Terminator Zero
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I could find obscure and/or interesting movies to review. Then Netflix dvd went away. But you’ve heard that old whine a few times. Now and then I get lucky and find something that is interesting, and that happened this week. The Terminator remains one of my favorite apocalypse fictions, despite so many lame additions to the original franchise. At its core, it’s an interesting story that was fun to watch for the first two movies. I found this anime series and was curious, and discovered a new take on an old series. Mostly a new take.
In 1997, an asshole father and deluded scientist tries to out logic the AI robots who are intent on destroying humanity. He has three children, one of whom is an unfortunately asshole clone of himself, who doesn’t care about how his actions affect others as long as he gets to appease his “scientific” curiosity. But the story begins in 2022, when the AI robots have mostly taken over, except for a few ardent fighters who continue to oppose the overwhelming robotic force bent on eradicating humanity.
One fighter manages to go back in time to the origin of the robot plague and tries to stop the insanity that has destroyed the world she knows. The Kyle clone. There are a few callbacks to the original movies, like the time travel carving sphere shaped holes, a kneeling profile, and a garbage truck. Because the story needs to be retconned into a Japanese storyline, there are some differences from the first two Terminator movies, but there are a lot of nods, aka lines of dialogue and images that call back the original movies. I stopped taking notes after a little while, but I noted the nuclear bomb dream and the storming coming warning, an abused robot dog named John, and an image of a survivor holding a rat for food among many others.
There are a lot of nods to the original story, but it still holds its own with Japanese origins enough to make it interesting to watch. The dad, a scientist named Malcolm (like the scientist in Terminator 2) tries talk the AI out of destroying an organism that has only ever used scientific advances as tools of war – humans – and fails badly. Hubris, my old friend.
There were so many “nods” to the original two movies that I had to stop taking notes. One thing I didn’t do was lose interest. The art work alone had me super intrigued. The terminator are relentless and way better depicted in anime form. There is not a singular actor depicting the unyielding and persistent monsters who have come back from the past to undo everything, which strengthens the entire story, I felt.
After so many attempts at revisiting the Terminator story, I think this one may be the strongest entry. It acknowledges the original without being totally bound to those story lines. The artwork is gorgeous and there is enough guesswork about where the Japanese version will go to keep a viewer engaged. Plus, the Central Heroic Character is female. I liked that. When it comes to Terminators, gender doesn’t matter so much as heroic ability, right? This is fun, and I’m excited to see where the story ends up. Knowing Netflix, it will end just as it gets interesting, but even a few episodes are worth the effort.
Available on: Netflix
LINKS:
CFR: In Addition
I love the Terminator series and I seen this advertised and yay Terminator. So I will watch this one day cause yay Terminator!!!
Oh and the first Terminator was the best.
Chick Flicking Reviews 