John Connor

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. But at the film's end, Sarah is shown to be pregnant with John.

John Connor is played by Edward Furlong in his first appearance in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (a sequel to the first film). He is a 10-year-old juvenile delinquent living with foster parents (Jenette Goldstein and Xander Berkeley) while Sarah Connor (Hamilton) is at a hospital for the mentally insane. Though he is informed of his destiny of his future conflict with Skynet, young John is skeptical of his mother's claims of 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; this event validates John's mother's warning to him about Skynet. Later that night, Sarah breaks out and he and the Model 101 go to save Sarah, and the three escape. John teaches the Model 101 how to be like a human; teaching sayings like "hasta la vista, baby!." He forms an emotional bond with the Terminator, coming to regard as a father figure, and does not want the Terminator to destroy himself at the film's end, despite the Terminator's warning that allowing to continue existing creates the risk to recreate Skynet at some future date. John is briefly seen at the film's beginning in a flash-forward as an adult played by Michael Edwards while Dalton Abbot (Linda Hamilton's real-life son) also played 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.

Nick Stahl as John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, with Claire Danes as Kate Brewster.

Christian Bale as John Connor in Terminator Salvation

Jason Clarke as John Connor in Terminator Genisys.

John Connor is portrayed by Nick Stahl in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (set 10 years after the second film). Now a young adult, John has been living off-the-grid after the second film's events, even as the original Judgment Day deadline in 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 (Kristanna Loken), which was sent from the future. Unlike predecessors, the T-X's objective was to terminate his future Resistance officers as secondary targets because John's location was unknown. When the T-X encounters John, the T-X changes priority to focus entirely on him and Kate. A protector T-101 (Schwarzenegger), a doppelgänger of John's previous protector, is also sent back in time to protect him, explaining that Judgment Day had only been delayed and is now only hours away. The T-101 also states being sent from the future by Kate, John's future wife and second-in-command - John had actually been killed by that very Terminator on July 4, 2032, as Skynet believed to be the most suitable for such a mission due to John's emotional attachment to said model. John and Kate intend to halt Skynet's launching. The two mistakenly believe Skynet's core is in a 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. 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 to broadcast messages to lay the groundwork to help survivors and organize the Resistance.

John Connor is portrayed by Christian Bale in Terminator Salvation (which is set in 2018). Now an older, battle-experienced Resistance soldier, he is married to Kate Brewster (Bryce Dallas Howard) who serves as a medic and is now pregnant with his child. Kate also assists command with her husband's Tech-Com unit. Since Judgment Day, John has been broadcasting radio messages to both the Resistance forces and surviving refugees in an effort to maintain morale and hope. The story also features new character Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), and the teenage Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). 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 by General Hugh Ashdown (Michael Ironside) who runs the resistance organization, considering Connor as 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. In addition, the Resistance's majority is gradually losing faith towards the Resistance Command due to Ashdown's ruthless and vicious tactics that cost many of his own soldiers and civilians' lives. Towards 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 into Skynet's trap, John's Tech-Com unit takeover the authority with no opposition. John's ending statement is that though this battle has been won, the war is far from over.

John Connor is portrayed by Jason Clarke in Terminator Genisys (which alters the last three films' events). 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. Skynet then sends the T-3000 back in time to ensure its creation in the altered timeline, John now believing that the future requires man and machine to come together like he has. He travels back in time to 2014 and joins Cyberdyne Systems to help create a new version of Skynet, working with Miles Dyson and Danny Dyson to perfect development of the new Genisys system, turning Skynet into a massive digital network rather than a single computer system. Three years later, despite his superior physical strength, he was destroyed by "Pops" (Schwarzenegger) – a T-800 reprogrammed and sent into the past by an unknown party to protect Sarah – when both of them were trapped inside a prototype time machine. With the machine just capable of generating the electromagnetic energy that prevented non-living tissue travelling through time without actually generating a temporal portal, Connor is ripped apart while trapped at the heart of the machine after earlier battle-damage disrupted his ability to maintain his organic shell. It is ambiguous as to whether a version of the character will exist in the altered timeline, with John himself stating that his existence is a paradox that is no longer tied to Sarah and Kyle conceiving him.

