We’re less than a month away from the premiere of Terminator Zero, the anime series set in the dystopian universe of the Terminator film and television franchise. In anticipation for the original co-production between Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass) and Skydance, Netflix shared a new trailer for the series on Tuesday focusing on the show’s two human protagonists, computer programmer Malcolm Lee and time-traveling resistance soldier Eiko.
Executive produced and created by Mattson Tomlin (Project Power, The Batman), Terminator Zero brings the Terminator universe to anime for the first time, and is set after the events of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The series centers on Malcolm Lee (André Holland), a genius scientist developing an artificial intelligence that is perceived as a threat to the world-conquering AI Skynet.
Image: Netflix
When Skynet sends a Terminator (Timothy Olyphant) back in time from the future to kill Malcolm and his family, human resistance fighter Eiko (Sonoya Mizuno) travels back in time to safeguard Malcolm and his children from the robot apocalypse.
This latest trailer offers glimpses of Malcolm’s nightmares of a nuclear attack wiping out an entire city, Malcolm lecturing his son about the virtue of knowledge as a means of resisting oppression, and his desperate pleas for Kokoro to save humanity from impending extinction. We also get a few snippets of Eiko in action, fighting off a Terminator raid on an underground resistance base, throwing a molotov cocktail at a police car in hot pursuit, and planting an explosive device on an industrial walkway while swinging from a rappel line. In short, being a badass and earning her place in the resistance against Skynet.
It’s been nearly five years since Terminator: Dark Fate, the sixth film in the Terminator series that was moderately well-received by critics but bombed at the box office. Will Terminator Zero turn out to be the much-needed shot in the arm this franchise needs? We’ll find out when the anime premieres on Netflix next month.
Terminator Zero will premiere Aug. 29 on Netflix.
