Terminator's Sarah Connor was inspired by another science fiction character

There's so much to love about 1984's The Terminator that it's hard to imagine how big a deal it was to make. Director James Cameron was working on a limited budget under incredible time pressure and was forced to constantly change when things went wrong. However, he created a sci-fi horror classic that doesn't hint at its angst. So much of his directorial debut (we'll forget his role in Piranha II: The Spawning) just worked, but Cameron didn't have a movie without Linda Hamilton at the center of Sarah Connor.

Producer Gail Anne Heard saved “The Terminator” from a happy ending. If individual studio executives had their way, the iconic scene that unfolded Cameron's nightmarish vision of a Terminator exoskeleton rising from the fire would have been in favor of a final shot of Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) and Sarah Connor embracing. Imagine the legacy of this film without the intense climax that ends with Sarah's incredible final line as she smashes Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800: “You're cut off, f****r.” I think you could argue that The Terminator wouldn't have been the enduring sci-fi classic that it became if Sarah hadn't taken matters into her own hands, defeated the Terminator herself, and started turning into a certified villain.

For Cameron, who has already written strong female leads, Sarah's role as her own character was an integral part of the story, and seems to have been at least partially inspired by another legendary sci-fi woman.

There's a reason Linda Hamilton said no. “Terminator: Dark Fate” tried to soften Sarah Connor. She realized that the character was one of the greatest female characters of all time in the history of cinema, and to take away her strength and toughness would completely undermine the character. James Cameron would have had it no different. When he first wrote The Terminator, he had already signed on to write and direct another sci-fi project that would reflect the Sarah Connor archetype.

Cameron spoke to Caller on the history of “Terminator” for the film's 40th anniversary, revealing that he had already planned to direct the sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 space horror “Alien” after he was drawn to Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley. “The only movie I really wanted to do was 'Aliens,'” he said. “It wasn't even called 'Aliens' at that point. But I had already signed on to do it before I even started filming The Terminator, and I wrote that script before I started The Terminator.” Expanding on his excitement for the Alien sequel and his enthusiasm for bringing Ripley back to the big screen, he added:

“I was drawn to Ripley. I mean, you know, just the iconic Ripley, who just, it's the last girl story. It's a very elevated version of the last girl horror story, but it's done very, very well and with an amazing cast (…) so I think there are things you do instinctively.”

These instinctive things, you could say, create another female sci-fi character that mirrors Ripley's character.

Although James Cameron did not confirm in his Ringer interview that Sarah Connor was based on Ripley, the director spoke of writing The Terminator as a “horror story of the last girl” similar to seeing Alien as an example of this particular horror trope. “I wrote this female-centric story,” he said of “Terminator,” continuing, “and I think I'm doing one last girl horror movie with a tech component.” So it seems fair to assume that some of Cameron's admiration for Ripley and her “elevated final girl” story came through in his Terminator script, and that's what he was talking about when he said there are things you do instinctively.

Interestingly, instinctively or not, Cameron continued Sarah Connor's portrayal of Ellen Ripley with 1986's Aliens and 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In the first, Ripley takes on a more traditionally heroic role, undergoing something of a baptism of fire in The Stranger, and becoming a more battle-ready figure in the sequel. With “T2,” the same goes for Sarah Connor, who breaks out of a mental hospital before amassing an arsenal of weapons to unleash hell on Cyberdyne Systems, creators of the artificial intelligence that would destroy humanity, Skynet.

In a way, Ridley Scott's original “Alien” not only helped create Sarah Connor in “The Terminator,” we might have done without the pitch-perfect “T2” — which is pretty neat, given that “Alien” was thematically tied to the idea of birth and rebirth. It's a shame “Terminator” timeline after “T2” movies became so complicated and movies so terrible. Perhaps if we ever get another movie in the saga, it should take into account what Ellen Ripley has done so far. But then it would be necessary Sigourney Weaver has one condition to fulfill in order to bring back Ripley for another turn, a rebirth that we would all like to see.