Fans of theTerminatorfranchise everywhere rejoiced on August 29, the original date of Judgment Day, when Netflix dropped their latest foray into the world of anime:Terminator Zero. This excellent series took us out of our usual California/Mexico-based adventures and dropped audiences in 1997 Tokyo, only days before Skynet was supposed to end the world. Time is of the essence, but with a new Terminator (voiced byTimothy Olyphantin the English dub andYasuhiro Mamiyain the Japanese) hot on the trail of a new target, there seems to be little hope for the future. Like all of Skynet’s assassins, this T-800 is merciless, but unlike those we’ve seen in live-action,their animated counterpart is even more frightening than its predecessors. If you loved the sheer relentlessness and brutality of the original 1984 film, then you’re in for a treat withTerminator Zero.
The Terminator Is More Bloodthirsty Than Before in ‘Terminator Zero’
WhenArnold Schwarzeneggerfirst showed up inThe Terminatorback in the ’80s, fans hadn’t seen anything quite like it. A bulky-yet-mechanical Michael Myers with a penchant for guns instead of knives, the original T-800 had no qualms with walking into highly populated clubs if it meant murdering Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), nor did it slow down when Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) managed to put a few slugs into its fleshy hide. It was a terrifying creature, one who was even scarier when the skin was removed by the end, andTerminator Zerocontinues that tradition. While future cybernetic assassins weren’t as frightening as Schwarzenegger’s original,the Terminator inZerorecaptures some of that violent magic.
Living up to its name, this anime Terminator plows mercilessly and without warning through anyone unfortunate enough to get in its way. In the Future War sequences, one Terminator — which nearly kills Eiko (Sonoya Mizuno/Toa Yukinari) before she narrowly escapes back to base — walks right into the Resistance’s camp and slaughters everyone without a second thought. Of course, these machines don’t have a conscience of their own. They are not quite as sophisticated as Skynet or Kokoro (Rosario Dawson/Atsumi Tanezaki) — thoughthe Special Edition cut ofTerminator 2: Judgment Dayimplies that a flip of a switch could change that — nor do they particularly care about anything other than their mission. Even with that possibility out of mind,the Terminators inZeroare aided by the animated format, which allows them to be more agile, savage, and overall effective when it comes to eliminating human life. It also makes them just downright more terrifying.
In some ways,the Terminator we see here is also a bit more resourcefulthan its previous counterparts. While the Terminators sent to America’s past can obtain guns fairly easily (with shotguns becoming a particular favorite of Schwarzenegger’s T-800 models), in Japan, guns are outlawed for civilians, with only law enforcement officers obtaining them. “The gun thing caught me by surprise because I had an idea that stricter gun laws meant like you had to just pass a test,“Terminator ZerowriterMattson Tomlinrevealed toAnime Trending. Of course, that wasn’t the case, and Tomlin’s original sequences had to be rewritten to reflect Japanese reality. Because of this, the Terminator is forced to find other ways to kill its victims, such as attaching a crossbow to its arm or stealing firearms from its victims. Between that and its hand-to-hand combat attacks,we see a lot more blood this time around than we do in mostTerminatorprojects, and that’s clearly by design.
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‘Terminator Zero’ Leans Into the Franchise’s Horror Roots
When it came to the way that the Terminator looked, and how he interacted with the world around him, Tomlin took inspiration fromJames Cameron’s original casting forThe Terminator. “There was something for me in the first movie, and in learning Cameron’s initial instinct was to castLance Henriksenas the Terminator: like, he’s an infiltrator, an everyman,“the screenwriter revealed to Collider. “Getting back to the original, the horror vibe… the Terminator is anybody.The horrific thing is you don’t know who he is or what he looks like.” Recapturing that essence of the Terminator,Zeroopts to replace Schwarzenegger’s bulky frame with a rather normal-looking figure, who only becomes creepier the redder his eyes glow. The anime format highlights these mechanical horrors the best, making us wish we had gotten aTerminatoranime sooner. This author has long argued thattheTerminatorfranchise ought to lean further into its horror roots, andTerminator Zeroseems to be a step in the right direction.
