I think the nature of John's leadership skills is colored differently in every iteration of the Terminator story. The JC implied by Terminator 1 is a great political and military leader, charismatic enough to inspired camp uprisings and cunning enough for them to succeed, able to created the resistance,fight and win a guerrilla war against the machines. There's nothing there about him being good with tech, except he can figure out a time machine. T2 introduces the idea that JC can reprogram a terminator, and consequently he's hacking ATMs, on his way to become the guy who can hack AIs. Because clearly, it takes more than an army of guerrillas to to defeat skynet now. TSCC takes this a step further: yeah, John is a kickass hacker, but to win the war he now needs to be more than that. I argue that what makes this iteration of John Connor the savior of mankind, the man who prevents human extinction (as Cameron described him in Alison from Palmdale) is that he is a cyborg-lover. Because in TSCC, the singularity is inevitable, and there is no way left to prevent the catastrophic awakening of AI; there is only finding a way to preserve the human race through this process. What I'm saying is that each time we've been introduced to John Connor, he's an alternate version, guided from the future, across all those diverging timelines, to become the savior that humanity needs in that future. Perhaps the shift in futures (from one with a winnable uprising to one with an inevitable singularity) happens because the machines are clearly also playing this game, constantly using time travel to ensure their own appearance, if not triumph. Or perhaps it's just the change in our own attitudes, from anti-nuclear 80s to modern technophilia.
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T2 introduces the idea that JC can reprogram a terminator, and consequently he's hacking ATMs, on his way to become the guy who can hack AIs. Because clearly, it takes more than an army of guerrillas to to defeat skynet now.
TSCC takes this a step further: yeah, John is a kickass hacker, but to win the war he now needs to be more than that. I argue that what makes this iteration of John Connor the savior of mankind, the man who prevents human extinction (as Cameron described him in Alison from Palmdale) is that he is a cyborg-lover. Because in TSCC, the singularity is inevitable, and there is no way left to prevent the catastrophic awakening of AI; there is only finding a way to preserve the human race through this process.
What I'm saying is that each time we've been introduced to John Connor, he's an alternate version, guided from the future, across all those diverging timelines, to become the savior that humanity needs in that future.
Perhaps the shift in futures (from one with a winnable uprising to one with an inevitable singularity) happens because the machines are clearly also playing this game, constantly using time travel to ensure their own appearance, if not triumph. Or perhaps it's just the change in our own attitudes, from anti-nuclear 80s to modern technophilia.