Linda Hamilton was a wonderful transition character from the 80s pop club hopping girl to the hardcore badass freedom fighter we see from Terminator 2 and beyond. She defined that role and played the “crazy-not-crazy” woman so well.
She’s the mother of the savior of mankind! She’s the Virgin Mary with a semi-automatic weapon.
Sarah Connor was written out of Terminator3 having succumbed to leukemia. She did live long enough for the predicted Judgement Day to come and go without the fall of mankind and dies thinking its over. So the last thing we expected was Hamilton reprising her role. But rumour says she just might do that!
Pause.com has posted an interesting rumor stating that Linda Hamilton will be reprising her role as Sarah Connor in flashbacks for Terminator Salvation. The site later spoke with a rep for the actress who said they hadn’t heard of it, but we think there might be some truth to it!
I think I would be up for seeing Linda back in flashbacks. I think it would be appropriate that if they do show scenes like these that they get her to play the part.
I didn’t care so much for Terminator3 and maybe a part of that was a lack of Linda Hamilton. Her role in shaping the mission of John connor was so important, and he just didn’t seem “ready” in T3 to me.
Also, it seems very likely just because if they used a different actress to play her, it could distract from the continuity. So why go out of the way to not use her?
I’d like to see the following plot twist. Sarah Connor FAKED her death from leukemia for the history books to make SkyNet gaze in another direction in its surgical attempts to alter its timeline. She decides to take on skynet herself directly, because she stumbled upon proof of John’s actual failure and death (archived video record of him dying in a sensor drone memory bank that goes into hybernation after time traveling and gathering data; the way SkyNet tries to get intel updates back into its own time). Now she has to sacrifice herself by going into hiding FROM even her own son, in order to save him at the critical moment somehow. This would jibe with Linda Hamilton’s real world age, and restore her as one of film’s ultimate female badasses.
: )
Hint: what goes wrong is SkyNet makes a Terminator Sarah (TS)! In order for her to prove to John its not ACTUALLY HER (so TS can’t reunite with, betray and kill him), the real Sarah intends to present herself as a second Sarah, exposing that one is not real. The Video she sees is images of herself killing her own son, and at first she is horrified and goes on the run to the other side of the planet to be FAR from John & even considers suicide, before she eventually realizes it could never be something she would be driven to do. She replays the video in her mind endlessly for years as she goes nuts in some partly deforested jungle, until in a dream she gets the telltale eyeflash that reveals a doppelganger terminator for what it is. But not in the images of Sarah (herself). But in John’s eyes! So it HAD to be SkyNet making doubles of BOTH of them!
Terminator John…. TJ (hehe)
Perhaps the insertion points for time travel are limited by something like planetary alignment, and can only be used once or for a short time span. You can shoot a few selected objects through the wormhole, but just during a specific time in the future as well. Basically shooting at the past physical position of the earth when like a speeding car it passes in front of a drinking straw you’re peering through. It can target Sarah in the 80’s, John a few times in the 90’s but SkyNet’s LAST CHANCE is to get them both right before they blow it up. Why didn’t it get Sarah as a little girl? The MOON was in the way! And not her parents? She was adopted and her records got lost to SkyNet.
Lena Headly would rock in Terminator Salvation
I don’t understand what’s with everyone with Terminator 3. The film was awesome. The show was great too. Anyone watch it.
I think the sarah conner from the show could be a good choice too.
Sarah Connor Chronicles is a good show but it only stays good if you don’t try to “fit it in” with the movies.
It kinda stands on its own and much like Smallville, it remains good while ignoring cannon.
Now you guys have gone and sparked my interest in the Sarah Conner Chronicles. I hope they have a long run, enough to make an impression on the Terminator series canon.
Fun read and very interesting comments,,, to all of you.
One thing about the Terminator telling John that he killed him in T3, we really don’t know what happend during the reprogramming of the T-800’s and the events when they were sent back in time.
I’ve allways speculated that Skynet was taken down but could have had a huge UPS (uninterupted power supply) somewhere and it was a time factor that Connor was up against when he and his crew found the Time Displacement tech. This would explain why they had to destroy it.
Well during the reprogramming phase the techs might have been in a hurry, done something wrong, and somehow the Terminator “thought he killed John ,but really didn’t… ????
@Rodney
yup I agree with you Rodney, the whole time travelling thing does get old by now lol. Actually i’ve been waiting for the future part of terminator ever since i saw a glimpse of it in the first movie, and i thought we would never see it cause, its really not the point(yet), but now after T3, its finally here. talk about a dream come true lol.
@Bam, I do like that this movie wont deal so much with time travel as the previous ones strongly did.
