Well before the Me Too Movement, Times Up and the repositioning of gender politics within popular Hollywood film with movies such as Ghostbusters (2016) or the introduction of superhero heroines such as Captain Marvel, there was Sarah Connor.

For the movie going audiences my age who grew up re-watching James Cameron’s high octane tech-noir Terminator (1984) on VHS or sat in the theatres (multiple times) for the game-changing phenomenon of Terminator 2: Judgement Day in the summer of 1991, it should be understood that Sarah Connor stands on the mountain tops of female action heroines.

Like Ellen Ripley, who Cameron militarized as a maternal figure in Aliens (1986), Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor is a canon for gender equality. From her transformation from victimized waitress to survivor in Terminator to the T-800’s hard-bodied partner in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the narrative of humanity against the machines has always been grounded in her story and shaped by her resilient pursuit to stop a future enabled by man’s obsession with technology.

It’s this pursuit that continues in the Tim Miller helmed Terminator: Dark Fate, which finds Hamilton returning to her star making role for the first time in twenty-seven years. It’s the time that has passed that reminds us franchise devotees that Sarah has always been the story, not the machines.

In honour of Sarah and for teachers out there who may be looking for an opportunity to shape a media literacy based gender discussion in class, here is a classroom tested Adobe Photoshop design tutorial to enrich and expand students’ potential new learning. With this poster, Sarah returns from the ashes of the past – choosing her fate.

Click here for the tutorial files: Terminator Dark Fate