John Connor appears in the opening scene of Terminator: Dark Fate, set three years after the events of Judgment Day. In Guatemala, John and Sarah are found by a T-800 that was sent by Skynet to kill him. John is shot dead by the T-800, which leaves shortly thereafter.

Later in the film, Sarah learns that a woman named Daniella "Dani" Ramos will eventually take John's place as the leader of the human resistance against a new artificial intelligence network, Legion. In the future, Dani forms a parent-child relationship with one of her subordinates, Grace, mirroring John's relationship with Reese. When Legion sends a new advanced Terminator, the Rev-9, to the past to kill Dani as a teenager, Dani sends Grace to protect her younger self. Sarah, who has been tracking temporal disturbances to eliminate other Terminators sent into the past (based on messages received from the reformed T-800 that previously killed John), joins the fight against the Rev-9, which is defeated after the reformed T-800 and Grace sacrifice themselves. Having learned about Dani's future, Sarah takes it upon herself to train Dani just as she previously trained John.

Dekker was cast after Lena Headey secured the role of Sarah Connor.[3] Regarding the Terminator films, Dekker says "They are like my favorite films when I was younger. So it's very ironic that I'm getting to do this. And I know for the younger generation and for myself, John was equally important to me as Sarah was, and I know a lot of the people that I hear from really, really care about John".[4] Dekker described his character as "a continuation of Eddie Furlong's character" but "he's in a darker, more mature place now".

The show tells the story of the Connors in alternate timeline from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.[1] It branches off from the shared back story of Terminator 2, and according to consulting producer James Middleton "is [a new] version of T3."[5]

At the beginning of the series in 1999, John and Sarah try to settle down to normal lives after the events of the second film, but they are in fear of being captured for blowing up Cyberdyne. 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, lock-picking, 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 Model 101 seen in the second film by virtue of her size/gender, with some degree of sexual tension. He also develops a relationship with Riley Dawson, 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.

John Connor appears in the video game Terminator Salvation, which is set two years before the events of the film. In 2016, John (voiced by Gideon Emery) and Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) are on a mission to rescue David Weston (Sean Cory Cooper), until they team up with Angie Salter (Rose McGowan) and Barnes (Common) to fight the machines.

John Connor appears in the video game Terminator: Resistance, which is set during the original future war depicted in the first two Terminator films. He is voiced by Eric Meyers and serves as the player character, Jacob Rivers's commanding officer within the Tech-Com Resistance group. John makes a physical appearance towards the endgame where he briefs and debriefs Jacob during the final assault on Skynet's base.

Furlong reprised his role from Terminator 2 in this Universal Studios attraction, in which he and a T-800 attempt to stop Judgment Day. They travel to the future and infiltrate Cyberdyne to prevent the completion of Skynet. After fighting various machines and succeeding in their mission, John is sent back to the present.

With the success of T2, John Connor would appear in the non-canon Terminator/Superman crossover Superman vs. The Terminator: Death to the Future, where DC Comics and 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 - the resistance had attempted to recover a Terminator that Skynet had sent back earlier but the machine targeted Superman by mistake, and is then able 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 - leaving a message in a Terminator's skull about Superman's weaknesses and subsequently allying himself with a T-X sent back from the future to assist him, while Supergirl, Superboy, and even Lex Luthor continue to protect Sarah and young John from wave after wave of Terminator cyborgs, the later models being specifically upgraded to cope with the Superman family. The story concludes with Superman having aided the resistance in destroying Skynet by detonating an EMP in Earth's atmosphere powerful enough to shut down Earth's machines before returning to the past, where the Cyborg is defeated and all Terminator components disposed of in the sun. However, at the end of the comic it is revealed that Lex Luthor has multiple parts of other Terminators. He was continuing to research them since he never was able to capture a fully functional Terminator. This leads the reader to believe that Luthor played a hand in Skynet's creation in the future.