Oh, it's definitely the second film where she's more stern. First movie, she's an innocent waitress with killer robots out to get her! Second movie, it's been ten years and she's worked like hell to get herself every kind of training she could possibly need to train John ... and then gotten locked up as a dangerous terrorist with wacky delusions, which is where she is when the movie starts. It's about killer robots, but it's also about her grappling with who she needs to be to do what she knows has to be done, and also about ethics and time travel.
Third and fourth movies, she's dead. Never seen the 4th movie, but in the 3rd you have the Terminatrix (look, it's a hot chick in leather playing a Terminator!), but you also have Kate Brewster, who the movie is trying to set up as the new Sarah Connor. She, too, starts out as the frightened everygirl thrust into a world with killer robots, but she actually takes to it faster than Sarah did, and there's this great scene towards the end where she saves John Connor from the terminator and he looks up at her agog and goes "wow, you remind me of my mother!" So, not a total loss from the feminist standpoint. But it's not as well written or acted as the first two movies, and you do have the Terminatrix.
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Third and fourth movies, she's dead. Never seen the 4th movie, but in the 3rd you have the Terminatrix (look, it's a hot chick in leather playing a Terminator!), but you also have Kate Brewster, who the movie is trying to set up as the new Sarah Connor. She, too, starts out as the frightened everygirl thrust into a world with killer robots, but she actually takes to it faster than Sarah did, and there's this great scene towards the end where she saves John Connor from the terminator and he looks up at her agog and goes "wow, you remind me of my mother!" So, not a total loss from the feminist standpoint. But it's not as well written or acted as the first two movies, and you do have the Terminatrix.