Terminator was a lean, terrifying sci-fi thriller that saw Arnold Schwarzenegger’s killer robot pursuing and attempting to murder Sarah Connor. For much of the runtime, Sarah was confused, traumatized, and repeatedly brutalized, a classic Final Girl who eventually bested the killer but paid a high price and saw countless friends die in the process.
Once the movie’s sequel came along in 1991, the title character was in for a complete reinvention. Arnie’s T-800 model Terminator was now the hero of the franchise, forcing Sarah to trust the same android she saw slaughter dozens of people years earlier. Sarah herself, however, was now tougher too, a detail that is pivotal to the sequel’s success.
While Terminator 2: Judgment Day’s decision to make Arnie the hero is often credited as the sequel's ingenious move, this only works because Sarah also becomes a harder, harsher character as the Terminator softens up. Linda Hamilton goes from the resilient but out-of-her-depth heroine of the first film to a battle-hardened character in the second entry. Although rarely spotlighted, it is her status as a Terminator-style warrior that gives Arnie’s newly nice cyborg room to display his range and play the father figure.
Later sequels took this reinvention a touch too far for many viewers, with Terminator: Dark Fate’s twist making him Carl, a retired suburban stepdad who was a far cry from the first movie’s ruthless killing machine. However, both of these reinventions failed because they did not have an equal, equivalent character transformation for the movie’s protagonist, unlike Terminator 2. Seeing Arnie as a cuddly caregiver lost its novelty value fast when he wasn’t playing alongside a tough, humorless figure like Sarah Connor, whose demeanor throughout the sequel is directly caused by the death and destruction she saw her newfound protector commit in the original Terminator.
The dynamic this creates, where Sarah is forced to rely on the T-800’s and watch as her young son bonds with a machine designed to destroy him, is a surprisingly affecting one that ensures the sequel has real emotional heft. ittedly, after a trio of failed reboots centered around Sarah and John, it is time for the Terminator series to drop the Connor family, but it is understandable that fans see Sarah as the emotional fulcrum around whom the franchise's plot works. Her growth between the original and Terminator 2: Judgment Day facilitates the reinvention of the title character while also giving the sequel heart - an impressive achievement the series has yet to recreate.