Also, it is an interesting twist that this movie is technically a prequel AND a sequel.
Fun stuff.
@Shadopup
cool, would be interesting to see what the machines has cook up for us humans ;) .
Its kinda tricky when all 3 past movies deals with time traveling into the past, and the premise of T4 sets in “that” future we’ve been hearing alot about lol. So i’m thinking whatever the surprise the machines have set for us, must be something that will make a difference for Skynet and send the human race into peril again, or extinction. But if Skynet fails again, like it did in 3 movies before (what a dumbass lol) now i’m thinking, for a super-smart computer like Skynet, wouldn’t it be much better if Skynet duplicate it self and sends the duplicate into the future? That way, if the resistance did terminate Skynet, it still would survive as Skynet 2.0 that was sent to the future, and start the whole sending-back-ppl/machines all over again, only this time it takes in the past that is the future that we see in T4. lol does that make sense?
Let’s assume a single timeline that is spontaneously altered by changes in the past and somehow the ppl/machines in the future can detect these changes.
I also assume that in the T4 movie the point at which terminators start getting sent back in time would occur later in the war when it seems like the humans have the upper hand.
So we’ll see Reese & Arnie sent to the past then Arnie and T-1000. Then John is killed by a sneaky version of Arnie and the machines send TX back in time while Brewster sends back slightly upgraded Arnie.
All these events must occur in order to be consistent with the previous movies. Or do they? John Connor enters this future with the knowledge that an Arnie terminator will attempt to kill him but if he avoids this fate, does that change the events of T3? Perhaps not so much since the machines would still send TX back and future Brewster would have to reply by sending Arnie regardless of whether Connor was dead or not to protect her past self and past Connor.
John’s advantage ironically enough is a result of the machines sending terminators back in time since John survives with some tidbits of knowledge of the future while each terminator dies without passing any new information which the machines can use in the future. The only thing their time traveling terminators seem to succeed at is accelerating the beginning of the war of the machines while failing to kill John Connor.
Perhaps this can be used as a surprise plot point in which one of the terminators sent to the past had saved some important information which the machines retrieve in the future and then use against the humans.
Personally I don’t see an absolute need for Linda’s character to be in the new movie. Flashbacks could perhaps reinforce John’s character and underline some of the decisions he makes but I think a good movie could be made without any visual flashbacks although one would expect John to make references to his mother whether in thought or in conversation.
So… about the grandfather conundrum… it’s actually a paradox. If you exist, you *can’t* kill your grandfather. It’s an either/or situation. If you exist, so does he. It’s past-oriented rather than future-oriented.
@Bam — I love movies dealing with robots (and monkeys and zombies, but that’s beside the point… although, wouldn’t it be awesome to have a movie about robotic zombie monkeys?!?), but ever since 2001: A Space Odyssey, I’m worried about the day when machines become sentient and become, in many ways, more human than human. Don’t be fooled by the robot Asimo’s size… he can kill you with those fans. (google him)
Now, if I were to create a trilogy like this, I would’ve made T2 the first movie. Think about it. My way: Skynet sends a primitive model to kill John Connor as a boy, but nothing changed, so in the future’s future, they send back an updated model to kill Sarah Connor so that she doesn’t have John. Logically, that makes more sense. Because if you fail the first time (and second time), why send a model back in time when John keeps getting older? Send a model back to when Sarah Connor was a kid and she can’t defend herself! Go to the source!
My biggest excitement about T4… tying all of the characters together. It’s going to be interesting to see if character relationships have been altered due to the previous installments or (I hope) that absolutely nothing has changed the future. I definitely don’t believe in predestination… unless we’re dealing with time travel from the future. It *has* to stay the same.
Yeah that’s what I meant by a Continuity loop timeline, a timeline that’s doomed to repeat itself over and over. Connor will survive, Skynet will fall,,,,
Your question what can they do in T4 that will make any difference, good question they have to think outside the time paradox and the timing of Skynets actions (IMO). That could be one direction, or it could go into another MCG direction, time, will tell…
I was kinda kidding about the Matrix relationship, but it does fit,,, ;-)
@790
“At the end of T3, Skynet is stuck in a continuality loop timeline…”
um what do you mean by that?
or do you mean nothing has change at all in the future except John Connor now has to face the future he was brought up to believe? T1 – T3 takes place in the past and alot happen to change past/future, but we technically won, in the past and future right? So i’m thinking what can they possibly show in the future that is gonna make any difference? in the end Skynet is gonna be destroyed, its like in T3, showing us how the war started and now T4 is showing us how we won the war?(maybe)
but we do get hints from Salvations trailer, where the future is NOT the future John was led to believe… so either this is gonna rock the whole Terminator franchise story altogether or its gonna undermined everything Terminator stood for, which is gonna suck. Although the Matrix future is kinda cool but then its like, mankind has really a sad history tell don’t we?? lol so stop making robots! haha
@Rodney
Dude i was just kiddin’ lol
but i do hope they don’t screw it up in T4.
