Love or hate Terminator: Dark Fate, it certainly started a conversation about who, if anyone, is the central focus in the Terminator franchise – is it the eponymous Terminator? A killer cyborg, mass-produced by the malevolent SkyNet, with the sole objective of aiding in the termination of the human race?
Is it John Connor? The heroic future leader of the human resistance and savior of mankind; the one destined to destroy SkyNet?
Or is it the mother warrior? Sarah Connor was always very much the heart of the science fiction saga – I mean, no Sarah = no John, right?
Dark Fate put the spotlight on the prematurely terminated mother of the future, Sarah Connor, a character who had been bumped off somewhere in the exposition of the third movie, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (and no, no-one was happy about that decision back then either).
Fans cried out for a do-over for the legendary Sarah, and T6 was poised to deliver; with the studios promising to wipe away the three contentious instalments which followed the much loved The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day – but was that decanonisation at the expense of the Terminator mythos… ?
The rumors started early, with fans asking the inevitable question of “Where is John Connor?”, and so followed the leaks to reddit, leaks which described a Terminator franchise without the shadowy and iconic General Connor, but he wasn’t simply absent or put to the side – he was to die and set the wheels in motion for a new hero to be born. Dani Ramos.
Was that decision easy for the writers and director?
“Oddly enough, not Jim, not a single writer, uh, not Linda, not anybody – but perhaps Eddie Furlong, had anything at all to say but ‘Oh yeah, this seems like the right way to do it.’ “
Tim Miller – TIFF | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
Story-wise it seems that the production, which had started off without a script (and also began filming without a script), was very much set on removing John Connor from the equation from the very start, and replacing him (please use the comment section below to debate the word ‘replace’) with a brand new character.
Was that move the right one? Logically and thematically; given the very title of ‘Terminator’, hmm… maybe. Although I have always felt that the Terminator franchise has been consequence-light since the second movie (Sarah dying off-screen in T3 wasn’t a consequence, it was lazy writing), offing John Connor in T:DF really didn’t sit right with me.
Was it the right thing to do in the Terminator universe? No. As with Sarah Connor’s death in Terminator 3 – it was also lazy storytelling.
Year: 2017. Location: Writers room. Hollywood.
The group of people assembled around the large oval table sit nursing a collective frown.
“Any ideas?” The tall man asks, his face pale and smooth with a clutch of fine lines beginning to gather at the corners of his eyes.
One man murmurs, his voice barely audible, he clears his throat and repeats himself:
“You said it’s a sequel to T2??” He asks.
“Yeah, the others don’t count. THIS is the true Terminator 3.” Says a stockier man, eyes twinkling with a curious light.
“Um… ” A hand goes up eagerly, with an idea.
“We kill John Connor!” The interruption is brief and to the point. Heads tilt, chairs swivel, eyes searching for the voice, the face, the unthinkable.
“Yes! Yes Yes Yes! Then we can do whatever we want! Wherever we want! With whomever we want! It’ll be our own universe… almost.” The smooth-faced man’s excitement is palpable and infectious. It’s relieving.
The room falls back into silence. “do do do, do do, do do do, do do… ” The Skype tone breaks the silence.
For me, John Connor is a character who has been badly mistreated since Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Our brief glimpse of Michael Edwards as the legendary General John Connor was a taste of something which carried great promise.
The idea that eventually the audience would be given more than that glimpse, that we would get a movie with the myth become flesh, was a tantalizing prospect to all Terminator fans.
The problem?
The studios, with their failed attempts at utilizing the character, had turned John Connor into a McGuffin (a device that drives the plot, but has no real relevance). They had created a figure to drive the story along, but it was a hollow one which lacked credibility and substance, and as a consequence they destroyed him.
If the studios didn’t know how to put the character to its best use – why not reenvision him?
No, I don’t mean make John Connor the villain (hello there Terminator Genisys)…
Why not make him the anti-hero? In Terminator 2 we saw Edward Furlong play John Connor with a rebellious reluctance – he was just a kid, he didn’t want to be the fabled leader of humanity.
In Terminator 3 we saw Nick Stahl enlarge upon Edward Furlong’s child John; we saw a young man who had suffered, who had lost out on… well, life. He’d missed the humdrum, cookie-cutter, mind-numbingly dull, normal stuff. He’d missed out on experiencing life at an organic pace.
He too was the reluctant leader.
So why not use that? The struggle, the complications, the turmoil and heartache, and finally… the acceptance and resilience.
He could have been played differently – in that glimpse of John Connor on the battlefield, as played by Michael Edwards, we never really knew what kind of a person he truly was.
John Connor is / was a character who could have had a rich and engrossing rise to power, but instead… he got shot in the chest at a tiki bar as a child.
The end?
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