacement device to send cyborg assassins called Terminators to various points in John Connor's past in an attempt to terminate him before the war ever begins. John Connor does make a brief appearance but not named in the original film The Terminator (1984). His mother is the primary target. John Connor is portrayed as a pre-teen by Edward Furlong in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), as a teenager by Thomas Dekker in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008 TV series), as a young adult by Nick Stahl in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003 film), and as a man in his early thirties by Christian Bale in Terminator Salvation, (2009). Other actors have portrayed John in minor scenes, such as flashbacks or flashforwards. There are many elements of the Terminator plot line that allude to the fact that John Connor is similar to a Jesus-like messiah. This includes the shared initials JC.[citation needed]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] The Terminator
The film is set in 1984. The premise is that a T-800 (Model 101) Terminator is sent back in time to 1:52 AM on May 12, 1984 by Skynet, a supercomputer which will destroy civilization and wage war on humanity with an army of highly armed robots in 1997. The Terminator's mission is to kill Sarah Connor knowing that she will give birth to John Connor, the leader of the human resistance in the future war. In response, John Connor of the future sends a soldier, Kyle Reese, to 2:01 AM on the same day so that Reese can protect Sarah.
During this time, John is conceived when Reese and Sarah have a single sexual encounter. Reese is later killed during his attempt to obliterate the Terminator, but Sarah Connor manages to destroy the machine in a hydraulic press. The film ends with a pregnant Sarah, setting off to ensure that John is born and will be able to perform his future role. John Connor is not seen in the present day (1984), but he is born after the events depicted in the movie, and is seen only in a flashback to the future era where he is in his 30's/40's. Although John never appears in the present, Reese does relay a message to Sarah from John saying: "Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to say that the future is not set. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist."
[edit] Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The first sequel to The Terminator is set in 1995, when John (played by young Edward Furlong) is 10 years old. When the film opens, he has been living with foster parents, but finds it difficult to settle to a suburban lifestyle and is a juvenile delinquent. Through dialogue, John reveals that he spent the entirety of his early years being prepared by Sarah for his future role as the leader of the human rebellion during the machine war, learning about weapons, computer technology and espionage. However, Sarah was captured and sent to a mental institution after attempting to bomb a computer factory, causing John to be placed in foster care. In the early portions of the film John is under the impression that Sarah's beliefs are a delusion, and it's only when he is confronted by a T-1000 Terminator sent to terminate him that he realizes that his mother's stories are true. The T-1000 is sent by Skynet to terminate John. As in the first film, a protector is also sent from the future to protect John, but this time it is a reprogrammed T-800 (Model 101), presumably because another Terminator would have a much better chance at defending them from the T-1000 than a human would.
Linda Hamilton's real-life son, Dalton Abbott, played John as a child during Sarah's Nuclear Nightmare Dream scene.
Over the course of the film, John and the reprogrammed T-800 help Sarah escape from the mental institution and team up with Miles Dyson, the man whose research would lead to Skynet's creation, to destroy all of Cyberdyne's research. During their time together John bonds with the T-800, who becomes a friend and father figure to him. Once the T-1000 is destroyed along with all of Cyberdyne's research, the T-800 asks that it be destroyed also so that its technology would not be discovered and used by others, much to John's dismay and sadness.
According to the documentaries in the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition DVD, director James Cameron deliberately kept John "pure" by not allowing him to fire any weapons throughout the course of the film. He is shown to understand weapons, but does not use them in order to depict the character's respect for life. The character's dialogue with the protector Terminator, in which John attempts to teach the machine not to kill, substantiates this depiction.
Michael Edwards appeared briefly in Terminator 2 as a battle-scarred John Connor, leading the resistance in the year 2029 (wearing the four stars of a general on his shoulders) in one of Sarah Connor's story "flashbacks", as well as the alternate ending of John Connor as a US Senator and a father.
[edit] Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
The third film of the series takes place in 2004, and features John Connor (Nick Stahl) as a 19 year old. When the film opens, he reveals in monologue that he has been living off-the-grid after the events of T2, even as the original Judgment Day deadline of August 29, 1997 came to pass without incident. His mother eventually developed terminal leukemia and died.
In the film, John crosses paths with Katherine "Kate" Brewster (Claire Danes), 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 to July 24, 2004. Unlike its predecessors, the T-X's objective was to terminate his future officers as secondary targets because John's location was unknown. When it encounters John it changes its priority to focus entirely on him and Kate.
A protector T-850 (Model 101) is also sent back in time from the future to protect John, and it explains that Judgment Day had not been avoided as initially thought, but delayed to 2004, also stating that Judgment Day is inevitable. The T-850 also states that it was not sent from the future by John, but by Katherine, who is his future wife and second-in-command. The reason for this is because John had actually been killed by that very Terminator on July 4, 2032, as Skynet believed it to be the most suitable for such a mission due to John's emotional attachment to its model number. In the novelization, however, this is shown to be false as John is there giving the order to send the T-800. The reason for this difference is unspecified. It is worth noting that in Terminator Salvation, John battles a T-800 and exhibits no attachment, despite it looking exactly like the T-800 he knew from T2.
