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For other people named John Connor, see John Connor (disambiguation).

John Connor
Terminator character
300px The four on-screen versions of John Connor (from top left): Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, Thomas Dekker, Christian Bale.
First appearance	Terminator 2: Judgment Day (films) NOW Comics' The Terminator (anywhere)
Created by	James Cameron Gale Anne Hurd William Wisher Jr.
Portrayed by	Edward Furlong Nick Stahl Thomas Dekker Christian Bale
In-universe information
Alias	John Reese John Baum
Gender	Male
Spouse	Kate Brewster (films)
Children	Daughter (T2 alternate future)
Relatives	Sarah Connor (mother) Kyle Reese (father), Derek Reese (paternal uncle)

John Connor is a fictional character appearing in the American science fiction Terminator franchise. Created by writer and director James Cameron, the character is first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator and first appears portrayed by teenage actor Edward Furlong in its 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The character is subsequently portrayed by 23-year-old Nick Stahl in the 2003 film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and by 19-year-old Thomas Dekker in the 2007 television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. British actor Christian Bale portrays Connor in the film series' fourth instalment, 2009's Terminator Salvation.

In the narrative of his fictional universe, John Connor is a messianic figure who will lead the Resistance to defeat an empire of robotic "Terminators" amassed by the rogue military supercomputer, Skynet following Judgement Day (a cybernetic revolt doomsday event). When his mother Sarah Connor became the target of a time travelling Terminator unit in the first film The Terminator; John sent resistance fighter Kyle Reese to protect her, knowing Kyle and Sarah would later conceive John himself. With foreknowledge from his parents, John fends off Terminator assassination attempts in the second and third films before Judgement Day. In the fourth film, John fights with the Resistance in a post-apocalyptic setting after Skynet has taken over. As the series' central plot heavily involves the concept of time travel, the story of the character is often non-linear and portrays many possible outcomes, for example The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator 3 both continue from the ending of Terminator 2 but are depicted as taking place in alternate timelines.

Appearances

Films

Although never seen onscreen, John Connor plays a crucial role in the story of The Terminator (1984) as the savior of the human race in a future ruled by the supercomputer known as Skynet. When Skynet realises that John's termination would end the opposition, it uses a time machine to send a cyborg assassin, a T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), to the year 1984 to end his existence before his birth by killing his mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). In response to this, John sends his close friend and soldier Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) back in time as well to protect his mother. Reese shares a night of intimacy with Sarah and unknowingly fathers John, before being killed by the Terminator, and Sarah is shown visibly pregnant in the film's epilogue.

John Connor appears onscreen for the first time in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), both as a ten-year-old child (Edward Furlong) in the present day and more briefly as an adult (Michael Edwards) in the future. Skynet makes its second assassination attempt by sending the advanced T-1000 Terminator (Robert Patrick) back in time; adult John responds once again by sending a protector for his ten-year-old self, this time a captured and re-programmed T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). At age ten, John is a juvenile delingquent living with foster parents who believes that his so-called destiny as mankind's savior is merely a delusion on his mother's part. When confronted with both Terminators, he is forced to accept that everything Sarah told him is true. While hiding from the T-1000, John bonds with the T-800 as he teaches him about humanity and emotions. Sarah, despite her intial reservations about trusting the machine, acknowledges the Terminator as a paternal figure to John, claiming, "Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up." After destroying Cyberdyne Systems, the company who created Skynet in the future, as well as the T-1000, the Terminator asks that it be destroyed also so that its technology would not be discovered and used by others. An alternate ending accessible in T2 DVD releases portrays John (Edwards) in a peaceful future, having become a Senator.

Jonathan Mostow directed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), which features John (Nick Stahl) as its central character. Following his life several years after the events of Terminator 2, John is now living "off-the-grid" since the death of his mother, so that he cannot be detected by Terminators, believing war has not been totally averted. Skynet sends a T-X Terminator (Kristanna Loken) back in time to kill Connor's lieutenants, as he cannot be located, one of which is Connor's former schoolmate and future wife Kate Brewster (Claire Danes). A future Brewster sends back a T-850 Terminator (Schwartzenegger) back to protect herself and John; this T-850 ironically being the same Terminator who killed an adult John in 2032 prior to reprogramming. John and Kate attempt to find Skynet's "core" and destroy it, but subsequently learn it is running on thousands of home computers and is consequently unstoppable, and Judgement Day occurs when Skynet launches the world's nuclear missiles. In the film's closing moments, John is forced to take command of the situation, with Kate by his side.