Supernetuser, the tv show takes huge liberties with the Terminator canon, but if there’s nothing else going on its great.
^
Shadopup alot happened in T3, What version did you watch?
(IMO),,,
I don’t think SKYNET had too much “time” to consider alternate timelines,,, and even if it did it wouldn’t care so much about destroying the timeline or starting a another fractured one, its a machine it was totally acting in desperation.
According to the film, TERMINATOR 1,,, KYLE REESE stated to Dr Silberman, that they had won !!!! The Resistance had “smashed Skynets defense grid, used the Time Displacement technology, and then BLEW the place!”
Skynet had (far as we know just perfected the Time Displacement chamber) and it knew the only chance it had to survive was to send a T-800 BACK thru TIME and try to kill Sarah Connor the mother of the Leader of the Resistance.
Skynets calculations on success were wrong if not desperate, the second that the T-800 left for 1984, Skynet knew it failed. Skynet then sent a upgraded model one that wasn’t even fully tested yet (T-1000)… To kill John a few years later when he was a kid.
Again nothing changed ,so it sent a TX to make sure John Connors Lts. were killed,
After that the instructions were to start Judgement Day by downloading nano-bots into the military defense grid at the source. The secret Skynet military mainframe CPU …
The TX, then killed Major Brewster to prevent him from stopping it. But again for Skynet nothing changed , I’m sure after the TX was sent back Skynet was taken out by the Resistance.
(IMO),,,
At the end of T3, Skynet is stuck in a continuality loop timeline…
(Here’s a possible storyline for T4),,,,,
Because of this, Connor still has an edge over Skynet, it knows that Skynet will invent a time Displacement Chamber, if Connor can somehow destroy Skynet faster than he did before, he could possibly destroy the Time Displacment device before Skynet sends back the TX, therefore preventing Skynet from ever exisisting, and also preventing Judgment day, since the TX was the one that started it in T3,,,
At this point I don’t know what would happen to the timeline, perhaps in the film they could flash to a scene in 2029 where nothing is destroyed and Skynet is a new form of Vitual Reality internet service? (Hinting to a future Matrix , lol).
Who knows I just hope they don’t screw it,,,, with a Terminator taxidermy of Connor in T4,,,,,,, :-/
This is such an intelligent conversation to begin with because most people watch Terminator anything for all the stuff that gets blown up. They don’t see the story, they don’t see the strong-mom role-model sub plot. I gotta say, I’m entertained with the blowing-stuff up but this thread has me thinking about side-stories that I didn’t know about before. Back to the Future movies almost resolve the grandfather problem though. If you kill your grandfather, will you not exist? Yeah, I think that series very much tries to patch up the story more neatly than Terminator can. I haven’t seen the TV show yet.
A couple of the paradoxes of traveling to the past:
The grandfather conundrum. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before you were born, will you still exist?
Meeting yourself. Does the future change if you meet yourself?
How this relates to terminator…
I always assumed that saving John Connor was thought to prevent the whole war of machines entirely but now that I think about it, it wasn’t about preventing the war but ensuring that the humans would win because of John. This would imply that certain major events can never be avoided but only the path to these events altered.
If that’s the case which future timeline will be affected? Is there only one singular timeline in which the the future will spontaneously change in response to changes in the past? If this is the case how would the machines or the humans in the future even be aware that the ppl or machines they sent into the past had succeeded or not in their mission?
Or do multiple future timeline threads stem from the point at which the terminator travels back in time and changes the past thus creating a different future timeline but not affecting the future from which the original terminators time travelled from? In this case, what’s the point of sending anybody back in time if it won’t change your own future timeline but simply create another one which you can never be a part of?
The reason I felt T3 was a retread and of no consequence was because if you skipped it and went directly to the war of the machines, you wouldn’t have missed a thing story-wise. How the war of the machines begins wasn’t a story that I found T3 executed in a creative manner. For the most part we already knew how it would’ve started from T1 & T2. Other than that T3 wasn’t a bad movie, it just didn’t seem to add anything new to the mythos.
@Bam…. But she does die.
Besides, why would a 20 year old Reese wanna date a middle aged woman who claims she banged him when he goes back in time?
Aside from the messed up family tree, having a 50 year old Sarah in the future wouldnt be appealing at all.