Although John and Katherine spend a significant portion of the film trying to halt the launching of Skynet, they are misled to believe Skynet's core is in an underground 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. It is via the working radios in this bunker that John begins to organize the resistance.
[edit] Terminator Salvation
This sequel released on May 21, 2009, portrays John (Christian Bale) in the year 2018, as a 33 year old battle-experienced resistance soldier married to Kate Brewster (Bryce Dallas Howard), who serves as a medic and is now pregnant with his child. Director McG wrote, regarding the casting, "It was important for me to get the most credible actor of his generation to come and add gravitas to what we were trying to achieve."[1] The story features a new character named Marcus Wright, and the younger Kyle Reese character, as seen in the original movie.
In the film, 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 and considered a nuisance by General Ashdown who runs the guerrilla para-military organization. He considers 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 first hand experiences serving with him.
Later on, towards the middle of the movie, John learns that Kyle Reese has been placed in a detention center by Skynet and sets out to rescue him, with Marcus Wright leading him to the base. But upon arrival and seeing that the other prisoners are safe, John faces off with a T-800 crafted in the image of the cyborg unit that he and his family have encountered previously. Marcus helps him destroy the T-800, but due to injury, John's heart is too badly damaged and Marcus offers his own to John, who accepts. John's ending statement is that though this battle has been won, the war is far from over.
It is worth noting that John is hurt during his encounter with the T-800 and receives multiple cuts to the face. These cuts mirror the same scars seen on John's face in the opening scene of the second Terminator movie. This opening scene is set in the future and shows John Connor watching an ensuing battle between The Resistance and Skynet.
[edit] Alternate versions
[edit] Terminator and the "Man of Steel"
With the success of T2, DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics teamed Sarah and John Connor up with the Man of Steel in an adventure that pitted Superman up against not only Skynet, but also against his old rival The Cyborg. In this adventure, while trying to protect Sarah and Young John, Superman is pulled into the future in order to help the older John, as well as an older John Henry Irons (AKA Steel) take down Skynet once and for all. Meanwhile back in the past Cyborg makes a deal with Skynet, while Supergirl, Superboy, a Younger Steel, and even Lex Luthor continue to protect Sarah and young John from wave after wave of Terminator cyborgs.
[edit] Alternate Terminator 2 ending
In an alternate ending included on the Ultimate Edition DVD (though also available through a special feature on the Extreme Edition), an adult John is shown living in 2027, a future without Skynet; he is now a Senator and embracing a part of his destiny to make a difference in the world through his political career (rather than military) and has a daughter.
[edit] Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
The series deliberately subverts the story of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines[2]. It branches off from the shared back story of Terminator 2, and according to consulting producer James Middleton "is [a new] version of T3."[3]
At the beginning of the series in 1999, John and Sarah try to settle down to normal lives after the events of T2, but they are in fear of being captured for blowing up Cyberdyne during the events of the second film. While at school, John is attacked by a Terminator posing as a teacher, and is protected by a reprogrammed Terminator named "Cameron". John learns that Judgment Day has not been prevented, only postponed to April 21, 2011. John does not want to run anymore and asks Sarah to stop Skynet from being created. Cameron uses time dilation technology (built by "The Engineer" from the future) to send all three of them to 2007, just before Skynet is created, so that they can stop it.
Settling down in 2007, John enrolls in Campo de Cahuenga High School under the name of John Baum, after author L. Frank Baum who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a book that Sarah says was John's favorite when he was younger, where he is friends with his fellow students Morris and Riley Dawson. He becomes acquainted with his father's older brother, Derek Reese, who is also a resistance fighter sent back in time to help them.
This version of John is shown to be a highly skilled computer hacker (a nod from Terminator 2), even being able to hack into a Terminator's CPU in order to read the information it contains, as well as easily hacking into the LAPD database. He claims that he could hack a computer system 'in (his) sleep'. He is also proficient in chess, self defense, and weaponry, all of which were part of his training during his childhood. The relationship dynamic between John and Cameron is different than with the "Uncle Bob" T-800 by virtue of her size/gender, with some degree of sexual tension. He also develops a relationship with Riley, a high school classmate, who, unknown to him, is also from the future and working with Jesse Flores, a resistance fighter and lover of Derek Reese. Jesse's plan was for John to become infatuated with Riley, making her a threat to John's security. This would force Cameron to kill Riley, thereby alienating John from her. Apparently, after Judgment Day, rumors abound of an unnatural relationship between the two that affects John's tactical decision making, and some are unsettled that he has appointed a Terminator as one of his lieutenants.
[edit] References
- ^ As quoted by Leah Greenblatt, Adam Markovitz, Chris Nashawaty, John Rottenberg, Nicole Sperling, Christine Spine, Adam B. Vary, Simon Vozich-Levinson, and Kate Ward, "First Look 2009: Terminator Salvation," Entertainment Weekly 1029 (January 9, 2009), 21.
- ^ Goldman, Eric (2007-06-22). "Guiding the Sarah Connor Chronicles". IGN. http://tv.ign.com/articles/798/798086p1.html. Retrieved on 2008-04-14.
- ^ Svetkey, Benjamin (2008-01-11). "Sarah Connor Chronicles". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20170519,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-01-13.
[edit] External links
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