Abandoning the format of the previous three films, Terminator Salvation (2009), features an adult John (Christian Bale) as its main character in a period set after 'Judgement Day'. John and his wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard) are facing a losing war against Skynet, and he is distrusted by other members of the Resistance due to his extensive foreknowledge. The situation is complicated for John by the arrival of the truly cyborg Terminator Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) and Skynet's capture of the man who will become his father, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). John betrays the orders of Resistance leader General Ashdown (Michael Ironside) and is relieved of his command, yet the other soldiers still adhere to Connor's commands. Wright and Connor form an alliance to save John's father, and John comes face-to-face with the new model 101 Terminator (computer-generated likeness of Schwartzenegger) from whom he is saved by Wright. By detonating nuclear fuel cells, John successfully destroys a Skynet base. To save Connor from his mortal wounds, Wright sacrifices his life for a heart transplant by Kate. The recovering John takes control of the radio and as Resistance leader announces the war is not over. Director McG chose to follow John's story from the previous film and "largely let [the television series] do it's own thing". The television series' executive producer Josh Friedman echoed this, describing the two unrelated productions as being "two completely different animals".

Television

Premiering in 2007 and ending in 2009, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles brought a new portrayal of the character to television screens. Now portrayed by Thomas Dekker, John Connor is a fifteen-year-old fugitive alongside his mother, Sarah (Lena Headey), loosely following the events of T2. In an intentional move to break away from the continuity established by Terminator 3, series creator Josh Friedman chose to set the series in an alternate timeline from that of the third film. The television series' first season (2007–2008) depicts John Connor living under the alias of John Reese when a new Terminator from the future, a T-888 model named Cromartie (Owain Yeoman) attacks John at school. It is then the character meets the mysterious "Cameron" (Summer Glau), an unknown model Terminator sent back in time by John's future self to be his bodyguard. In an attempt to escape Cromartie, and to prevent Sarah Connor from dying of lukemia in 2005 as history records, Cameron takes John and his mother to 2007 where the three of them can prevent the birth of Skynet. In 2007 however, John still faces the threat of Cromartie (now portrayed by Garret Dillahunt) and other T-888 Terminators. John also comes into contact with his own uncle, Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green), the last survivor of a team of resistance fighters sent back by John to assist his past self in 2007. The central plot thread of the first series concerns the Connors tracking down potential origins for Skynet: among them an advanced chess computer called the Turk, and the season ends when after John's sixteenth birthday, the Turk is stolen from them in a raid by mobster Sarkissian (James Urbaniak).

The second season (2008–2009) sees John Connor balancing the trauma of killing Sarkissian in defence of his mother, dealing with Cameron's growing instability after damage to her chip by Sarkissian's car-bomb, and Cromartie's sustained endeavours to kill him. Against his mother's wishes, John begins to develop a romantic relationship with former schoolmate Riley Dawson (Leven Rambin), herself secretly from the future on a mission to keep John from becoming closer to Cameron. AWOL Resistance fighter Jesse Flores (Stephanie Jacobsen) kills Riley and attempts to frame Cameron, but John was able to pinpoint Jesse as the real killer and excommunicate her from the Resistance. John suffers further losses upon the deaths of good friend Charley Dixon (Dean Winters) and his uncle Derek. Mid-way through the season, alongside Agent Ellison (Richard T. Jones), his mother and uncle, he is finally able to kill Cromartie. Cromartie's body however becomes the shell for the developed Turk AI, now codenamed John Henry, in possession of a T-1001 model Terminator under the assumed identity Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson). When the Connors and Weavers are attacked by both the future and present-day Skynet (as in Terminator 3, running as a sentient worm on home computers), the Connors are drawn in and John discovers John Henry's existence from Skynet target, and daughter of the original Catherine Weaver, Savannah (Mackenzie Smith). In the series finale, after his mother is arrested, John and Cameron rescue her from prison and confront Catherine Weaver, who reveals herself as part of a rogue faction working to create a benevolent rival to Skynet. John Henry however, has escaped into the future with Cameron's chip. John and Catherine follow in Weaver's time machine, and he arrives in a post-Judgement Day universe where John Connor is unheard of. Here, he encounters a young Derek, Allison Young (Glau) and his father (Jonathan Jackson) in a cliffhanger ending.

