In 2022, an assault team with the resistance is wiped out—all but a resilient fighter who must fight her fear to outwit and defeat a seemingly invincible machine. She holds a vital tool for the efforts of the resistance and must survive and return to them with it, or else humanity’s days might be numbered. Meanwhile, in 1997, Malcolm Lee has developed a powerful A.I. system; his work is so critical that he neglects his family, who find comfort, after the death of Malcolm’s wife, through the care of a nanny, Misaki, and in the booming field of robot technology. As the technology around them begins slowly to rebel and his dreams seem to confirm a fated doom for humanity, Malcolm struggles on in the hope that they can avoid their fate, that humanity can stop their judgment day.
A once-perfect franchise that has since put out few good efforts turns to anime to revive the story of Skynet. And judging by the first episode (all eight are now available on Netflix), Production I.G. may have done just that. There’s a lot to like about episode one, mostly because it depends so fully on James Cameron’s vision, established in the first two films (and for what it’s worth, James Cameron finds this project “interesting”). It’s atmospheric right from the get-go with a really cool opening scene that introduces a character that we think may be vital to the series but is in such a frightening scenario that we’re not sure she’ll survive more than a couple of minutes. And that’s so important because it establishes how deadly this series’ Terminator, which seems akin to the T-800, is. The story, too, is pretty much what we expect from the series: the resistance is losing, Skynet sends a robot back in time to end humanity’s hope, and the resistance will likely do the same, to keep that hope alive; the difference this time is that the hero is not a baby or young boy who will lead the fight in the future, but a scientist who will apparently change everyone’s fates and perhaps stop the war before it even begins. Other similarities include a vision of Judgment Day that is obviously an homage to Sarah Connor’s in T2 (though with an “anime depiction of nuclear war” edge) and the same great score, though modified a bit for 2024:
But the “huh?” part of this episode comes not with convoluted timelines and time travel logic, but in the dub and script. You’ll immediately notice that the dubbing is awkward, very awkward, especially Andre Holland’s voicing of Malcolm, which is stilted and almost comically 90s. And maybe that’s the point—there are all sorts of cues, including the “kids miss their dad” storyline, that feel like a throwback to the 90s, so why not a dub that resembles stuff that we would have watched on the Sci-Fi channel back in the day alongside The Terminator and T2? That said, some of the voice work is better, including that for The Prophet (Ann Dowd) and some of the nameless supporting cast; as for Timothy Olyphant (who I expect to be awesome) and Sonoya Mizuno (whose acting work I’ve found to be pretty horrible, though I’m waiting to hear her speak more than three lines to see how she’ll do here), we’ll have to wait for future episodes. The writing is also pretty awful, with lines like “Knowledge is power, Kenta” making it into the script, not that James Cameron’s works are known for their dialogue (movie tip: fast-forward the first half of Titanic). So once again, is this kind of awful, woulda-fit-in-the-90s dubbing and script purposeful? I’m not sure, but so far, it’s more distracting to me than something that places me in the headspace for The Terminator. Regardless, I’m very eager to continue with the show. James Cameron is working on his own secret Terminator project right now, and I hope that this series is a high point for the franchise and that it leads up to Cameron’s return instead of being yet another entry that does not involve him and which ultimately disappoints.
Terminator Zero is streaming on Netflix.
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