Terminator Zerowas released on August 29, coinciding with the in-universe day on which Skynet goes online, becomes self-aware and incites a nuclear war to remove the threat of being shut down by humanity. The series added various interesting elements to the cybernetic skeleton ofTheTerminatorfranchise’s main plot line, but also paid an incredible amount of attention to the iconic aspects of the franchise that any fan of the series would greatly appreciate.
Here are some of the ways thatTerminator Zeropays homage to the original films directed by James Cameron.
Eiko Looks Familiar…
The Series Protagonist Is Reminiscent of a Young John Connor
Starting with the lightest similarities between the anime and the movies, some might disagree on this, but Eiko’s hairstyle looks a lot like that of John Connor inTerminator 2: Judgment Day, particularly with the way it’s swept to the side and where it parts near the crown of the head. When it comes to her role in the story; however, Eiko is also a bit like Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, given the fact that she becomes a leading figure of the resistance and even gives birth to the central figure of this story, Malcolm Lee, the target of the Terminators and the person of interestshe is sent back in timeto find.
Kids Playing With Toy Guns
“I Killed You!”, ‘Nuh-uh! I Killed You First!’
A scene from Terminator 2, where Sarah takes John and the Terminator sent back in time to protect him to meet up with some friends of hers in Mexico. John and the machine walk past two kids at a petrol station playing with toy guns pretending to be engaged in a shoot-out when one cries “I killed you!” and the other denies being hit. The same scene plays out in the store whereTerminator Zerointroduces Misaki as she’s looking to buy a robotic cat for Malcolm’s children.
Terminators Doing Self-Care
Peeling Away the Layer of Organic Tissue to Reveal the Cyber Skeleton
Like in the film, Terminator Zero also features a scene where a T-800 performs self-repair, which allows viewers to see beyond the organic tissue to the metallic skeleton underneath. There are also plenty of scenes where this tissue is ripped from the machines' faces, revealing the iconic robotic skull and red eye. As you’d expect, we also get many moments inTerminator Zerothat arefrom the Terminator’s robotic point of view, just like in the movies.
Malcolm Lee’s Role Is Like a Revised Miles Dyson
Kokoro’s Creator Shares a Few Similarities With Skynet’s Would-Be Architect
As a scientist responsible for creating an AI superintelligence that becomes an enemy of humanity in one of countless unknowable futures, Malcolm Lee has an interesting role inTerminator Zerosince he knows exactly when the end of civilization will happen – because he’s a time traveller from even further beyond in time than Eiko. What’s cool about Malcolm’s creation of Kokoro is that it partly borrows fromTerminator 2: Judgment Day, in which the Terminator that tracked down Sarah Connor and killed John Connor’s time-travelling father (and ally in the resistance), Kyle Reese, wound up becoming the key component in the work that Miles Dyson ended up working on for Cyberdyne Systems. In similar fashion, Lee creates Kokoro through a long process of reprogramming Skynet’s Terminators and attempting to distill an artificial consciousnessto make an AI that thinks for itselfwithout reliance on its programming.
A subtle nod to the aforementioned similarity within the anime is in the first episode, where shortly after activating Kokoro, it cuts from Malcolm back to showing Eiko’s 2022 through the lens of a sniper rifle, mirroring Sarah Connor’s attempt on Miles Dyson’s life in the second movie. The Terminator that becomes Misaki has its CPU used as the core component, enabling Kokoro’s own thoughts and establishment of a sense of self, all in all borrowing from John Connor’s friendship with the Terminator that he sends back in time to protect himself. This is also when we see the CPU for the first time, so the chocolate-bar shaped chip itself makes a cameo appearance inTerminator Zero.
Rampage At The Police Station
Deleting Wanted Level…
A Terminator comes looking for Misaki, Hiro and Kenta shortly after they are separated from Eiko and Reika, finding them in a local police station after they were taken in for questioning. This moment reflects the first Terminator movie, when Sarah Connor and Reese are taken into custody. The famous “I’ll be back” moment comes from this scene, wherethe Terminator pretends to be a regular citizenmaking an inquiry at a police station and, after being told to come back later, wreaks utter devastation on the building because they know their target(s) are in there somewhere.
Malcolm Lee Sees the Same Vision of Hell As Sarah Connor
The Main Difference Between Both is a Brilliant Detail
Terminator 2 starts with a brief rehashing of the premise, set over a decade since the initial attack on Sarah Connor, who is now in a high-security psychiatric facility because no one believes her story about the incoming end of the world or the Terminators. Sarah is plagued by a recurring nightmare, one where she watches children play at a local playground from behind a wire fence, desperately trying to call out to the people as a nuclear explosion begins to annihilate everything, leaving her to experience the gruesome fate of anyone unlucky enoughto bear first-hand witness to the detonation of a nuclear weapon.
“It’s like a giant strobe light burning into my eyes… somehow, I can still see.”
– Sarah Connor, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Malcolm is plagued by the same nightmare, but interestingly, he is already looking up at the sky expectantly while tightly holding onto Hiro and Kenta as the destruction happens. As his flesh is burned away, all that remains are his eyes; eyes which, unlike Sarah Connor’s, have seen what the world looks like after it ends, giving an incredibly visceral visual of how Sarah Connor describes the flash of terrifying light seen in her own dreams.
A Boy and His Robo-Guardian
John Connor’s Legacy Continues
Just like with John Connor inTerminator 2, the latter parts ofTerminator Zeroreveal that Kenta, Malcolm Lee’s eldest son, sent a Terminator back in time to protect himself from the Terminator assailants that Skynet sent to attack his family. Connor forms a bond with that unit and teaches it to be more human-like. Interestingly,Terminator Zeroshows a situation that is also a reversal of that of John Connor and the T-800 in the second film, where a former Terminator; a full-on robot, is their kind and timid babysitter Misaki, who must learn who she is again when she learns that she isn’t human.
“No, no, no, no, you gotta listen to the way people talk.
You don’t say ‘Affirmative’, or some s*** like that, you say ‘No problemo’, and if someone comes to you with an attitude, you say ‘eat me’, and if you want to shine on them, it’s ‘hasta la vista, baby’.
Thumbs Up
“No Problemo”
As Malcolm Lee dies in the last episodeofTerminator Zeroseason 1, he is surrounded by his children, except for Kenta, and his mother Eiko. At this point, her hand has been badly crushed by a Terminator, and we briefly see “a memory from the future” where her hand has been replaced by that of a Terminator by a young Malcolm. She gives him the thumbs up gesture we see the T-800 give John Connor as it sinks into molten metal, successfully removing all Skynet CPUs from their timeline, knowing that Miles Dyson will not be around to be an unknowing harbinger of the destruction of humankind.
Terminator Zero (2024)
A covert team is tasked with preventing a future dominated by sentient machines. As they battle advanced androids and uncover hidden agendas, they strive to alter the course of history, facing moral dilemmas and high-stakes conflicts in a race against time.