Literature

NOW Comics began a comic book series depicting Connor in the future in 1988, which ended when the company went bankrupt in 1990. Dark Horse Comics acquired the rights, and while their series focused on other timetravelling agents of Tech-Com and Skynet, the 1999 series The Dark Years depicted Connor in the present (as another Terminator attempts to kill him and Sarah) and the future (where he discovers Skynet's scheme to brainwash humans). Previously, the 1992 series End Game showed a universe where Sarah gives birth to Jane Connor, who leads humanity to victory definitively and quickly.

Malibu Comics published twin series in 1995. One was a sequel to the second film, while the other was a prequel exploring how Connor sent Reese and the T-800 back in time. The conclusions of both series were published in one issue. The 2005 Terminator 2: Infinity comic book series by Dynamite Entertainment (a sequel to the Terminator 3 film) depicts Connor in July 17 2009, a year after Katherine Brewster's death. He is aided by a future Terminator named Uncle Bob. They create a homing signal to bring together other human survivors, beginning the resistance.

The novelization of Terminator 2: Judgement Day features a prologue in which the victorious John Connor and his army enter Skynet, and discover the T-1000 already went back in time. Connor selects a Terminator, already covered in flesh, and sends him back in time. S. M. Stirling wrote three sequels to the film (which had its own continuity) from 2001 to 2004: T2: Infiltrator, T2: Rising Storm and T2: The Future War. Writer Russell Blackford similarly continued the story over his three novel series Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles, from 2003-2004. Blackford's series, written from John Connor's perspective, the series follows John and Sarah as a T-799 arrives from the future in pursuit of a group of soldiers from the future, and John begins the trilogy unsure as to which side he falls on. John and his mother travel between timelines and through time, between a world which follows the continuity of the movies and one where Skynet has conquered Earth.

The story of Terminator 3 is novelized by David Hagberg in 2003, and followed up with two sequels by Aaron Allston in 2003 and 2004, Terminator Dreams and Terminator Hunt. In the first of Allston's novels, twenty years have passed since Terminator 3 and depict the future where John and Kate lead the resistance, following on from John's discovery of an amnesiac Skynet programmer named Danny Avila. In Terminator Hunt, John Connor launches a daring plan to use himself as bate for Skynet's newest weapon, the T-X, in an attempt to capture it. The official novelization of Terminator Salvation was released in 2009, written by Alan Dean Foster. An official prequel, titled From the Ashes by Timothy Zahn follows John Connor and the young Kyle Reece in the events leading up to the film's story.

Link regarding various Terminator book series Still need to cite some books in that last paragraph.

Video games

John Connor sometimes features in some capacity in the stories of several computer and video games set in the Terminator franchise. John is typically a non-player character; although Terminator games were available from as early as 1990, most featured either the T-800 or Kyle Reese as the main character, such as in 1991's Terminator 2 arcade game which adapts the storyline of the second film. Other games feature John in the story peripherally, such as in 1993's The Terminator: Rampage where one plays an unspecified Resistance sent by John. While many games feature strict adaptations of the storyline, others deviate, such as the 2004 action-adventure game Terminator 3: The Redemption which deviates from the plot of Terminator 3 half-way by changing setting to an alternate future where John Connor and Kate Brewster were successfully terminated by the T-X.

John is is a playable character for the first time in the 2009 Terminator Salvation video game, a third-person shooter based on the movie of the same name. Salvation the game is an interquel set between the events of the films Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation. While most of the cast for the film returned to lend voice and likeness to their characters, Christian Bale refused, so John Connor is portrayed by English actor Gideon Emery. Director McG states he had "a lot" of input on the video game's story, which also follows the Barnes character, played by Common.

