John Connor, the future saviour of mankind, is a teenager in foster care (in the USA) in the early part of the film. He was placed with a foster family because his mother is incarcerated in a secure mental hospital, due to her belief - or firm knowledge, if you've seen 'The Terminator' (1984) - that mankind is shortly doomed to be almost destroyed by a robot uprising. There are a few scenes depicting the boy's foster family and, briefly, his poor relationship with them. After that, it's all mayhem and destruction once Arnold Schwarzenegger (the good Terminator) arrives and he helps John rescue his mother from the mental hospital and the clutches of the evil Terminator sent back in time to kill the boy to prevent mankind's salvation. The foster parents are killed by the evil Terminator, after it uses them to try to locate John Connor.