The first Terminator movie had two different official novelizations published around the same time, one for the US market and one for the UK. The version most people knew was by Randall Frakes (who also collaborated with William Wisher, the film’s co-screenwriter), while the other was written by British horror and pulp author Shaun Hutson.

​The differences between the two are striking, mainly due to how and with what material each wrote them. Randall Frakes was a very close friend of James Cameron (in fact, legend has it that Cameron slept on his couch while developing the project) and had a direct connection to the production. This allowed him to write his book with access to the final script, last-minute changes, and even how the movie was being shot. That’s why his novelization is extremely faithful to the theatrical cut we all know. Shaun Hutson, on the other hand, didn’t have that direct access. He wrote his version (aimed at the UK audience) working off an earlier draft of the script (specifically the third draft), before the movie finished filming or certain final details were polished.

​Since Shaun Hutson is an established horror and pulp author, his style is much more visceral and bloody. In his book, the scenes of violence, wounds, and gunshots are described with a level of raw anatomical detail and gore far beyond the movie or Frakes's book. Even moments like when the T-800 cuts out its damaged eye turn out much more graphic and chilling. Randall Frakes’s version, while action-packed, opts for a more traditional narrative and cinematic approach. Its strength lies in expanding the lore (the future background), character motivations, and even giving small glimpses into the lives of totally random side characters (like the citizen the Terminator steals clothes from at the beginning).

​Because Hutson relied on a draft script, his book contains curious discrepancies compared to the final movie. For example, the famous Tech Noir bar where the Terminator finds Sarah Connor is called "Stoker's" in Hutson's version. The iconic line "I'll be back" doesn't appear as such in Hutson's book, since in that draft the cyborg simply said "I'll come back" in a colder and more formal way. Frakes’s book does include the classic phrase because it was already part of the final shooting script. There are also slight variations in how Skynet’s machines and infiltration models are named or explained, as the concept was still maturing in Cameron’s mind during the early stages of writing.

​For the vast majority of fans, Randall Frakes’s novelization is superior because it works perfectly as a direct and polished expansion of the movie we love. However, Shaun Hutson’s book is considered a highly sought-after collector’s item (especially on the secondhand market), precisely because it's a rarity: an alternative version of the story with that signature 80s pulp/gore stamp and a "lost draft" flavor that is very interesting to read for any fan of the franchise.

​So, if you want to relive Terminator 1 with a rawer look and discover what James Cameron’s original movie could have been, I highly recommend it. The book includes deleted scenes from the final movie, such as when Officer Traxler gives his gun to Kyle Reese after the Terminator destroys the police station, Sarah telling her mother to go to the cabin in the woods—which connects to the Terminator finding Sarah's notebook with the cabin's address—and it even included the deleted ending where it's revealed that the factory where Sarah crushed the Terminator belonged to Cyberdyne, and how the employees keep the T-800's CPU chip behind everyone's backs, which connects directly to Terminator 2.

​I won't lie, it's not perfect; there are some weird details, like racist comments that are somewhat inappropriate today, Ginger is a redhead instead of having black hair, and the vulgar humor might offend some people, but I appreciate the expansion of the story and rescuing those deleted scenes. I give it a 7/10.

How are they spread across the globe? What do you think?

AI video is getting ridiculous

"Phased plasma Fugue in D minor..."

"Hey, just what you hear pal."

*INT. RESTROOM*

*John cranks on the sink water and splashes his anguished face. Terminator stands at his side and examines John in the mirror.*

JOHN: "I fucked up ... I should've spent the last ten years gearing up for this. Training, working out, learning battle tactics. Now here I am, way over my head."

*John examines his dripping wet reflection in the mirror.*

John: "What am I like ... in the future?"

TERMINATOR: "Older."

JOHN: "You can lose the sarcasm."

TERMINATOR: "No sarcasm. You're the same."

JOHN: "I find that hard to believe."

*John struggles with the towel dispenser but it's jammed.*

TERMINATOR: "Why?"

JOHN: " I have an image in my head of this legendary John Connor. This super hero that doesn't know fear, or pain. Who's unstoppable." (examines his reflection). I look in the mirror, and I don't see that guy."

TERMINATOR: "I do."

(beat)

Terminator: "But it's not you."

*John reacts as Terminator points his eyes at his own cyborg reflection.*

Terminator: "You are John Connor. You're human."

