John Connor

Terminator film series

In the fictional universe, 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 after a doomsday event called Judgment Day. When his mother Sarah Connor is targeted by a time-traveling Terminator in the first film, John sends resistance fighter Kyle Reese to protect her, knowing Kyle and Sarah will 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, he fights with the Resistance in a postapocalyptic setting after Skynet has taken over. The story is often nonlinear and portrays many possible outcomes; Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles continue from the ending of Terminator 2 but in alternate timelines, while Terminator Genisys revisits and changes the events of the first film. Terminator: Dark Fate also continues from Terminator 2 in another alternate timeline.

In The Terminator, John is mentioned but does not appear physically; at the film's end, Sarah is shown pregnant with him. In his first appearance in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John is a 10-year-old juvenile delinquent living with foster parents while Sarah is in a prison hospital. Skeptical of his destiny, he is pursued by the T-1000 and protected by a reprogrammed Model 101 sent by his future self.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

In the alternate timeline of the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Thomas Dekker plays John Connor. The character is fifteen years old when the show begins, turns sixteen in the final episode of season one, and is seventeen during all of season two. A younger version of John appears in the episodes "Queen's Gambit" and "To the Lighthouse," played by John De Vito. Dekker got the part after Lena Headey was already cast as Sarah Connor.

He has said the Terminator films were his favorites as a kid, making it ironic that he now portrays John, and he believes John is just as important as Sarah to fans. Dekker sees his version of John as a direct continuation of Edward Furlong's character, only in a darker and more mature stage of life. The series follows the Connors in a timeline that diverges from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, branching off from the events of Terminator 2. In 1999, after the second film, John and Sarah try to live normally but worry about being caught for destroying Cyberdyne.

At school, a Terminator disguised as a teacher attacks John, but a reprogrammed Terminator named Cameron protects him. John then discovers that Judgment Day was only delayed, not stopped, and is now set for April 21, 2011. Tired of running, he urges Sarah to prevent Skynet from ever existing. Using time dilation technology built by a future figure called the Engineer, Cameron sends the three of them ahead to 2007, just before Skynet is created.

Literature

The T2 novel trilogy explores Sarah and John's life while living off-the-grid. The first novel, T2: Infiltrator, is set six years after Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Sarah and 16-year-old John live under the assumed names Suzanne and John Krieger near a small town in Paraguay, owning a successful trucking company and proficient in smuggling. John attends military school, gaining military skills, weaponry, and hacking knowledge.

Believing they destroyed Cyberdyne Systems and prevented Skynet's creation, the Connors team up with neighbor Dieter von Rossbach, a former Austrian counterterrorism operative and future model for the T-800 series, and FBI agent Jordan Dyson. They realize Cyberdyne gained new research data from the salvaged arm of Uncle Bob, lost in the battle with the T-1000. The group destroys Cyberdyne's most recent facility, though Sarah is wounded by a new Terminator model, the i-950 Infiltrator.

The following novel, T2: Rising Storm, shows John and Dieter starting the foundations of the future Resistance. Dieter becomes John's guardian while Sarah recovers. They head to a Cyberdyne back-up facility in Montana but fail to stop Skynet from becoming sentient; John accidentally uploads the wrong file, making Skynet sentient.

Other appearances

John Connor appears in the video game Terminator Salvation, set two years before the film's events. In 2016, John and Blair Williams rescue David Weston and team up with Angie Salter and Barnes to fight the machines. He also appears in the video game Terminator: Resistance, set during the original future war, voiced by Eric Meyers, serving as the player character's commanding officer. Furlong reprised his role from Terminator 2 in the Universal Studios attraction T2-3D: Battle Across Time, in which he and a T-800 attempt to stop Judgment Day by traveling to the future and infiltrating Cyberdyne.