…then Reese could make Sarah happy again and have 2 John Connors in the Future fighting Skynet! Haa! best film of the century! :p
hmm maybe she didn’t die, maybe she went to the future instead, and everyone thought she died, including john. lol So she comes back in T4 to kick some ass along with her son…um john and would-be-husband(Reese)…. well thats just super wierd lol. Imagine Micheal Beihn reprising his role too :p and and Edward Furlong could play John’s son in the future, so we have all the twisted family tree there … that is soo messed up! lol
Very well put Sara !!
(Any relation to Captain Awesome from /Film? ;-) lol)
Ppl forget that “the future is not set” line comes from Reese he was ordered to repeat that to Sarah when he met her in 84.
I don’t think that set the stage for the films as much as it motivated Sarah at the time, to realise she has to aspire to change the future in order for this all to unfold the way John remembered it.
Not necessarly the end all be all of the Franchise mantra.
Rock on Sara !!!
Nice talking to ya Rodster.
First of all, I liked T3, if only for the sole reason that it tied up the time loop. As much as I love Back to the Future, the science is all wrong. If you go to the past and change things, it should still lead to the future you know and recognize. Your actions in the past should cause the future you know. T3 finalized that. The fall of mankind happens, it just happens at a different time. I know James Cameron wanted T2 to suggest that the future isn’t written and that there’s no such thing as destiny or fate… but there needs to be Terminators in order for the story to make sense. They need to come back from the future. I needed T3 to complete the storyline, to show that the mechanized apocalypse does happen.
As for Hamilton reprising her role… I think it would be cheap to bring her back. It’s been over twenty years, and any makeup or special effects done to hide her age (because her character dies) would just detract and distract from the story.
One other thing we learned in T3, is that John Connor eventually has children. Wonder if they’ll ignore that little detail in T4 ?
Hey Rodney did you see how the Sarah Connor Cronicles ended ? I like that shot from under the pool. ;-)
Pretty well done. (IMO) it made up for the 2 part pilot.
Hamilton had been keeping a low profile, perhaps because she was battling BiPolar Disorder for a long time. Last time I heard, she was managing it much better.
I would not want to see Nick Stahl in Terminator Salvation. In my opinion, he was just awful in T3. He was nothing how you would expect the future saviour of mankind to be – like someone else mentioned before, he was just came across as completely unprepared. This is probably how the character was written, but..nope, ruined it for me. I wouldn’t want to see his face in this movie. Neither would I want to see the mother chick from Sarah Conner Chronicals either. She just didn’t fit the mold of a strong mother/mentor.
Also keep in mind that Sarah Connor spent her whole life on the lamb hiding from the Terminators.
Any likelyhood that she might change her hair colour?
Yeah I see what you mean Rodney but then why try to do everything else like the films. To me its like giving Cap Kirk black hair, its distracting. For me, its one of the reasons the tv show is only watchable one time around. The shows fun, but I have no interest in the dvds.
Hamilton was asked to be in T3 but she declined. Ed Furlong couldn’t pass the physical.
(Man that sure bummed me out he would have been perfect in the film).
@Mozzerino, if you check IMDB it looks like Linda has been working at least modestly her entire career with 1-2 gigs a year consistently.
Just sayin.
The TV show is a departure from the movies. It takes some liberties (Kyle’s Brother, another female Terminator programed to save John, an army of terminators all sent back to stage the overthow of man)
I kinda like that Lena isn’t dirty blond as a reminder that this is a Terminator story, but not canon with the movies.
If they get the actress that plays Sarah on the tv show can they at least color her hair blond, gheeesh. That’s such a huge continuity problem I have with that show. Sarahs hair was never black.
Funny thing Rodney I watched both T1 and T2 the other night back to back.
T2 is T1 with a few upgrades and a twist. (Don’t get me wrong its one of my fav films I’m not bashing it).
One of the most obvious similarities was the how the Terminators were dusted off.
T1 has the Terminator telling the tanker truck driver to “Get out” then Kyle (the protector) manages to slip a bomb into the fuel tanker truck, it blows up taking out the T-800 in a huge fireball,, after the fire the T-800, emerges with broken parts,no skin, and malfunctioning leg.
In T2 after telling the Copter pilot to “Get out” the T-1000, crashes and hijacks a liquid Nitrogen tanker truck. The Terminator, (the protector) manages to crash the truck resulting in the T-1000 getting frozen (exact opposite of fire) in the nitro. He emerges with major glicthing problems.
Both terminators survive only to meet their fate, one in a hydraulic press (crush the metel) and the other in liquid molten metal, (to melt the metal).