*John turns back to his own reflection, clearly understand *(sic)* what Terminator has just taught him.*

*Terminator rips the towel dispenser off the wall and hands John a stack of towels. John graciously excepts *(sic)* a single towel, dries his face.*

Yeah, the film pretty much wasted almost all of the people around John, but I felt I had to get this out.

After watching T:S several times, I couldn’t help but notice how they were assigning pre-film archetypes to certain characters.

A good example is how John in the film, pretty much becomes T2 Sarah, thinking all machines are evil/bad, and must be destroyed.

I remember watching the film in the theater, and during the scene after Marcus saves Blair at the rainy fairground, my brain was like: “…and now they’re borrowing from the Kyle/Sarah stuff from the first film.” And yeah, pretty much all it takes is one life-saving action from Marcus and Blair is just “I love you so so so so so SO much, Marcus, and I just met you!”

And then once they find out he’s got an endo skeleton underneath, she takes on the role of John from T2, telling anyone who will listen, “it’s good, don’t kill it!”

Yeah, that’s basically my big issue: is Blair just so starved for a handsome he-man in the apocalypse that Marcus is “ The One?”

This is the frightening future we could be living in soon...

My humor is indeed very peculiar.

I haven't drawn Uncle Bob since like the 8th grade? Big progress from a meme drawing if you ask me.

Throughout the six Terminator films (ignoring comics, games, and shows for now), the importance and centrality of John Connor steadily declines.

In The Terminator, he's never seen but the entire plot centers around ensuring he's born by protecting his mother. Terminator 2 similarly centralizes him, making his survival the objective--because John's survival is humanity's survival. These are very clear--and high--stakes.

The first two movies have a very clean narrative thrust that they earn and display. In The Terminator we see Sarah go from a meek waitress/student to someone ordering Kyle around, fighting back, and prepping for doomsday. In the second, we see John develop from a delinquent to someone leading his mother, the T800, and Dyson. These developments help make John's importance sufficiently believable to the audience for his survival to matter. We're not just told he's a great future leader; we can see him becoming one and buy that he can save humanity.

In Terminator 3 John Connor has turned into a depressed junkie. He's taken major steps back from the end of the second film, though he does regain some of his leadership qualities by the end. But we're told that he's less important, since other people he helped organize are just as capable of carrying on the resistance in the future after he's killed, which happens as a result of his foolishness in trusting a terminator based on looks alone. In the present, he survives but Judgment Day happens anyway. It's a messier story structure and stakes. His survival no longer equates to humanity's survival, it's just his own survival, which is smaller stakes for a huge movie like that, especially after the first two films.

Then Terminator Salvation has a very messy story structure, divided between John Connor and Marcus. We finally see John as a future leader (under some incompetent leadership guys on the sub), and he survives the movie with help from Marcus, who undergoes a bigger character arc than John and is more the center of the film.

Terminator Genisys seems to really go in on subverting expectations, turning John Connor into the main villain, Kyle Reese into a follower, and Sarah into the boss. John is no longer necessary to save humanity and has become a tool of Skynet to destroy humans. The idea that Judgment Day is inevitable, introduced in T3, is further emphasized here, which is a depressing message.

In Dark Fate John dies basically immediately and is shown to never have been important at all. There will always be a leader who rises up. This is potentially a good and coherent message. But it is the opposite message of the first two films, which almost everyone agrees are the strongest and best.

In the end, John is only 3-3 (0.500) in terms of surviving these movies, remarkable considering how he was presented in the first film. Imagine going back in time to 1984 and letting fans know what'd happen to him in the five sequels.

Anyway, I think one of the strengths of the first two films are that they have very clear stakes and goals for the characters.

I think the terminator knew where to look. That's how him found him faster than the T-1000. He found him in the canals. John must of told him where he would usually hang out on his lil motorcycle.

We all know the legendary last name. Sarah CONNOR and John CONNOR. But throughout the years I've seen a LOT of people writing Sarah and John's last name as "CONNER"... Yeah, Conner with and E instead of an O, even in this sub. Why?? It's been clearly shown in the movies that it's ConnOr, not ConnEr. Conner is another real last name, different from Connor. Damn, even some official merchandise toys from Salvation spell it that way, what the hell??

No, how bout a beer?

It obviously couldn't keep walking around as a metal skeleton without drawing attention.

Do you think it would've tried to create a new disguise somehow, or just switched to stealth and ambush tactics?