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Judgement Day is upon us once again. Terminator is a curious franchise that has failed on so many levels to restore the spectacle and grandeur of the first two films with the original being a low-key classic indie affair and the sequel being considered one of the best action films ever made. Ever since the second movie the next four entries that would follow would not live up to what was promised although the third installment, Rise of the Machines, is probably the least chastised pic. The last film, Dark Fate, was probably the closest to being a success with the inclusion of Linda Hamilton’s iconic character of Sarah Connor along with Arnie but the focus on new characters doomed the movie from the start. I mean how many times can a warrior come from the future to save the second coming resistance leader to be?
With all that said, the live action franchise is taking a much-needed sabbatical and while we wait to see if someone will ever match Cameron’s brilliance from the first two movies, Netflix is filling the void with an eight-episode ANIME series called Terminator Zero. Will it do what we want it to do, or will it suffer the same fate that we make? Only time will tell, and the series is set to launch on Netflix on August 29th so with that we have the official teaser trailer for you to view.
2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity,” reads the series’ synopsis. “Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.
The new teaser looks stylish enough and doing it ANIME style might just be the refreshing restart that the franchise needs. Adding a variation of Brad Fiedel’s iconic score also helps but I still feel that it will just tell the same story, albeit in a future world setting located this time in Japan. Mattson Tomlin, who is most famous for doing the screenplays for The Batman and its subsequent, upcoming sequel serves as the writer and showrunner for this series. Prolific ANIME director Masashi Kudō (Bleach) helms the Terminator series, and he looks to bring in some different approaches to the tried-and-true trope of the franchise.
Terminator: Zero features a stacked voice cast including Justified and The Mandalorian’s Timothy Olyphant who will be voicing the Terminator himself. Additional cast members include Daredevil’s Rosario Dawson as well as André Holland, Sonoya Mizuno, and Ann Dowd. The series will consist of 8 episodes, and it was created by the Japanese animation studio Production IG which is responsible for Ghost in the Shell.
As a fan of the franchise since the first film hit in 1984, maybe this is the kick in the ass that it needs or maybe it will just fall by the wayside like the latest movies. Only time will tell but I love the visuals that I’ve seen so far and think that moving the action to post-apocalyptic Japan is a nice touch. I do feel that a lot of Terminator fans are so jaded due to the recent output that they will switch off to just about anything anymore. We shall see…
