Here’s your first look at Netflix’s Terminator Zero

A new installment of the Terminator franchise is coming to Netflix on August 29, the streamer announced on Wednesday. Terminator: Zero is an anime series, but it’s firmly rooted in the logic of all six of the films, showrunner Mattson Tomlin told Entertainment Weekly. That said, he specifically leaned into the horror vibe of James Cameron’s first two films for the new show, which is forging new territory in the Terminator universe.

“2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity,” reads a synopsis for the series, which is set in Tokyo. “Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.”

Perhaps the most dubious change is the idea that Skynet’s AI can be fought with another AI, which is perhaps antithetical to the entire theme of the Terminator stories. But Tomlin told EW that he wanted the idea of who is “good” and who might be “bad” in this series to be somewhat ambiguous—and given the “moral complexities” of Malcolm’s creation, making a competing AI might not be the right move after all.

The biggest change is that Terminator: Zero won’t feature any of the most iconic characters of the franchise. “I think that it’s time to go into new characters and not burden myself with another John and Sarah Connor saga. There’s been a run at that a couple of different times,” Tomlin explained to the outlet. “There are a lot of callbacks to the other films. Fans who really know the movies are going to be doing the Leo meme from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but it’s not going to be as direct as John Connor walks in, because John Connor does not walk in.”

He does foresee a future for his time travel saga: “I knew that I wanted to tell a time-travel story, and I knew I wanted to tell an almost Godfather-like multi-generational saga that would ultimately follow this family with these kids. What I wanted to do, if we get to do multiple seasons, is to see these kids grow up and see who they become.”

Check out some more first-look photos from Terminator: Zero below, and check out the series when it lands on Netflix on August 29.