What Happened To John Connor In Every Terminator Timeline

Due to the time travel nature of the Terminator franchise, there are many different versions of the future resistance leader and savior of humanity, John Connor. The Terminator series, at its core, was about Sarah Connor and her son John’s fight against the artificial superintelligence Skynet and avoiding a fated war between humans and machines. Throughout the duo’s multiple adventures, several contradicting and overlapping timelines were created that gave the character of John Connor a complex and often confusing life story.

The original Terminator timeline created a paradox that made John Connor’s existence something that could not exist without some sort of time travel intervention. John’s role as the future leader of the resistance was explored in sequels, reboots, and a television spin-off and the events of his childhood can vary vastly across the plethora of timelines within the franchise. There have even been instances where John does not fulfill his role and, for one reason or another, the future prophesized in the original Terminator never came to pass.

6 The Original Terminator Timeline

Terminator (1984)

The original Terminator timeline was never depicted within the franchise and acted as the series of events before the T-800 and Kyle Reese arrived in the past. In this original and unaltered timeline, the leader of the resistance against Skynet, John Connor, was born to the then 19-year-old Sarah Connor in 1985. After Skynet became self-aware, and war broke out between humans and machines, Sarah trained her young son to become the leader of the resistance. After Skynet lost the war, Skynet sent the T-800 to the past to kill Sarah and ensure that John would never be born.

To ensure his existence, John sent resistance solider Kyle Reese to the past to protect his mother from the T-800. Reese would father a child with Sarah, who turned out to be John Connor, creating a paradox that meant that if Reese was never sent back to the past, then John would never have been born. This became a continuous cycle of conflicting timelines that only fed into the myth of John Connor as a messianic figure created outside of time and space to defeat Skynet. How the original John Connor was born in the first place defies all logic.

5 The Original Terminator 2 Timeline

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) & Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Once the original timeline had been altered in Terminator, the John Connor seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day had a different childhood than the one seen in the original timeline. With knowledge of the upcoming war between humans and machines, Sarah Connor was incarcerated for her violent attempts to stop Judgment Day and John lived with foster parents and believed his mother was delusional. In the future, a new shapeshifting machine, the T-1000, was sent to the past to kill John Connor, while the resistance sent a reprogrammed T-800 to protect him.

This version of John eventually reunited with his mother and believed her warnings about the fate of humanity in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Together they destroyed Cyberdyne Systems, John grew up, his mother died, and the fated war of 1997 never happened. However, John faced new challenges as the T-X was sent to his timeline to kill those destined to be allies in the resistance. Later, Skynet became part of cyberspace, achieved self-awareness, and led a nuclear holocaust that killed billions. John, realizing his destiny, reluctantly accepted his role as leader of the resistance and began fighting back.

4 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Retconned Timeline

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008 – 2009)

The television spin-off series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles disregarded the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and instead picked up in 1999 shortly after Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The version of John Connor seen in this timeline lived off-grid with his mother Sarah Connor and the two were wanted fugitives for their role in the Cyberdyne Systems bombing and the death of Miles Dyson. John struggled with the challenges of teenage life and also grappled with the constant threat of Terminators coming from the future to ensure he never fulfilled his destiny as humanity’s savior.

As the series progressed, John and Sarah teamed up with Cameron, a re-programmed Terminator sent by a future John Connor from 2027 to protect the younger version of himself. The Connors were also pursued by FBI agents, traveled to the future of 2007, and sought to end the upcoming Judgment Day fated for 2011. Eventually, John traveled to the future and met alternative versions of his allies, such as Kyle Reese, who neither knew nor recognized him. John realized that his actions had alternated the timelines so radically that he was no longer the leader of the resistance.

3 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Rebooted Timeline

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Another version of John Connor was seen in Terminator Salvation. This depiction was planned as both a sequel to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and a soft reboot of the entire franchise. Portrayed by Christian Bale, in the future year of 2018, John Connor had realized his role as leader of the resistance and had been fighting against Skynet since Judgment Day occurred in 2003. In a first for the franchise, this timeline focused on Connor amid the war between humans and machines, facing new threats and struggling with his destiny as the savior of humanity.

In this timeline, Connor met Kyle Reese and understood his importance to the story of his existence. John also encountered Marcus Wright, a human-terminator who joined the humans against Skynet. John was fatally injured in a battle; however, Marcus sacrificed himself for a heart transplant and John lived to fight another day as the war continued. Terminator Salvation was originally envisioned as the beginning of a new Terminator trilogy, but, due to the Halcyon Company filing for bankruptcy, the franchise was sold and once again rebooted (via Reuters.) The Terminator Salvation version of John Connor was never heard from again.

2 Terminator Genisys Timeline

Terminator Genisys (2015)

The 2015 film Terminator Genisys acted as a reboot of the entire franchise that strayed from the premise of the original Terminator and ignored all sequels and TV adaptations. This story once again featured Kyle Reese traveling back in time to protect Sarah Connor and ensure John Connor’s existence. However, Reese found the timeline altered and Sarah had been raised by a Terminator reprogrammed to protect her. In this version, John was seen as a grown-up future resistance leader in the year 2029. This version of John traveled back to 2017 where he came face to face with Kyle and Sarah.

It was then revealed that this version of John was forcibly transformed into a T-3000 Terminator through a Skynet program that converted living flesh into machine matter. A twist on all previous depictions of the character, John became a tool of Skynet and was tasked with ensuring its existence under the new name Genisys. John later pursued Sarah, Kyle, and the reprogrammed T-800 Pops. John believed that man and machine must come together, and he was eventually destroyed by Pops, who sacrificed himself for the greater good.

1 The Terminator 2 Retconned Timeline

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Terminator: Dark Fate acted as a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgement Day and featured Linda Hamilton’s return to the role of Sarah Connor. In this version, John and Sarah were living peacefully in the year 1999 after having destroyed Cyberdyne Systems when a T-800 Terminator traveled to the past, ambushed them, and killed John Connor. Decades later, Sarah, left alone following John’s death, took up his role as resistance leader and sought out Skynet’s remaining Terminators to prevent Judgement Day herself. This version of John Connor did not live long enough to fulfill his destiny of defeating Skynet.

Sources: Eye Weekly, Reuters