'Terminator: Dark Fate' Brings Back Edward Furlong As John Connor

During the San Diego Comic-Con panel for Terminator: Dark Fate, James Cameron popped-in via video and offhandedly dropped a piece of info we hadn't heard before: Edward Furlong is returning to the franchise for the first time since Terminator 2. Furlong played the young John Connor in that film, and while the return of Terminator stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton was well-known, Furlong's return is a bit of a surprise. More on Edward Furlong in Terminator Dark Fate below.

The big question is: how big of a part does he play? And will he say "Hasta la vista, baby!" in a squeaky voice?

Or is his return little more than a cameo? John Connor has been played by several actors over the franchise's years. Furlong played the young John in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The character was next played by Nick Stahl in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Thomas Dekker played Connor on the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Christian Bale took on the role for Terminator Salvation, and Jason Clarke played him in Terminator Genisys.

In the movies, John is a resistance leader who more or less sets the entire chain of franchise events in motions. Here's a brief bio from the Terminator wiki:

John Connor, the son of Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, is the leader of the worldwide human Resistance, as well as the more specialised Tech-Com. Skynet, the supercomputer mainframe of the machines, decides that John Connor is the focal point of the rebellion and his termination would end the opposition. After repeated failures at terminating John during the war, Skynet decides to use a time displacement device to send Terminators to various points in the past in an attempt to terminate him before the war even begins.

John underwent several changes and retcons throughout the sequel. He even turned into a Terminator himself in Genisys. But Terminator: Dark Fate is ignoring every sequel after Judgment Day, so the film doesn't have to worry about dealing with any of that.

Still, the question lingers: what role does Furlong's John Connor play in Dark Fate? We'll know for sure when the film opens November 1, 2019.

27 years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a new, modified liquid metal Terminator (Gabriel Luna) is sent from the future by Skynet in order to terminate Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a hybrid cyborg human (Mackenzie Davis), and her friends. Sarah Connor comes to their aid, as well as the original Terminator, for a fight for the future.