Terminator Zero Scores 92% on RT and Delivers Everything Fans Dreamed Of
It's the best Terminator project in years.
Netflix has recently released the anime Terminator Zero, an extension of the James Cameron franchise produced by Skydance Media. Unlike the previous spin-off, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the anime moves the story forward and refreshes it with new artistic choices and meaning.
What is Terminator Zero About?
Tokyo, 1997 – the year Skynet began its attack on humanity. On the eve of Judgment Day, Japanese scientist Malcolm Lee has disturbing dreams about the apocalypse and the war of the machines. Malcolm communicates all day with the AI Kokoro. He created it to save humanity and endowed it with free will.
The self-learning Kokoro inherits from its creator not his faith in humanity, but his dark emotions – paranoia, hatred, obsession with the inevitable war. Thus, the scientist unintentionally manifests the apocalypse and leads the world to destruction.
The AI is eager to infiltrate the world network and initiate a nuclear cleansing with fire. According to Kokoro, humans are incapable of living together in peace. And it does not want to share the planet with the equally powerful Skynet.
Terminator Zero is a Huge Step Forward for the Franchise
After the first two Terminator movies, Skydance Media released mostly faceless blockbusters, trying to repeat the success of the first films. The producers realized their mistake only after the failure of 2019's Terminator: Dark Fate.
The universe needed a shake-up – new ideas and fresh perspectives on familiar events. But movies and series could not cope with the task until the producers trusted the means of a completely different genre – anime.
Unlimited animation powers allowed Terminator Zero to splash with violence without interruption – and to do it stylishly. The original spirit of Cameron's films is carefully preserved in the gritty aesthetics of the series – its industrial settings and constant sense of impending existential threat.
Terminator Zero Expands the Universe with New Themes and Problems
Terminator Zero successfully expands the range of topics and issues already present in the franchise. The authors only partially repeat the original plot, building a new and very unpredictable storyline with a new cause for the end of the world and its consequences for the universe.
In the middle of the season, the series confirms that everything that happened took place in an alternate timeline. The world of Terminator Zero is truly different on an emotional level. Action and heroism give way to long dialogues, sadness and melancholy about the lost future.
Philosophical debates come to the fore, a critical look at the cruel human civilization, from which come children's tears and adults' fears. The authors' return to the past did not affect the course of events in the entire universe, becoming an essentially sad, but pleasant and impressive accident in the fate of James Cameron's franchise.