Judgement Day canonically occurs on August 29th, of 1997. So, it’s fitting that the newest entry in the sci-fi franchise, Terminator Zero, would release on that day nearly three decades later. It’s been a rocky road since James Cameron’s follow-up, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, became an action-extravaganza that changed the genre forever. With middling sequels that failed to live up to the high standards of the first two entries, it seemed the franchise was terminated once and for all; however, its fate may not be as dark as it appeared with Netflix’s anime series reigniting the brand and delivering the best Terminator we’ve seen since Arnold donned the leather jacket all those years ago.
Terminator Zero Review
While T2 is widely regarded as one of the greatest action films ever made, the original, released in 1984 on a much smaller budget, is essentially a horror movie. It follows all of the tropes engrained in the genre with the Terminator acting as a stand-in for a typical slasher movie villain. Terminator Zero returns to those horror roots, making the cyborg antagonist feel like an unstoppable creature to be feared.
The expected plot devises and storylines are all present here. There’s time travel, paradoxes and a race against the clock as artificial intelligence wages a war against mankind. This is a story that closely follows the blueprint laid by the original while simultaneously calling out its repetitive nature, acting as both a love letter and a reexamination of the material.
For those worried that the tone and intensity of the story would be watered down by the shift to animation, rest assured that’s far from the case. Terminator Zero is a brutally violent spectacle and a beautiful visual display of animation’s limitless capabilities.
The story unfolds across two timelines. We see the world in 1997 as Judgement Day looms, and in the near future after Skynet has taken over. In the future, the robots rule over a wasteland, hunting the few humans who hide amongst the ruble and conspire to regain the Earth. In 1997, a human fighter and a Terminator both arrive, sent from the future, to continue the war before it ever starts. It sounds exactly like the same premise we’ve seen in the majority of Terminator films, but it’s the execution of the series that sets it apart.
This is an anime for adults, not only due to its violent content, but for the grandiose themes it explores. The Terminator franchise has always used time travel to explore themes of fate and purpose, but never so eloquently as writer Mattson Tomlin and director Masashi Kudo manage here. At the core of its story is Malcom Lee, a scientist developing a highly powerful artificial intelligence. Much of his time on screen is spent communication with the A.I. and questioning the concepts of destiny and self-preservation. It’s an incredibly impactful method for exploring such topics through the differing scopes of a human and a computer.
Is Terminator Zero worth watching?
Terminator Zero is the follow-up we’ve been waiting for and the best Terminator entry we’ve gotten since Judgement Day. While the anime style of animation has its devoted fans, it can also be off-putting to general audiences. Whether you love anime, hate it, or have never watched it before, Terminator Zero will appeal to a wide and varied audience. At the time of this writing there is no confirmation on a second season, but if we’re lucky it’ll be back.
9/10
All eight episodes of Terminator Zero are now streaming on Netflix.
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