More details on how the Guardian “Pops” Terminator raised a young Sarah Connor.

How would a Terminator raise a little girl? It’s an intriguing question, and something that would have been truly fantastic to see explored in the latest entry of our favorite film franchise, “Terminator Genisys”. While the T-800 Guardian “Pops” parental methods were hardly touched upon in the film itself, an older draft of the movie’s script has given us a little more insight on how the Terminator managed to raise a young Sarah Connor.

Now we already previously learned (reported in our Terminator Trivia Volume 2 feature) that “Terminator Genisys” writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier originally drafted flashback scenes of the Guardian Terminator “Pops” and young Sarah Connor growing up together (which included a tea party that turned into a shooting practice). While we have yet to see those earlier writings, scripted dialogue between Sarah and Kyle in an earlier draft of “Terminator Genisys” has offered a bit more insight on what the Guardian went through to act as an adequate parent… and what young Sarah had to endure as a result.

Here is that script portion of an earlier draft of “Terminator Genisys “:

The information reads pretty fast, but what we can ascertain from Sarah’s dialogue is:

1. Young Sarah was not allowed to have friends. The Guardian Terminator acted as her friend and played with her as best he could.
2. Young Sarah did not attend school, most likely due to the T-1000 that killed her parents was still looking for her.  Attending a public school even under a fake name was too risky and would leave her very vulnerable.
3. The Guardian T-800 researched how to raise a child.
4. The Guardian read parenting books.
5. The Guardian studied an educational television program designed for young children titled “Sesame Street”.  He probably watched it with Sarah too.
6. The Guardian took young Sarah Connor to learning enviroments like Museums and Zoos.  These are necessary for a well rounded education.
7. The Guardian trained young Sarah on how to kill Terminators and prepare for the nuclear apocalypse.

Maybe one day Terminator fans will be treated with an even more fleshed out version of this fascinating parent/child dynamic in a novel or comic book.  We Terminator fans can only hope.

We’ll be back.