T2 3-D: Battle Across Time

In T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, the T-800 (Schwarzeneggar) rescues John (Furlong) from the T-1000 (Patrick) and they ride through a time portal into the future. They destroy Skynet's main frame after defeating its guard, a giant liquid metal spider-like Terminator (series one million).

Reception

For their roles as Connor, actors Furlong, Stahl, Dekker and Bale have all both been subject to praise and criticism...

Critical attention

Post-modern masculinity

Critical and academic focus on the character has often centred around representation of masculinity within the context of the science fiction narrative. Susan Jeffords argues that through characters such as the T-800, Kyle Reese and John Connor, "the Terminator films are offering male viewers an alternative realm to that of the declining work-place and national structure as sources of masculine authority and power." Jeffords identifies the nuclear apocalypse in the franchise as an extension of 'male rationalism', and identifies Sarah Connor's critique of Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) as one of a "masculine way" which has reached its "maximum negative point" (quoting from Christa Wolf's Cassandra). Symbolically, John Connor is a figure who survives the destruction of the old masculinity, forcing audiences to recognise him not only as the future of the human race but of a new masculinity as well. (A sort of brief summary of CAN MASCULINITY BE TERMINATED)

Karen Mann posited in the Winter 1989/90 edition of Film Quarterly that because John Connor is "effaced from the text" is by "by analogy, perhaps identified as the implied author of the story." She states that Connor's significance corresponds with that of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) from Back to the Future in some ways by satisfying the desire to control our controllers (one's parents). Connor's narrative control is one which presents him the agency to choose his father, define himself and control access to his mother's sexuality. Constance Penley feels the story of John Connor's conception serves as a "masculine fantasy of omnipotence and self-creation". The time-loop paradox undermines "any feminist potential of the film" because it limits Sarah Connor's role to being primarily John's mother, due to John's orchestration of his own "primal scene". The John Connor conception narrative therefore continues the sci-fi tradition of dissipating "the fear of the same", and ensuring that there is a difference in gendered terms, ultimately offering up "a conservative moral lesson about maternity, futuristic or otherwise: mothers will be mothers, and they will always be women." (Penley, 1990) Mark Jancovich however critiques Penley's reading when he states that because John is never seen, the story is not his but is rather Sarah's; Jancovich argues that because Sarah is "associated with the maternal while also preforming activities usually restricted to men", the film takes on a feminist meaning. In Jancovich's reading, the film's "primal scene" is Sarah's wish-fulfilment and not the story of John's self-creation (Jancovich, 1992). Holland is sceptical of Jancovich, and cites the film's "generally stereotypical and sexist representations" to facilitate the conclusion that cyborg films like Terminator "attempt to reassert a hegemonic masculinity" but in doing so "raise questions about that concept and its traditional justifications." (DESCARTES GOES TO HOLLYWOOD. Holland, Samantha). Jeffords puts forward that John's role in his own creation is one which attempts to resolve "the anxieties about the end of masculinity/territory through the manipulation of space and time via the male body." Furthering this reading, she also argues that in addition to choosing his biological father in Kyle Reese, by sending back the T-800 in serve in the role of protector (read: father) he conquers the restrictions of time by "territorializing the interior of the male body" and not through the external expansion tactics of the Reagan era. (CAN MASCULINITY BE TERMINATED and TERMINAL MASCULINITY: MEN IN THE EARLY 1990S). In one feminist reading which Mann suggests, The Terminator places both Skynet and John against one another, each situating Sarah Connor between two competing masculine cultures which seek to perpetuate themselves through her.

Byers addresses the film's conception postmodern masculinity and "pomophobia". Byers refutes Jeffords' claim that the film's future supposes:

a "new" direction for masculinity: not, as in the 1980s, outward into increasingly extravagant spectacles of violence and power... but inward, into increasingly emotional displays of masculine sensitivities, traumas, and burdens. Rather than be impressed at the size of these [new] men's muscles and the ingenuity of their violence, audiences are to admire their emotional commitment and the ingenuity of their sacrifices