The scenes with Kyle breaking Sarah out of jail are very similar to Terminator breaking Sarah out of the mental hospital.
You also have the Kyle Reese explaining the future to Sarah, just like you have John learning about the future from the Terminator.
Watch the two films back to back and you will also hear some of the same dialog.
One thing I picked up after watching both films , is that if you watch Dr Silberman, in both fims he’s allways yawning like he’s sleep deprived.
Or they could use the woman that’s playing sarah connor in the tv show now… lena something. That might tie the two together nicely, though I don’t know if they’re connected in any way from an ownership perspective.
But I’m always up for seeing more linda hamilton. Heck the last movie I saw her in, I think, was Dante’s Peak.
This would give T4 a huge boost in credibility within the geek community and it sure would be cool.
I highly doubt it though. Hamilton seems to enjoy her retirement and if she chose to pass T3, I see no reason why she should have changed her mind now.
Does anybody even know what she looks like now? I haven’t seen photos of her for ages and T2 was made over 16 years ago, so there probably would have to be a lot of make-up involved if she appeared in flashbacks.
Despite all that, the source of this story seems not very credible. Her publicist denied it but the comingsoon-staff thinks “there might be some truth to it”? Sorry, I need more than that.
Another Terminator movie had better not have Governator in it but I’m definitely agreeing with everybody that Linda Hamilton needs to be in it.
Aside from the fact that they sent back another Terminator to Kill John… T2 is not a retread totally new story. Maybe you should go watch them again.
As far as your theory, there is nothing saying that wounds caused by metal give you leukemia. Leukemia is bone marrow cancer. Not caused by flesh wounds.
Just sayin.
I wouldn’t mind the flashbacks but they cannot erase the events in T3 !!!! They should also cast Nick Stahl if the flashbacks are going to include young Connor.
Shadopup, I think you should rewatch T1 and T2 if anything T2 is a retread of T1,
Its basically the same story, and the similarities are real obvious.
Nothing significant happened in T3 ???? I disagree,,, Skynet was activated , the TX, jumpstarted the war, and Connor went underground into the Military bunker. Leading the next film right into the future war that everyone wants to see,,,,,,
(IMO),,,
The new film should show how Connor used the underground network to form the resistance.
Also (my opinion) on why Sarah contracted Lukiemia, it was the Terminators. Sarah was wounded by a piece of metal, when the first T-800 exploded. The piece lodged in her leg…
Then the most probable cause, the T-1000 spiking Sarah in the shoulder.
The T-1000 could have left a few atoms of his liquid goo, that could have contaminated her blood. (Just my theory)
Yes!!! I think it would be a great idea for Linda to reprise her role. She was definately an important character in the first 2 movies, and I love the idea of mantaining the same actors to keep continuity.
Bring it on!
Jay, she doesn’t suck. And why replace her when she played his mom for two movies? There is no reason not to use her if they are doing flashbacks that involve her.
Lastly, you are showing your age. Linda Hamilton had a very solid career in movies and TV. Hardly a one hit wonder. She was the lead in Beauty and the Beast for 3 seasons on TV (across from Hellboy star Ron Perlman) and has done countless TV appearances and voice acting.
I’d say she’s doing ok.
Linda Hamilton sucks. She is what I call a one-hit wonder.
Ditch her! She can be replaced!
According to T3, Sarah Connor dies from leukemia in 1997. This is also a storyline they are paralleling in the TV series, which takes some liberties that make it not fit in with the movie cannon, but I still find it quite enjoyable.
I’d be down for Hamilton… What is she up to these days anyway?.. it would be funny if they had her pop up in the future and program a T-800 to go back in time and kill her younger self becasue she causes all of this.. and then wrap it up… it would just be one big circle
Linda Hamilton was such a strong character in T1 and T2, that using her character once more in flashbacks is a fabulous idea – in the same way that they flashed forwards in T2 to show the future. I think it really would tie these movies together, and perhaps remind the moviegoers of how important her role is in the upbringing of the future saviour of mankind. It would also link in viewers who perhaps are not too familiar with the T1+T2 installments (not that I would imagine there would be too many of).
i would be down with linda being in this movie. i would like to know how she dies, if they choose to tell it.
I didn’t think there was anything particularly wrong with T3, it was just unnecessary. It didn’t move the story along at all and nothing of consequence happened that couldn’t be inferred by skipping it entirely.
T3 was essentially T2 regurgitated but with a hot female terminator and bit self referential humor. Since T2 was so great it made T3 look like an uninspired retread which it was.
They should ignore T3 the same way Bryan Singer ignored Superman 3 and 4.