Come with me if you want to live, Supa-Fans. Over the years, the Terminator franchise has never been shy about attempting to reboot, rewrite and reimagine the beloved sci-fi premise of killer machines from the future looking to ensure Skynet’s victory over humanity.
While original franchise architect James Cameron is currently looking to make a return to the property and has spoken publicly about his desire to pen his own Terminator 7 script, ever since he first stepped away following 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a slew of ambitious filmmakers have each attempted to put their own spin on the property, but few have managed to live up to the enduring appeal of the first two movies.
Yet in between the various big-screen and big-budget attempts to follow on from the events of Terminator 2, perhaps the most successful continuation to ever blast its way back from the apocalyptic future is the short-lived Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series. Running for two seasons between 2008 and 2009, and starring Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey as Sarah Connor, The Sarah Connor Chronicles managed to both build upon and honour the legacy of Cameron’s films in a way the other sequels never quite managed.
‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Prove That ‘Terminator’ Doesn’t Need Arnie
When Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’ll be back, he means it. And when it comes to the Terminator franchise, he meant it time, after time, after time again. And again.
Of the six movies in the franchise, good old Arnie has kept coming back for each and every instalment, save 2009’s Terminator Salvation, and that was just because he was busy serving as the Governor of California at the time. Even then, however, Arnie’s likeness still made a cameo appearance in the movie courtesy of a CGI T-800 during the film’s climax.
However, The Sarah Connor Chronicles had nowhere near the budget to bring Arnie in, but they approached the problem in the best possible way. Not only did they introduce a whole new cyborg protector for John Connor (played by Thomas Dekker), but they went in completely the opposite direction to the muscle-bound action hero type audiences were used to.
Instead, Firefly actor Summer Glau was introduced as the Terminator Cameron, an advanced model capable of better mimicking human mannerisms who had first infiltrated the future human resistance disguised as John Connor’s friend, Allison Young.
While Arnie will forever be synonymous with the Terminator franchise, the time has probably come to move on from his various T-800s, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles has already proven it can be done successfully.
Lena Headey Was A Much Better Successor To Linda Hamilton
“Sarah Connor?”
Arnie’s not the only actor synonymous with the Terminator movies, and despite having only appeared in three of the six movies, it’s hard to accept anyone other than Linda Hamilton as the mother of John Connor. Indeed, that was a lesson that Game of Thrones alum Emilia Clarke learned when she embodied the role for 2015’s Terminator Genisys.
Despite being established as the first of a new trilogy of films, Genisys fell flat with audiences and plans for its two direct sequels were subsequently scrapped shortly after its release. Tellingly, their replacement, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, would be the one to finally bring Hamilton back as Connor, leaving Clarke off the hook – something she now publicly admits to being relieved about.
However, another Game of Thrones actor, Lena Headey had already beaten Clarke to the role by over half a decade, and her version was a far better match for Hamilton’s trademark, no-nonsense badass. Indeed, many fans would love to see Headey reprise her version of the character if the opportunity ever arises for her to do so.
The Show Used Time Travel Right
Terminator Genisys
While time travel has always been a major part of the Terminator franchise, for the most part it was simply relegated to sending cyborgs back from the future in a bid to kill John Connor, or other minor variations thereof.
However, the pilot episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles did something never seen in the franchise and began using time travel for more than just setting up the antagonist’s arrival. Picking up two years after the events of Terminator 2, when John Connor finds himself the target of a new killer cyborg, his new protector seeks to protect him by using a time generator that had been smuggled into a bank vault piece-by-piece over the course of decades by other resistance fighters.
Rather than merely going on the run in the physical sense, The Sarah Connor Chronicles literally have John and Sarah Connor hide eight years in the future. Moreover, the show’s season 2 finale would hint at more time travel shenanigans, with John eventually going forward in time again to an alternate future where he was never the leader of the resistance.
It was a fascinating use of time travel tropes, one that Terminator Genisys would even try and replicate to some degree, though with far less success. Sadly, however, the show was never renewed for season 3, and audiences never learned what happened to Dekker’s version of John Connor.
While Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles may have never gotten the ending it deserved, it remains one of the best sequel entries in the entire franchise.