— Susan Jeffords

Byers' take is

Amanda Fernbach puts forward the idea that "[t]he start of Terminator 2 reinforces a narrative in which ordinary masculinity is seen as lacking." She points to a brief post-apocalyptic scene, in which Connor (Edwards), whose face is heavily scarred on one side, gazes out to the destruction. She notes "[i]n this posthuman conception of the future, straight white masculinity is no longer at the center of things, but is instead on the margins, fighting back." In her footnote to this point, she illustrates that the scene having nothing do with race and in which his whiteness is not foregrounded, "typifies how part of the power of the cultural category of whiteness lies in its ability to function as an invisible yet universal standard." (The Fetishization of Masculinity in Science Fiction: The Cyborg and the Console Cowboy)

Christian parrallels

Many critics focus on the Christian parallels between John Connor and Jesus Christ. In The Journal of Religion and Film review of Terminator Salvation, Kathryn Carrière summarises some of what it calls Salvations's "abundance of overt and implicit religious symbolism and metaphor". Of the Jesus Christ parallels, she notes the shared initials J.C. and each figure's small band of devoted followers. Whereas Marcus Wright's resurrection appears to be presented as his chance at redemption, Wright's sacrifice for Connor is his "honourable death" which both redeems the sinner and saves the Savior. After Connor nearly dies towards the film's conclusion, he resumes his fight for human liberation, and it is for his "cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude" that he is presented as a "steadfast and trust-worthy liberator", appealing because of his "all-American appearance" and his humanity. Whereas in previous films, there was the hope for aversion, Salvation presents a much less optimistic scenario; however, Carrière feels that Connor's continued survival and the prospect of his own unborn child present symbolic hope for the audience.

Boer also notes the shares initials J.C. for John Connor and Jesus Christ, also noting that Sarah's middle initial is also J., making her initials S.J.C. Boer points out that when next the audience meets John in T2, he is a precocious teenager alike the Jesus Christ of Luke 2:41-52, "except that now the temple has become the shopping mall, video arcade and storm-water culvert". Boer compares Revelation 12 with T2, comparing the "pursuit of the woman by the red serpent before she has given birth" with the first film, "the defeat of the dragon's forces and its subsequent pursuit of the woman with the child" with the second, and "the apocalyptic heavenly battle between the forces of the serpent... and of Michael and the angels" with the future of both films. He also notes that the words which describe Christ in 12:5 could just as easily apply to John Connor: "And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron". Chief amongst Connor's Christ-like feats however, Boer describes, is his power for conversion, pointing out where "The savior from T1 has been able to work the greatest of miracles and bring about the conversion of Schwarzenegger from the embodiment of evil to whatever this new film has in store for him"; although the Terminators are different robots, symbolically and through their shared portrayal, "the viewer soon finds that the centripetal force of Arnold Schwarzenegger merges the two separate figures of T1 and T2 into one". As Boer notes however, there is often a "Christological slippage" which identifies Schwarzenegger's T-800 as the Savior instead at various points in the film. (SEMEIA, "Christological Slippage and Ideological Structures In Schwarzenegger's Terminator")

In The Infanticidal Logic of Evolution and Culture, A. Samuel Kimball points out that while Connor's survival in the film represents all of humanity's survival, the point is made that "Insofar as John Connor is a Jesus Christ figure however, the film retreats from acknowledging the what the New Testament makes explicit - namely, that Christ's advent triggers Herod's massive slaughter of the innocents and that his crucifixion as the Son of God redeems humanity at the cost of another slaughter, this time of the absolutely innocent." In having the JC figure sacrifice "the other" instead of himself, the film "thus backs away from the insight that it is on the verge of comprehending and that Jesus embodies."

As Anton Karl Kozlovic of The Journal of Religion and Film points out... http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/cyborg.htm

Where sociologist Norman L. Friedman felt The Terminator could be viewed as "an anti-technology message, a Christ and Mary story about the savior of the human race, and/or a feminist tract about the gradual empowerment of an average young woman" ("The Terminator: Changes in Critical Evaluations of Cultural Productions")

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Connor, John}} [[Category:Science fiction film characters]] [[Category:Terminator characters]] [[Category:Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles characters]] [[Category:Fictional soldiers]] [[es:John Connor]] [[it:John Connor]] [[pl:John Connor]] [[ru:Джон Коннор]]