Terminator Zero Review: Multiverse of Machine Melee Madness

When a Terminator story declares upfront that you’re watching events happening in 2022, it’s easy to wonder exactly which 2022 we’re talking about. Is it five years after the events of Genisys? Four past Salvation? Is the bad guy Skynet, or Legion? Or, since we’re watching this in 2024, is it the actual 2022 that we lived through?

Let’s just say we can probably count on Legion never being mentioned again, much like Genisys. But as to the other questions, the answer is yes and no — a fictional 2022 is an oft-visited future timeline here, while most of the story takes place in a version of 1997. However, Terminator Zero, while staying in one timeline for the duration of its own story, acknowledges the multiverse and effectively makes every Terminator story canon, the way the proposed sequel to Genisys was supposed to do. In doing so, it arguably breaks the rules of the original trilogy, in which the same timeline remained linear and malleable no matter how many Terminators arrived back through time.

Infinity Future War

Zero follows Marvel rules — each time anyone is sent back, it creates a new timeline. That way, many of them can turn out the same way, while still allowing for the fact that there’s no fate but what we make. If that sounds like a cheat, let’s just say this: Terminator Zero has arguably the best thought-out plot of any filmed Terminator media to date. The comics were often pretty smart; as movies and TV go, this is the smartest. Most Terminator movies deliver the premise and then set the action scenes in motion. For once, this 8-part miniseries keeps you guessing, despite leaning into all the tropes that would normally lead to a predictable finale.

There’s a lot of nostalgia to go around here. Produced in Japan, Terminator Zero doesn’t just draw on the audience’s love for James Cameron’s original films, but also on ’90s ideas of what anime could (and should) be. There’s scenery-splattering gore, ample nudity, and enough spiritual philosophizing and paradox talk to make the audience feel smart. Terminator and Ghost in the Shell were always adjacent, and here they’ve finally converged, along with a healthy dose of Holy Trinity metaphor. Visually, however, this is very 2024, with digital and hand-drawn designs as thoroughly integrated as flesh and metal on a Cyberdyne Systems 101 model.

Tokyo Story

So we’re clear: Judgment Day in Terminator Zero still goes down in 1997. This is an alternate-history timeline, centered on a futuristic Tokyo where humanoid robot servants called ENOs are commonplace. The very Miles Dyson-like Dr. Malcolm Lee, voiced in the English dub by Moonlight’s Andre Holland, has been anticipating the fatal date for some time, and is finalizing an ostensibly benevolent AI named Kokoro (Rosario Dawson) to counter Terminator factory-of-the-future Skynet. The only problem? He can’t be absolutely sure she won’t consider humanity just as worthy of extinction once she goes online. So he spends his days inside his Tokyo version of the Vegas Sphere and broods, while trying to figure her out.

Note: dubbed and subbed versions are available on Netflix. Given the star power of Dawson and Timothy Olyphant, it seemed more worthwhile to review the English version herein. If you’re an Olyphant fan, however, be advised that until the final episode, his Terminator makes Arnold Schwarzenegger’s look downright loquacious.

Apocalypse…Then?

Given that Japan has been the only victim of nuclear war thus far, it seems obvious and overdue that artists there might have a Terminator take more interesting than so many of our own. The nuclear anxieties captured by the Japanese animation team, led by director Masashi Kudo (Bleach) feel so specific that by the time they show the famous Hiroshima Genbaku Dome, preserved as the last building standing after the 1945 bomb, the point has been made. Indeed, the suggestion that every country except Japan might get nuked if all goes well feels like a warped sort of karma.

While Dr. Lee struggles to perfect Kokoro as an anti-Skynet, his kids are pursued by a new Terminator (Olyphant), whose field-healing methods make him look progressively more bizarre (and toyetic, let’s be honest) throughout. Further setting this story in the ’90s, virtually every Japanese cop is depicted constantly smoking. (In every case, we must note that it is not the thing that kills them.) Meanwhile, in a far future that’s a few years behind our own, we see the circumstances that led to resistance soldier Eiko (House of the Dragon’s Sonoya Mizuno) getting sent back on the latest protection mission.

Sanrio Grande

Along the way, the story lovingly satirizes Japanese cultural obsessions like cute toy robots and Hello Kitty, while inserting enough violent car chases and gun executions to satisfy the most bloodthirsty fans. In between such moments, we get to speculate on the parallels between the body-mind-spirit dichotomy as compared to the father-son-holy ghost trinity, wonder if computer programming could be read as biased pro-slavery talk, and think about what makes a soul. The final episode gets dangerously close to not resolving in favor of a potential season 2 cliffhanger, but without spoiling any details, we can say it wraps up its own arc well enough that the amount of possible sequel tease feels just right, and not like a cop-out.

There is no Sarah Connor in Terminator Zero, but nor does it rule out her existence. It’s just a very different story with a truly new angle, albeit with the mandatory trappings of killer, post-nuke, time-travelling cyborg and all that entails. How it took anyone this long to crack is a mystery, but with the right mix of ’90s nostalgia and actual thought, this anime miniseries turns out to be exactly what the Terminator franchise needed. It utilizes the best elements of the recent cinematic sequels without all the crap that bogged them down and suggests a future for integrating each and every contradictory timeline to date into a grand scheme, should that be sufficiently desired.

Grade: 4.5/5

Terminator Zero is now streaming on Netflix.