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 (T2). 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 (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), and Terminator Salvation (2009), the antagonist of the film Terminator Genisys (2015), and has a brief cameo in Terminator: Dark Fate (2019).
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 (born on February 28, 1985) 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 (Model 101) in the first film, John sends resistance fighter Kyle Reese (depicted in certain continuities as his adoptive son) 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 (2015) 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 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is attempting to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) 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 (a sequel to the first film), John is a 10-year-old child and a juvenile delinquentIn the film, the T-1000 accesses a police computer which states that John is 10 years old. living with foster parents (Jenette Goldstein and Xander Berkeley) 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 (Schwarzenegger), a reprogrammed android sent by John's future self, and the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) 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 (Linda Hamilton's real-life son) 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 (set 8 years after the second film). Now a young adult, John has been living off-the-grid since the second film's events, even as the original Judgment Day deadline in 1997 passed 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 (Claire Danes), a former classmate from when he was living with his foster parents. He is attacked by a T-X Terminator (Kristanna Loken), 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, it changes its 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 (Schwarzenegger), identical to John's previous defender, is also sent back in time to protect him. The Terminator explains that Judgment Day was merely delayed and is now only hours away. It adds that Kate Brewster, John’s future wife and second-in-command, sent it from the future after the same Terminator model assassinated John on July 4, 2032—a model Skynet selected because of John's emotional attachment to it. Believing his marriage to Kate was destiny, John realizes that were it not for the T-1000's disruption during his childhood, they would have grown up together. This insight deepens when Kate admits she had a crush on him during their youth. In the original timeline, this relationship would have introduced John to Kate's father, Robert Brewster. Being the true architect of Skynet—who weaponized Miles Dyson's artificial intelligence research—Brewster would have inadvertently placed John at ground zero during Skynet's original 1997 activation. Ultimately vindicating his mother's warnings, these revelations oblige John to embrace his destiny despite his reluctance. In the original timeline's post-apocalyptic future, John marries Kate, and they contact the remnants of the United States Department of Defense to form the framework of the Resistance against Skynet.
Intending to avert the apocalypse by halting Skynet's launch, John and Kate race to the Crystal Peak facility under the mistaken belief that its core is housed within. Instead, they find themselves locked safely inside a secure bunker, helpless as Skynet’s manipulations trigger the first nuclear assault on the United States. 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 broadcasting messages to lay the groundwork for helping survivors and organizing the Resistance.
Terminator Salvation
John is portrayed by Christian Bale in Terminator Salvation (which is set in 2018), now an older, battle-experienced Resistance soldier. Kate Brewster (Bryce Dallas Howard), 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 broadcast radio messages to both Resistance forces and surviving refugees to maintain morale and hope. Realizing that constant timeline shifts have made his tactical knowledge obsolete, John discovers Skynet is manufacturing T-800s ahead of schedule—a clear sign that the AI is learning from its own future. The story also features a teenage Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and a new character, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). John starts as one of the many foot soldiers in 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 (Michael Ironside), 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 (which alters the events of the four Terminator films that had been released prior). Following a confrontation with a T-5000 (Matt Smith) on the war's seemingly final day, just as Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is being sent back to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), 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.