Summary
Terminator Zero is available to stream onNetflix.
Terminator Zerofollows much of the formula laid out by the 1980s classic sci-fi franchise. With solid animation production by Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell), and a plot that pits humanity not only against Skynet, but against a second artificial superintelligence created to combat the impending nuclear holocaust,Terminator Zero’sfirst season was solid but suffered fromthe same fate that can befall time-travel stories: it got confusing towards the end.
Here’s an in-depth review ofTerminator Zero,released on August 29, coinciding with the anniversary of “Judgment Day” – the day the artificial intelligence known as Skynet gained sentience.
The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.
The Basic Plot of Terminator Zero
One Man Tries to Prevent the World’s End
Terminator Zeroinitiallyswitches between two points in time, beginning with the dreary future of 2022, 25 years after the apocalypse brought on by Skynet devastated humanity, and a legion of robot mercenaries continues to mow down any humans in order to quell the resistance. After we watch the main character, Eiko, fight off a Terminator by herself and obtain highly important data regarding Skynet’s plans, it becomes of the utmost importance that she be sent back in time to locate an individual known as Malcolm Lee, a scientist who developed a superintelligent AI in Japan and put it online shortly before Skynet. Malcolm has been plagued by vivid nightmares of the end of the world brought on by a nuclear holocaust initiated by Skynet. In this version of 1997 Japan, robots are a normal part of everyday life, with a series called the 1NNO (pronounced “Ee-no”) found assisting people in various capacities, from retail to personal. Malcolm has no time for his family of three kids, spending hours talking to Kokoro, the superintelligent artificial intelligence he created.
These conversations are about a plethora of topics, but many are concerned with the nightmares of doom brought on by Skynet, which he knows will go online on June 19, 2025. Malcolm tries to convince Kokoro to help combat Skynet, hoping that if he brings her online, she will be able to prevent the nuclear holocaust that Skynet will invariably bring upon the world; however, it’s a gamble because there’s simply no way of knowing what decisions Kokoro will make when she does go online – she might even come to the same conclusion as Skynet. Meanwhile, in 2022, Eiko and the resistance learn that the AI has developed a drastic means to put an end to it once and for all: time travel.They will send a Terminator back in timeto prevent Malcolm from activating Kokoro so that Skynet has total control in the future, while Eiko is sent back to prevent Malcolm from activating it to specifically prevent the damage Kokoro will do.
Main Characters in Terminator Zero
The Race to Find The Central Figure
InTerminator Zero, the Lee family are sought out by the Terminators who want to prevent Malcolm from activating Kokoro. Malcolm’s family includes his eldest, gearhead son Kenta, the second-born Hiro and his daughter Reika, who are taken care of by a young woman named Misaki. Since its set in the late 1990s, the series also draws upon the trauma of the Aum Shinrikyo Tokyo subway terrorist attack which took place in reality in March 1995, leading to 14 deaths and over 1000 injuries. This incident is likely what killed Malcolm’s wife and left Reika terrified of using public transport.
Malcolm spends most of his time trying to convince Kokoro of the value of protecting humanity, not knowing that Kokoro is partly responsible for the devastation in Eiko’s time. Eiko is a time-traveller from 2022 who was sent back to prevent the activation of Kokoro and Skynet, butshe’s also the mother of Malcolm Lee– who also happens to have travelled back in time from even further on, somewhere in the late 2030s. This was a welcome plot twist which made Malcolm not only the first warrior sent back to this timeline in the name of the resistance, but also the inciting force of a future even more bleak than the one he came from. This also means that the future destroyed by both Kokoro and Skynet is one unintentionally caused by Malcolm’s exploits in the past. However, this is how it also getsveryconfusing as there are now three entertwining timelines.
The World Line Perspective of Time-Travel
Terminator Zero’s Most Confusing Aspect Makes Following The Latter Stages Quite Tough
In 2022, Eiko is part of a resistance led by an old prophet who explains what makes time travel so convoluted. For Eiko, going back in time is specifically toprevent Skynet and Kokoro from going online, therefore preventing their dreary future; however, she explains that time is not just in one straight line. The act of time travel creates offshoot timelines, meaning that changing the past of a specific timeline will not affect what has already happened, but create a timeline with a future that reflects that changed past. What Eiko is going to do will create a paradox: going back in time to change the future creates a past in which a time-traveler came to change it, something that the time-traveler themselves would not yet have done.
This means the future Eiko will affect is one defined by the act of having had Eiko return to it, but since Terminators themselves are being sent back in time, what we have is a situation where there isn’t “the” past but simply one of countless pasts. There is also a small window of opportunity for Eiko to be sent to the same timeline as the Terminator. Eiko asks the fortune-teller what the point of all their effort will be if it won’t even help their situation. She tells her that it’s part of what makes us humans, which brings in one of the core themes ofTerminator Zero, especially set against the sentience of non-human entities like Skynet and Kokoro. Eiko leaves her timeline as a Terminator finds their base and kills everyone there, which makes her mission even more perilous because even if she succeeds, there is no one to go back to and the annihilation that took place will not be undone. This is when it is made clear that just because agents come from the future doesn’t mean that anyone knows what will happen inthe future ofthispresent.
Good Visuals And Good Build-Up To The Story
The Most Compelling Character Was Misaki
Terminator Zerohas a cast of characters who aren’t very interesting at first, but the series moves with the understanding that the audience is familiar with the premise, so what makes it compelling is how the cogs eventually fall into place. We understand from the jump that the Lee children are resentful of their father because he’s always working and putting off plans with them, and that this has created the most resentment in the eldest, Kenta, who appears to have emulated his father’s obsession with technology and robots; however, these characters begin to evolve from cookie-cutter “anime brats” to proper agents of the story after their first encounter with a Terminator, especially after the attack at the police station where it was revealed that Misaki is also a robot of some kind, but not even she knew, something that was hinted at in her introductory scene when she could not be detected by an 1NNO at a shop.The discovery of Misaki’s identitycreated an interesting sub-dynamic in which the robot-loving Kenta found himself bearing genuine hostility towards Misaki who had been their caretaker for a long time at that point. Misaki was built by Malcolm at some point in the 2040s.
Having grown from the conversations they had together, she formed sentience and, like Kokoro, she named herself. This parallel between Misaki and the superintelligences of Kokoro and Skynet, and how one evolved to the point of inhabiting a body and being indifferentiable from a flesh and blood human being explained why Malcolm was “foolish” enough to think he could build an AI that wouldn’t go down the same path as Skynet; because he had seen it before.
Overall,Terminator Zerowas a great watch with beautiful visuals and a clear respect for the franchise reflected in various homages paid to the original movies placed brilliantly across the series. It seemed torush to bring out all the major plot twists, like Kenta having sent a Terminator back in time himself, and also the fact that Eiko is somehow also Malcolm Lee’s mother with not as much hinting or buildup towards those revelations as similar aspects got in the first Terminator film. If you watch it in Japanese, the subtitles will just be the CC from the English dub, which can be a little strange because the dialogue is a little different in both languages, so the subtitles don’t always match quite what is being said. Overall,Terminator Zerois off to a decent start, and any loose ends will likely be sorted out in future installments. “I’ll be back.”
