Great Character: Sarah Connor (“Terminator 2: Judgment Day”)
The Great Character theme for the month: Action Heroines. Today: Sarah Connor from the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, written by James Cameron and William Wisher Jr.
Thirty years ago, before James Cameron became “King Avatar,” AKA “Big Poppa Titanic,” Cameron literally invented an entire science fiction franchise full of time-trotting cyborgs and a metallic Arnold Schwarzenegger that speaks a special screenwriting language called “Catch-Phrase” with the release of The Terminator. But just as James Cameron sparked a spectacular jolt in the action heroine realm with the reunion of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and outer space in Aliens 2, Cameron put Linda Hamilton’s warrior of the future into warp speed with her return as Sarah Connor in the mega blockbuster, visual effects game-changer Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
How big was Terminator 2: Judgment Day back in 1991? Just imagine a pre-Jurassic Park version of computer-generated images in Hollywood where suddenly actor Robert Patrick convincingly converts into liquid metal. This is also a pre-Titanic version of Hollywood where “T2” became the most expensive movie up to that point — with a monumental return-on-investment of $519,843,345 worldwide. Terminator 2: Judgment Day silenced all gossip of a superstitious sophomore jinx, arguably becoming thee The Empire Strikes Back of the Terminator series, exceeding the original and subsequent installments critically — but also financially. This sizzling sequel won four Academy Awards, offered epic special effects, breath-taking action sequences, the tantalizing spin of Schwarzenegger’s character as a good guy and relatable coming-of-age angst via Edward Furlong as a young John Connor. But it was the trials, tribulations and tactical triumphs of Sarah Connor that upgraded the emotion of Terminator 2, beyond mere escapist sci-fi action.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day IMDB:
Light years from Earth, 26 years after being abducted, Peter Quill finds himself the prime target of a manhunt after discovering an orb wanted by Ronan the Accuser.
Sarah Connor was a petrified passive waitress struggling to stay alive in the prior film, The Terminator, in order to ensure that her unborn son John Connor would live to lead the anti-artificial intelligence rebellion. But in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Sarah is a lethal lioness, a gun-busting guardian with a tickling-clock of predestined human genocide hovering over her haunted head. We find Sarah stuck in a mental ward, while the savior of flesh and blood beings is resting on the fragile shoulders of her son John Connor, with foster parents, a cool “Public Enemy” hip hop t-shirt, and a resistance to rules.
SARAH CONNOR: The future. Always so clear to me, had become like a black highway at night.
The complexity of Sarah Connor’s struggle is that her motives to escape soul-crushing captivity are not even self-serving, which under her circumstances would still make her sympathetic. She has the future of humanity terrorizing her with nuclear nightmares, while her son is presumably unprotected from a killer who was never programmed to understand things like nonviolence, remorse and compassion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d3Drz8ddLo
With everything for everyone on the line, Sarah proves to be brilliantly resourceful by picking the lock to her restraining devices and secured doors. Now the clinical staff that has treated her like an exploited toy for boredom feels the furry of not just a woman scorned — but a warrior pissed.
SARAH CONNOR: (after breaking a man’s arm) There are 215 bones in the human body. That’s one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIkEXSjs1JM
While locked away, Sarah has endured physical abuse, a deaf ear to her debilitating fears, and a distance gap between her and her son, reinforced by the popular belief that she is a mad lunatic. But once reunited with John, and reassured that the new Arnold Schwarzenegger terminator she encountered previously is now a comrade, Sarah’s motherly instinct to nurture her brave boy becomes tangible.
SARAH CONNOR: Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
Sure, Sarah does have the bulletproof menace of her bodyguard T800 terminator watching her back and front. But Sarah certainly proves utterly fearless when she takes it upon herself to go solo and hunt down the engineer Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) who is oblivious to the fact that his technological innovations will one day make humans losers in the survival of the fittest match between men versus machine.
SARAH CONNOR: It’s not everyday you find out that you’re responsible for 3 billion deaths. He took it pretty well.
Sarah Connor is loyal above and beyond any shadow of doubt. Aside from risking her own oxygen for John in thunderous high speed chases, torrential down pours of bullets and stormy face-to-shape-shifting-face confrontations with the T1000 terminator seeking John Connor — Sarah never sells out her son.
SARAH CONNOR: The luxury of hope was given to me by the Terminator. Because if a machine can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.
For her mental, physical and psychological need for freedom, her Super Mom status and her humbling and cathartic character arc from a submissive citizen to a protector of all Earthlings — Sarah Connor is a high-ranking GREAT CHARACTER in the Action Heroine Hall of Fame.
Here’s an excerpt from a 2009 New Yorker article:
Wisher, Cameron’s old friend, says that strong women are one of the constants in Cameron’s life: “He likes to write about ’em and he likes to marry ’em. If there’s one or two themes that run through his life and work, that’s at the top of the list. That and self-determination. ‘There is no fate but what you make’ — that line from ‘The Terminator.’ That’s his credo, I’m sure.”
Hollywood metonymy for female characters is “handbags,” also known as “girlfriend parts” — in other words, incidental sidekicks. Gale Anne Hurd, Cameron’s second wife, and the producer of his first three films, says that Cameron always found women more interesting than men as protagonists. “He felt that they were underutilized in sci-fi, action, and fantasy,” she said. “And that just about everything you could explore in a male action hero could be explored better with a woman.”
Cameron is an impressive filmmaker. As a writer, his exploration of women in lead roles in “sci-fi, action and fantasy” movies is one of his most impressive attributes.
Thank you, Jason, for this post. Please join us in comments to discuss Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
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