Terminator Zero teaser makes a good case for animating the A.I. war

Seeing the Terminator Zero teaser in action, it’s hard to believe this is the franchise’s first foray into animation. Translating James Cameron’s sci-fi world into anime makes a lot of sense—the grit, the violence, the techno-future aesthetic are perfectly suited to this style. Of course, we shouldn’t put the cart before the horse ahead of the new series’ August 29 premiere on Netflix, but the teaser feels like a fun, fresh chapter for the franchise even as it explores that same old question: can the future be saved from Skynet?

You know the drill: in 2022, a small, scrappy human resistance fights back against violent robot overlords. The war all started in 1997, when the artificial intelligence called Skynet gained self-awareness and went genocidal. “Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity,” reads the a synopsis from Netflix. “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.”

The teaser itself is a rush of apocalyptic images and intimidating glimpses of the half-mutilated Terminator. It warns that “Judgment Day comes for us all,” but don’t expect to see a retread of the same characters and stories that the franchise has already covered. Showrunner Mattson Tomlin previously said that while his show references a lot of Terminator lore, he didn’t want to “burden myself with another John and Sarah Connor saga.” Instead, he’s setting up “an almost Godfather-like multi-generational saga that would ultimately follow this family with these kids,” the writer told Entertainment Weekly. “What I wanted to do, if we get to do multiple seasons, is to see these kids grow up and see who they become.”

While the characters may not yet be familiar to us, the all-star voice cast certainly is. Terminator Zero features the talents of Timothy Olyphant as the new Terminator, André Holland as Malcolm Lee, Rosario Dawson as Eiko, Ann Dowd as The Prophet, and Sonoya Mizuno as Kokoro. Whatever may go down in this particular timeline, we can trust this cast will do Terminator justice.