The character develops from a timid damsel in distress victim in the first film to a wanted fugitive committing acts of terrorism, a hardened warrior and mother who sacrificed everything for her son's future, on the verge of losing touch with her own humanity, and a mentor preparing and protecting a protégée for her destiny.

The Terminator does not specify Sarah Connor's age or birth date, although according to the original script (available on the Special Edition DVD), she was 19 years old.

Sarah is a Los Angeles college student and waitress who is pursued by a relentless android assassin, the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

She learns she is in danger from a televised report of two identically named Los Angeles women who were shot to death earlier that day, including one played by Marianne Muellerleile.

She is rescued from the Terminator by time-travelling soldier Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who says that in the future, an artificial intelligence called Skynet will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions.

The program will become self-aware, seize control of most of the world's military hardware (including highly advanced robots), and launch an all-out attack on human beings.

While recording the tape, a boy takes a photograph that he sells to her; John will give this to Kyle in the future before sending him back in time.

Her fixation on the disaster and her fanatical desire to keep John safe has made her mentally unstable and very violent, which is aggravated by her fear and hatred of the Model 101.

[1] After another horrific nightmare about Judgment Day, Sarah decides to hunt down Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), a computer researcher who works at Cyberdyne Systems and is destined to build the microprocessor that will become Skynet.

Shortly afterwards, John and the Model 101 arrive; with Dyson's help, they destroy all of his research and steal the remains of the first Terminator from the Cyberdyne lab.

Never truly believing they had beaten Skynet, her friends stored a cache of weapons in a casket for John to find in the event that Judgment Day was not averted and the Terminators returned, in accordance with her will.

Linda Hamilton reprised her role as Sarah Connor in (voiceovers only) with warning of the future war, in the form of taped recordings for John (Christian Bale) delivered throughout Terminator Salvation.

The story takes place in an alternate reality to the continuity of the first four films due to Skynet's (Matt Smith) actions throughout the timeline.

After the T-1000's attack in 1973, Sarah learns from Pops of her assailant's motive, her destiny as John Connor's (Jason Clarke) future mother, and the Resistance's war against Skynet, including its first attempt on killing her in the original timeline's 1984.

In this timeline, the rise of Skynet is averted, but it dispatched various other Terminators into the past prior to its erasure from history, with the result that John was killed by another T-800 in Guatemala in 1998.

Grieving and bitter, Sarah succumbs to alcoholism, and spends the intervening decades hunting down other Terminators based on anonymous texts sent by an unknown figure that direct her to the time and place that they will arrive, allowing her to eliminate them before they can pose a threat.

[10] When asked about her approach to the role, Headey said, "I'm playing a mother who is a single parent, bringing up a teenage son, who also happens to save the world—as a byline to her life.

He escapes with the help of Cameron Phillips, a Terminator that resembles a teenage girl, sent back in time by the future John to protect him.

In the episode "Queen's Gambit", she discovers that her dead lover Kyle Reese has a brother named Derek, who is also a time-travelling Resistance agent.

Sarah tells John about his true identity and he seeks help from her former fiancé Charley Dixon to save his uncle's life.

Despite her knowledge of his connection to Kyle, Sarah continues to distrust Derek because she is aware that he killed Andrew "Andy" Goode, one of the creators of Skynet.

Sarah is kidnapped by Cromartie, but she is rescued by John and James Ellison, an FBI agent who was earlier determined to bring her to justice.

At a UFO convention, which Sarah attends to investigate the three-dotted sign, she meets a woman named Eileen, who is really Alan Park, a scientist who specialized in Light Detection and Ranging.

She kidnaps and forces a doctor to remove the bullet from her leg, and then tells Derek to destroy the evidence of her hospitalization to prevent the authorities and the machines from learning her identity and tracking her.

Sarah is rescued from jail by John and Cameron; she accompanies them to go see the T-1001 impersonating Catherine Weaver, where it is suggested that she is building something like Skynet, hoping to defeat it.

In an attempt to save both Cameron and Weaver's creation, both John and Catherine go to the future after the Cromartie shell, while Sarah remains in the present to continue the fight.

In the attraction, set after the events of the second film, Sarah and John break into Cyberdyne Systems to prevent the creation of Skynet, but they are stopped by a T-1000.

He is drawn to the Connors, and after Sarah tells him about the future war, they are attacked by a new T-800, created in the present by a new Terminator model, the i-950 Infiltrator Serena Burns.

As they head back to Paraguay, John feels like the entire journey was in vain, with he himself being responsible for Skynet's eventual sentience.

Afterwards, Skynet is effectively destroyed and John is greeted by Sarah, Dieter and the remaining Resistance members as they are relieved that the great ordeal is finally over.