The whole series of Terminator films is one of the most interesting action/science fiction franchises of all time for a lot of reasons. Obviously it's incredibly inventive storytelling and unique characters and ideas are what make the series really shine, but what really seems to have sustained the franchise for over thirty years now is the strength of it's leading hero, Sarah Connor.
When The Terminator and especially when Terminator 2: Judgment Day first came out, Sarah Connor was the kind of character that the world had never really seen before. She was a genuine female action hero, and while the premise of the story was that Sarah was meant to prepare her son to eventually lead the human race in a war against machines, the story has always focused on Sarah Connor herself. She's one of the coolest and most interesting characters of all time, and here are 10 things that you probably didn't know (but totally should know) about Sarah Connor.
Her Mom Was A Waitress Too
Obviously the Sarah Connor everyone has come to know and love now is a pretty far cry from the Sarah Connor the world met in the first installation into the Terminator film franchise. She would go on to become the mother of the leader of the human resistance, but she got her start as a humble teenage waitress living in Los Angeles with no clue who she was going to become or what was going to happen to the world in the distant future. But interestingly, Sarah Connor's mother was actually a waitress too, and she must have been a pretty good one since she managed to raise a child on waitress wages.
She Grew Up Without A Father
Sarah Connor was raised by her mother who was also a waitress, and her father was apparently a war veteran that walked out on Sarah and her mom when Sarah was still just a little girl. Her life and childhood seem to have been pretty normal aside from that, but it's quite interesting to realize how much Sarah's childhood story mirrors her son John's.
Obviously Kyle Reese didn't willingly leave Sarah behind, but he was a seasoned soldier in the war against the machines and John grew up without his dad just as his mother did. And clearly both Sarah and John have a lot of warrior's blood in them.
She Was Diagnosed With Acute Schizoaffective Disorder
When we initially meet Sarah Connor she's just a young and innocent girl, but by the time Terminator 2: Judgment Day rolls around Sarah has become an extremely experienced fighter who has been forcibly institutionalized because, understandably, everyone who has heard her story thinks that she's completely insane. But when Sarah was captured and sent to a mental hospital for help, they diagnosed her with a specific mental disorder called acute schizoaffective disorder. Acute schizoaffective disorder is a disorder characterized by a combination of symptoms that mirror schizophrenia and mood disorders, and one of the obvious hallmarks of the illness is hallucinations and delusions.
She May Die Of Cancer
The Terminatior film franchise is one of the biggest and most complex film franchises in history, and at this point, the character of Sarah Connor has existed in many iterations and in a few different timelines. But something that is still up in the air about her character is when she will die as well as how she will die. In most of the films her death isn't mentioned, but in Terminator 3 as well as the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles it is mentioned that she has died. In Terminator 3 John says she died of leukemia, and in The Sarah Connor Chronicles Cameron tells Sarah that she died from an unspecified form of cancer.
She Was A Bad Liar
Sarah Connor has learned a lot about how to fight against the machine threat that is going to destroy the world, and her litany of skills seems to be nearly endless. However, one particularly obvious and fatal gap in her abilities seems to be her talent (or lack thereof) for lying.
Sarah is captured and institutionalized after trying to blow up a computer factory, and she tries to modify her behavior to convince the doctors at the facility that she has improved. However, regardless of what she did it seems that none of the doctors believed that her changes were genuine, because they wouldn't release her or even let her see her son.
She Tried To Prevent Judgment Day, But Never Believed She Actually Did
Sarah has dedicated her life to raising her son so he can become the leader of humanity that he is apparently destined to become, but that doesn't mean that she was resigned to the world's fated destruction at the hand of Skynet and the rest of the machines. After she discovered what the future held, Sarah made it her own mission to stop the apocalypse from happening before it even started. And it would certainly seem that she made some inroads, because the original 1997 "judgment day" that was supposed to begin the end of the world came and went without incident. But Sarah still didn't believe that she had stopped Skynet for good.
James Cameron Loved Sarah Connor
As the creator of the character of Sarah Connor, the fact that James Cameron loved her should kind of go without saying. However, director James Cameron and Sarah Connor actress Linda Hamilton were married for a few years before splitting up, and interestingly after their split they both had similar things to say about why the relationship began and ended. There were a lot of reasons that contributed to their union and divorce, but both Hamilton and Cameron have said that James was ultimately more in love with the character and idea of Sarah Connor than he was with Linda Hamilton.
Sarah Has A Doppelganger
Or rather, Linda Hamilton has a doppelganger, but it's kind of the same difference. So in Terminator 2: Judgment Day there is a particularly memorable scene where the T-1000, a liquid metal terminator that is capable of shapeshifting and altering its appearance to nearly anyone and anything, takes on the appearance of Sarah Connor herself in an effort to trick John and ultimately terminate its target.
And most people seeing the scene of the fake and real Sarah Connors together would have assumed that it was just a special editing effect, but in fact, Linda Hamilton has an identical twin sister, and she performed the role of the Sarah Connor terminator.
Dark Fate Is A Fresh Start For Sarah
In a long-running franchise about time travel, it's safe to assume that the timelines are going to get a bit jumbled up and hard to follow. And at this point, the multiple stories of the entire Terminator universe are a veritable Gordian knot of timelines. But after the Sarah Connor television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as well as two more films, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys, Sarah Connor and the entire Terminator franchise is getting back to basics. The newest iteration of the Terminator series, Terminator: Dark Fate, is coming out soon, and it's actually supposed to be a direct sequel to Terminator 2.
Sarah Connor Wouldn't Survive Without Linda Hamilton
A few different actresses have taken on the role of Sarah Connor throughout the entire Terminator series, and honestly all of them have done a fantastic job of bringing that character to life. However, when the writers, producers, and director of Terminator: Dark Fate were considering making a new Terminator movie they all seemed to unanimously agree that if they couldn't get Linda Hamilton to reprise the role that she had originated in 1984 then they didn't really want to make the movie, or at least they didn't want to revisit her character without her. And that definitely seems like a great choice for the character of Sarah Connor.