10 Ways to Make an Awesome Terminator Sequel

8. Focus on Weak Humans Who Have To Become Strong

The reason the first film was so effective was because Sarah Connor started off the film just like us. She had no army training, she had no experience with guns, and she probably should have been easily killed by the Terminator. Although, with the help of Kyle Reese, we watched her slowly grow to the point that at the end of the film, though she wasn't the badass she is in Terminator 2, we could see she was becoming this empowered female hero we all know and love.

The second film could have suffered because its leads in this film: a good version of the Terminator from the original and a now incredibly strong and tough Sarah Connor were somewhat inhuman by this point. That is why James Cameron focused much of the point of view of the film from the young teenage John Connor, who was still very weak and needed protecting. Without this element, this film wouldn't have worked.

Terminator 3 practically copies the model of characters set up in Terminator 1 and this is the element from the film that is spot on. Terminator: Salvation mostly fails in this respect because of the apocalyptic world we spend our entire time in. Although Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation is still very much human and somewhat weak, he is still a warrior in this world. Sam Worthington's character may think he is human for much of the film, but as soon as we realise he is a robot, we don't so much worry for the fate of his character because he is super strong and therefore pretty much invincible (yes, he dies at the end, but no one really cared).

The films get this right when they are either focusing on characters that don't know what the hell is going on like Sarah Connor in the first film and Claire Danes in the third, or when they have strong characters trying to protect weak and innocent characters who can't really protect themselves like in all of the films except for Terminator: Salvation.