I truly confess that I'm a big fan of the Terminator franchise, I have watched the classic duology from James Cameron himself all the way to the unlucky sequels since childhood and a very brave attempt in the form of a TV show subtitled “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” during my teenage years, but if there could be another candidate that could sit along the same throne with The Sarah Connor Chronicles as a great exploration of the Terminator universe in the form of a TV show, it has to be 2024 Netflix miniseries experiment Terminator Zero. Maybe it isn't a fresh film focus like the writing challenge, but it is indeed one of the better spin-offs of the eternal war between humanity and Skynet. A warning tale about a rogue AI returned to our screens in the form on an anime in the same date of the Judgement Day, on August 29 of 2024.
Developed by the rising filmmaker and occasionally comic book writer Mattson Tomlin, who helped to assist on the script for Matt Reeves The Batman, as well as to co-write the comic book BRZRKR: Fallen Empire alongside the breathtaking Keanu Reeves.
Tomlin wrote the script, which would later on translated into Japanese, to leave the dubbing animation process for both Japanese and English to the Production I.G. animation studio, the main responsible for animating Ghost In the Shell, and it's sequel Innocence, the epic but scary Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and the animated flashback sections of the O'Ren Ishii character, from Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol.1.
Once upon a time, on August, 29 1997…
In a very modernized and pacific city of Tokyo in Japan, the threated Judgment Day is upon humanity, and a mysterious man called Dr. Malcolm Lee is heading into his computer lab named Kokoro, is working to stop Judgment Day and the imminent war against the machines controlled by the defense system called Skynet.
Meanwhile, in another side of the city, Dr. Malcolm Lee's children, Kenta and Hiro are being protected by their housekeeper Misaki and a hardened resistance fighter named Eiko, and at the same time, they are escaping from a Terminator send back in time from the year 2022, to terminate Malcolm Lee and their sons, as they are future members of the human resistance in 2022.
Yet again, another Terminator tale…
As far as we know, this is a classic Terminator tale, but it quickly turns the screw on the formula when the AI Kokoro comes into play by taking control at the same time as Skynet attacks all of the countries in the world with a massive nuclear strike.
She activates an army of civilian drones called 1NNO to eliminate any type of resistance by terminating any opposing citizen as well any kind millitary force , even stopping the warheads from reaching Japan and fighting against Skynet deadliest cyborg while discussing with her creator Dr. Malcolm Lee, if humanity is worth saving from extintion.
As the plot thickens it comes with more surprises… (with strong SPOILERS ahead, so you have been warned.)
As we go forward, the story becomes more cerebral and insane, as well as giving a few tweaks to the main T-800 antagonist in terms of weapons like the improvised crossbow in its arm, the way he uses the 1NNO drones to bypass their attacks.
Misaki, the housekeeper turns out to be a heavily modified T-800 unit, re-programmed by Malcolm Lee in the year 2040, and the main basis to create the counter AI Kokoro, the T-800 assassin was sent by Kenta Lee during the future war all along, almost like a mix between the Terminator from the first and second film into one unique T-800 cyborg unit, and a new timeline is created in the process as we know the resistance fighter Eiko is the mother of our protagonist the Dr. Malcolm Lee. So, the series is full of plot twists after plot twists that can be interesting for some, but at the same time, I really don't think many people are going to be a fan of them.
When Zero out matched Genisys and Dark Fate…
I couldn't believe my eyes, when I finished seeing the entire miniseries. After 15 years of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, in all the places in the world, Netflix makes a 1–2 combo punch. It has a familiar story like any other Terminator film from the future war scenes and the time travel plot, saving people from the past and all that jazz. But the twist, is seen right away from the first chapter where we see our protagonist Dr. Malcolm Lee dreaming about the Judgment Day, like Sarah Connor did in Terminator 2, but this time is from a time traveler that happens to be the creator of a counter AI named Kokoro (heart in Japanese) to stop Skynet from the inside right before the A-bomb raid begins to rain all over the world.
However, this turns out to be a wrong move, since Kokoro divides into 3 different holograms, spirit, mind and heart, leading to Kokoro to act as another version of Skynet as she decides to exterminate the population of Tokyo and later on, the population of the entirety of Japan after an analysing the most violent events in human history over the years.
During the scenes between Malcolm Lee and Kokoro, for the first time in years we can see the more cerebral side of the entire Terminator franchise, in the form of a debate between letting humanity survive the extermination plans of Skynet and acknowledge that besides all the faults, humanity are a species still worth saving.
Even there is a small scene during the future war in Japan where our other protagonist, the resistance fighter Eiko (which is a combination between Kyle Reese, Sarah Connor and a bit of Grace from Terminator Dark Fate, just slightly better fleshed out), right before she goes to travel to back 1997, she is explained by a medium named The Prophet, that when ever there is a time travel going on, another timeline is created in the process, basically saying to her, that once she travels back in time, the world she once knew will automatically be gone because of the changes she will make in the timeline. A far better exploration and a simpler explanation of an alternate timeline from previous attempts from previous sequels Terminator Genisys and Dark Fate.
All of this in an 8th episode animated sci-fi epic, with the aesthetic of classic anime films like Ghost in the Shell, the atmosphere seen in some shorts from the Animatrix from 2003 and the old-school style of storytelling from the first films by James Cameron, bringing back the respect to the series had years prior the sequels that came after T2.
Besides with the recent news about AI becoming relevant once again, as it is becoming used relentlessly by big corporations, and causing lots of worries between the population, The Terminator has become once again into a warning tale of a subject most people are taking for granted as something that could only happen in cheesy science fiction warning tales.
I don't know if AI will become a into treat similar to Skynet or even Legion, but it might become in something more similar to Kokoro, HAL 9000, V.I.K.I. or The Entity from the latest Mision Imposible film. And in the worst case, and hopefully it doesn't even remotely happens, a ruthless Artificial Intelligence like Shodan from the System Shock games.
So, is it a worthy follow-up ?
Yes, for a few and maybe no for other people. But why? Because the Terminator franchise had already run its course since 1991, unless you want to acknowledge the amazing ride Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time (the original Terminator 3 for many exposed on Universal Studios from 1996 to 2017) as a closure to the Terminator storyline.
And maybe the spin-off that explores the future war in the videogame Terminator: Resistance. 
Yet, if you are looking for something in the similar vein as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners or the first seasons of the Castlevania anime series, I can definitely recommend you to watch this miniseries.
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-One Golden Magic ticket for 3 romantic dates, please. : https://www.peliplat.com/es/article/10043518/one-golden-magic-ticket-for-3-romantic-dates-please
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