Hall of Fame: Sarah Connor
The past couple of years have featured a few of the most badass female characters in film history. Wonder Woman unleashed an iconic comic book hero onto the big screen, Edge of Tomorrow introduced us to Emily Blunt’s “Full Metal Bitch”, and Mad Max: Fury Road nearly caused a global meltdown with all the awesomeness that came from it. To say that we’re in a new era of action would be an understatement.
The three ladies above are amazing in their own right but none of them have matched the level of kickassery of the woman we’re about to induct into the Bulletproof Action Hall of Fame. I’m speaking of the mother of humanity’s salvation, Sarah Connor.
Sarah didn’t start off as a Earth-shatteringly awesome badass. Linda Hamilton embodied the role of the damsel in distress in 1984’s The Terminator. She was just a cute little waitress who all of a sudden was being chased around the city by a killing machine. Lucky for her, Kyle Reese was sent back in time to protect her/knock her up. Their love story is seriously better than 98% of the romantic comedy bullshit that I find my wife watching. I don’t ever remember a Gilmore Girls episode where a guy traveled back in time to save the life of a woman he had spent most of his life loving.
Sarah doesn’t stay helpless for very long. Kyle teaches her as much as he can so she might be able to protect herself from the onslaught that was the Austrian Oak but she gets most of her training post-Terminator. When we are finally reintroduced to Sarah in T2 she is already a hardened BAMF.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one of the most perfect movies ever made. James Cameron can come live in my basement, no questions asked, for the rest of his life. He’s earned that much. But T2 wouldn’t have been nearly as cool if it were just Arnold and that little squeaky voiced kid running around destroying shit. Sarah Connor is the heart and soul of the franchise and both her heart and her soul kicked some serious robot ass in Terminator 2. Linda Hamilton plays the role so perfectly that you would think that the love of her life was actually killed defending her from a future robot, then she was institutionalized, and beaten and drugged for years. That would be some Daniel Day-Lewis level method acting!
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines killed Sarah off screen with a nasty bit of cancer in what I would consider one of the most disappointing storylines in movie history. What a sad piece of writing. I can’t help but think that not having Sarah in the film is what caused it to be such a steaming pile of shit. There were a couple of cool scenes in it, to be sure, but T3 had far more bad than good. And way too little Sarah.
My love for the film series didn’t carry over into the 2008 FOX television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It always felt like a story that I didn’t need to see. I get that there were a lot of things that happened after the second film but I was with James Cameron when he said “Leave my f*cking story alone!” Okay, I’m paraphrasing here but there is no way that Cameron wanted these lame ass writers talking about the daily life of Sarah and John Connor. Sorry fans of the show, it may be cool but I am not on board on principle alone.
Our most recent version of Sarah Connor to not be Linda Hamilton was from the 2015 film Terminator Genisys. Besides having one of the worst names in movie history, Genisys also sported a group of actors who shouldn’t get the lead roles in a high school play, let alone a blockbuster movie. Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, and Emilia Clarke command as much presence as that gecko from the insurance commercials. Letting them anywhere near this franchise was as detrimental to its success as when Colin Kaepernick started dating that chick and eating vegan. It’s a shame that young people today might only know the character of Sarah Connor through the portrayal of Emilia Clarke but that is one reason why this site exists, to educate the masses.
Buck up kids. Linda Hamilton hasn’t been as active in the action genre as she was when she was kicking robot tail all over the country but a return to the character that made her career is looking like a definite possibility. James Cameron, Hamilton, and Arnold are all set to reprise their characters in another sequel that will make me want to rewatch the first two movies of the series while skipping the doo doo ones. The character that is Sarah Connor deserves to get some much needed closure. If the aging stars of Star Wars can get their swan song then I think its time to finally get Linda Hamilton and Eddie Furlong back in the saddle. Congratulations to Sarah Connor… time to get into shape!
