Why did John Connor not die at the end of Terminator 2 since the Future War would not have happened and Kyle Reese would never have gone back in time in Terminator 1?

Answer 1

Answer 1

John Connor did not die at the end of Terminator 2 since the script writer wanted to leave people in suspense.

Answer 2

There are three main reasons I can think of:

(1) We Make Our Own Fate: While Terminator 1 works in terms of Novikov self-consistency principle, i.e. past events cannot be changed, Terminator 2 does not hold to that. In Terminator 1, both John Connor and Skynet send back their own progenitors. John sends back his father to sleep with his mother. Skynet sends a Terminator computer chip to lead to Skynet's development. However, in Terminator 2, much of the premise of the story is escape from the requirement to "allow" the nuclear Holocaust and future war. John's survival at the end of Terminator 2 demonstrates the success of their mission to end Skynet and divorce themselves from the requirements of time-travel. John chose to not "unexist" -- he made his own fate.

(2) Unresolved Paradox Leading to Worse Future:John's survival creates an unresolved paradox. In order to resolve it, Sarah Connor should revert to being a boring waitress, all the people who died in the fights with the Terminator in both 1 & 2 should never have died, and John Connor should never exist. This would set up a world in which something similar to Skynet could be pursued without individuals in the present trying to fight it, leading to a worse future war (since John Connor's expertise came from years of training in advance of the war). Skynet would not have needed to send Terminators to the past since there would be nobody in the past worth killing. Thus it would have been entirely possible for the Connor's prevention of Skynet's creation to have backfired and created a Skynet in a world without a John Connor (which would be worse for humanity). To demonstrate that this resultant worse future could not occur, John is allowed to live, showing that the paradox is left unresolved.

(3) Story Eraser: Over the course of Terminator 1 & 2, we came to love Sarah and John Connor and their fight to control and regain their humanity fighting the machines. We became invested in them. If John disappeared and Sarah became a boring waiter it would be a deep blow to the invest that viewers have in the character.

As for Answer 1, it not make sense. Keeping John alive does not create suspense; it only shows one of two things (assuming neither of the other three reasons). Either his and the Terminator's attempt to prevent the future war and nuclear holocaust failed OR Kyle Reese was somehow hypnotized to believe he was from some future war and sent back to the past. Since the latter is far less likely, keeping John alive would indicate specifically that the future war was almost necessarily going to happen. We may be suspenseful about upcoming movies, but not the track they would go on. There was alternate ending where we see John Connor and are told he is a Senator in a future and there would be no suspense there, but the three-above reasons would still hold.