Judgement Day
Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor
John Connor Was a Hero
The John Connor we know from the movies has one defining characteristic: He is a whiny, insufferable ass hat. In every iteration of the great JC, from Edward Furlong to Nick Stahl and Christian Bale, this heroic bad ass spends most of his screen time moaning about how hard life is and how unfair this war has become. Even Thomas Dekker, from the controversial Sarah Connor Chronicles, can’t escape these wussy outbursts. So how are we supposed to believe that this feckless waste of testosterone becomes the leader of the human rebellion against mechanical monsters?
In the original Terminator, we are told about the future by resident time traveler and bomb maker Kyle Reese–played so well by Michael Biehn that it makes all subsequent iterations better by proxy. Kyle looks up to John, as well he should. John is saving humanity one battle at a time. He is a general, a warrior, a leader. He is respected by military and civilian leadership, not just for his tactical sense but for his ability to command the scattered remnants of humanity. In Terminator 2, Sarah even takes a moment to imagine what her son must be like, in that distant future. What choices were made from this moment in the late 90’s to that fateful day in the future, when he decided to send Kyle back in time to protect Sarah from an Austrian war machine?
That John Connor doesn’t whine or complain. That JC has so many scars on his face, they have to compete for real estate at auction. He couldn’t look more bad ass unless he was smoking a cigar while walking away from an explosion without looking back. So what happened to turn the man up above into…well, this:
Similar scar pattern, but they’re deeper and wider. This isn’t the face of a determined leader. This is a face of a scared child raised too far above his station. This is someone playing the role of John Connor. How is that possible? With everything Sarah and John go through over the now five movies, how is this kid not more prepared for his destiny? He should have been reading up on Patton and getting in time at the firing range in between classes on survival in an irradiated wasteland. What the F?
Well, you see, the John Connor we’ve come to know in all these movies? He’s not the real John Connor.