The sagging Terminator franchise celebrates its 40th anniversary this year after first being powered up by acclaimed director James Cameron back in 1984. And while it’s never easy entering middle-age dragging a pair of creaky sequels titled Terminator: Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate behind you, we’re about to enter a bold new era of Skynet smackdown with Netflix’s electrifying Terminator Zero anime series that launches on August 29, 2024.
It’s hard to fathom the fact that there has never been a Terminator animation project of any form or flavor, but such is the puzzling case. Bolstered by the dynamic writing of The Batman’s co-screenwriter Mattson Tomlin (Project Power, Mother/Android), directorial duties courtesy of seasoned anime ace Masashi Kudo (Bleach), a killer synthesizer score by Kevin Henthorn and Michelle Birsky, and the animation wizardry of Production IG (Ghost in the Shell), this eight-episode series brings the high-profile sci-fi property back to its old-school horror roots.
Tomlin also serves as Terminator Zero’s showrunner and executive producer, and his time working with The Batman director Matt Reeves on the rebooted Caped Crusader flicks and its upcoming sequel let the filmmaker hone his skills in the grit and grime of Gotham City gutters. It's safe to say with this much talent behind the show that it has the potential to be not only one of the best Netflix series but the best Netflix anime.
What can we expect from Terminator Zero?
Set in Tokyo within the dual timelines of 1997 and 2022, Terminator Zero’s plot targets that fateful event in late summer known as Judgment Day and follows the brilliant scientist Malcolm Lee who’s being stalked by a relentless T-800 assassin robot.
Lee has created an advanced AI named Kokoro to counter Skynet’s insidious defense system. As the clock ticks ever closer to Armageddon for humanity, a lone female freedom fighter called Eiko is slingshot back in time from the year 2022 to protect Lee from the homicidal android aiming to thwart this major threat.
Terminator Zero has an impressive roster of voice actors that showcases the innumerable talents of Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Justified) as the Terminator, Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka) as Kokoro, André Holland (Moonlight) as Malcolm Lee, Sonoya Mizuno (House of the Dragon) as Eiko, and Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale) playing the role of The Prophet.
Mattson Tomlin's creative freedom
With time running out until the show’s August 29th release and so many eyeballs locked onto this first Terminator animated series – especially after seeing that the anime looks to go back to the original movie’s horror roots in first trailer – Tomlin’s feelings are a fusion of nervousness and deep calm.
“It depends on what time of day it is,” Tomlin tells TechRadar. “What I can say is that I look at the show, I look at what the last four years have been and I’m proud of it. Are there things that I wish were different or things that I wish I could change? Yes, that’s always the case. I can live with this one. And if people hate it, it’s my fault. And if people love it, it’s my fault. At a certain point you have to kind of just let it go and let whatever happens happen. I’m not quite there yet, but there will be a moment very soon where it doesn’t belong to me anymore, it belongs to the world. And when that moment occurs I’ll take a deep breath and let go.”
A lot of the time when I’ve gone into a big franchise there’s red tape... That didn’t happen here.
Mattson Tomlin
Despite the natural butterflies, Tomlin is secure in the notion that whatever transpires after Terminator Zero’s release, he created the type of Terminator show that he dreamed of making.
“I didn’t have to compromise anywhere. A lot of the time when I’ve gone into a big franchise there’s red tape or hills to die on or hoops to jump through that try to funnel you in a certain direction. That didn’t happen here. I raised my hand and I said, ‘I’d like to do this.’ And they said, ‘Sounds great, go do it.’ Any note that I ever got from Netflix or from Skydance was a helpful note about clarification. I love those notes because if they’re confused, the audience is going to be confused too. There was never the kind of cliche studio notes that came in that said, ‘Okay, you’ve done all this great work, now can you add an elephant?’ That didn’t happen.”
The making of Terminator Zero
Tomlin’s introduction to the Terminator universe was a traumatic one as an eight-year-old kid in the late ‘90s watching a VHS tape of The Terminator and shuddering in abject horror as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unstoppable machine removed his own cybernetic eyeball.
“I turned it off and returned the tape,” Tomlin recalls. “I had nightmares for a month and they all involved teeth falling out and faces getting ripped off. It’s funny, there’s a lot of faces coming off through Terminator Zero. In the first movie I directed, Mother/Android, a face gets torn off there as well. I don’t walk around afraid someone is going to tear my face off. But there’s something about that kind of violent, brutal, bloody image of we’re all skeletons underneath. In Terminator, when you strip it down, you’re not human underneath, you’re metal. That terrified me.”
Moving beyond and not being beholden to the iconic image of Schwarzenegger’s classic bodybuilder-style Terminator we’ve all known for four decades, Tomlin took inspiration from the source material of sci-fi master James Cameron’s original vision for the character, which TechRadar rates highly among the best James Cameron movies – you can get a sneak peek of the cyberpunk animation style in this clip that Netflix posted.
I did the thing that wasn’t quite done. Let’s have this guy that looks pretty normal. He’s a creepy guy who you don’t want to run into in a dark alley, and now let’s have him get run into in a dark alley.
Mattson Tomlin
“When I was sitting down to write it, there’s the question of, okay I’m doing Terminator so do I want to go ask Arnold Schwarzenegger to grace us with his time and presence?,” Tomlin notes. “Are we doing a big meaty guy? In looking for clues on what to do, I wanted to have this be a faithful adaptation to what the intent of Terminator was. I found this article where Cameron was describing potentially casting Lance Henriksen as the Terminator. And Lance and Arnold couldn’t be more different. The original conception was that he’s an infiltrator. He can sneak in and sneak out of anywhere almost like a spy. That never happened in any of the movies. Instead it went into leather jackets and Harley-Davidsons and shotguns and sunglasses.
“So for me, I didn’t think I could compete with that. It’s been done at the highest level so I did the thing that wasn’t quite done. Let’s have this guy that looks pretty normal. He’s a little bit cross-eyed, he’s got this greasy slicked-back hair. He’s a creepy guy who you don’t want to run into in a dark alley, and now let’s have him get run into in a dark alley.”
From Netflix Animation and Skydance TV, Terminator Zero arrives on Judgment Day, August 29. If you haven't seen the sci-fi franchise before, then check out our rankings of the Terminator movies to see where you should start.