We see this most prominently when the cyborg confronts young Reika Lee (Gideon Adlon/Miyuki Sato) while she’s hiding from her brothers. At first, he seems somewhat normal, but things quickly turn sour when Reika realizes that she’s about to be kidnapped, or worse. Never for an instant does she think he’s anything more than a creepy pedophile preying on a young girl, butthe revelation that he’s actually a cyborg assassin from the future changes the entire sequence. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s machine, which sticks out like a sore thumb, this Terminator blends in well with his surroundings. If you didn’t already know he was a machine, you may never have gotten wise. Of course, the T-800 models cannot shapeshift in the same way the T-1000’s fromT2or the Rev-9 fromTerminator: Dark Fatecan, and so the longer the Terminator engages in battle — whether stopping cars on the freeway, ripping arms off other cyborgs, or getting into firefights with future Resistance fighters — the less well the disguise works. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, he doesn’t have time to fix it either, making him look even more menacing as he wanders around Tokyo.
Further recalling back to the original film,which turns 40 years old this fall, the sequence where the Terminator plows through a police station mimicsThe Terminatorperfectly. It’s bloody, brutal, and intense as all get out. The machine takes nearly every cop in the building out with just his crossbow, hardly breaking a sweat as he’s fired on with bullets, completely unconcerned. While the live-action version is scary enough, with Schwarzenegger’s T-800 using a shotgun to blast his way through the precinct,to see it here in animation is even spookier, giving the artists more room to incorporate blood and guts. Unsurprisingly, the Terminator has an almost calm quality here, and its lack of any real dialogue until the final two episodes really adds to the horror nature. Like the slashers of old, the Terminator is a monster who cares only about blood and destruction, unconcerned with who he has to kill to reach his goal — which in this case is to either kill Malcolm Lee (André Holland/Yuuya Uchida) or stop Kokoro from going online.
Timothy Olyphant’s Terminator Is More Complex Than Most of the Franchise’s Cyborg Assassins
Thoughthe Terminator doesn’t have much to say until the end, when it does, we’re left feeling truly unsettled. In the English dub,Timothy Olyphant is the voice of the titular cyborg, and boy does he do a great job at making our skin crawl. But perhaps why Olyphant’s limited performance works so well here is thatthe character is more complex than most of its mechanical kind. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s original Terminator orRobert Patrick’s T-1000, Olyphant’s T-800 has a mission not just to kill Malcolm and Kokoro, but to convert Kenta (Armani Jackson/Hiro Shimono) to Skynet’s side of the coming Future War. He’s more persuasive with his charge than other Terminators and has underlying motivations attached to his own survival. Our heroes might believe that there’s no fate, but this Terminator is here to try and ensure that there is. Additionally, this Terminator is almost reminiscent ofSummer Glau’s Cameron fromTerminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, though with a favorable association with Skynet.
Thus farin theTerminatorfranchise, the titular cyborgs have only been willing to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of noble intentions to protect their charges — specifically Schwarzenegger’s Terminators (outside the first film, of course) as well asSam Worthington’s Marcus Wright. Never has an antagonistic Terminator allowed itself to be destroyed for the sake of another during a mission, butTerminator Zeromarks the first time we see this occur. It’s interesting that, for one of the most brutal portrayals of a Terminator we’ve seen, this is alsothe only villainous cyborg in the franchise to give its simulated life for another. Unlike what James Cameron previously established in his first twoTerminatorpictures (which very much center on the battle between good and evil), the world ofTerminator Zerois a lot less black-and-white. Instead, it’s colored by varying shades of grey, featuring complex characters who all use incredible acts of violence as a means justifiable by their own intended ends.
Some might argue that theTerminatorfranchise has become somewhat stale over the years, with a mixed bag of lackluster sequels and recycled ideas. ButTerminator Zerooffers a unique take on the Terminator(even if it does admittedly reuse some of the same material) that gives us hope for the future. Maybe the series needs to do what theAlienandPredatorfranchises have done, stepping away from some of the characters who made the franchise in the first place in favor of new stories, locations, and ideas to explore.Zeroproves that this sort of divergence from the main Connor-focused narrative could do the series some good, and whileDark Fatetried that same idea to a different extent, it was still overly reliant on the past in order to make the narrative work.Terminator Zerogives fans a familiar take on the Terminator character, but in a new medium that offers plenty of new potential. Here’s hopingwe get more of these going forward!
Terminator Zero (2024)
Terminator Zero is a TV show set in a dystopian future where humanity battles against advanced AI and robotic enemies. As new heroes rise to combat the ever-evolving machines, secrets of the past are unveiled, revealing the origins of the Terminator threat.
Terminator Zerois available for streaming on Netflix.
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