Netflix is bringing us another installment of “The Terminator” franchise with the limited anime series, “Terminator Zero.” The streamer has released some first-look images of the upcoming show. Series writer Mattson Tomlin (“The Batman Part II”) also opened up about the unique challenges with the new show.
Everything is Canon
One of the biggest challenges in writing for anything “Terminator” is continuity. Between six movies and the series “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” there are a lot of quirks in the timeline. While most new entries pretend certain things didn’t exist, Tomlin is keeping everything that came before it canon.
“We’re not going to pretend that the third movie didn’t happen,” he told Entertainment Weekly “We’re not going to pretend that the sixth movie didn’t happen.”
No Connors Allowed
While that amount of canon may sound dizzying, “Terminator Zero” will break away from the franchise’s established formula in a few ways. First, there will be no Connors, neither Sarah nor John will be a focus for this series. Instead, he is choosing to focus on all new characters.
“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,” said Tomlin. “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.”
Big in Japan
Tomlin’s real hurdle is “Terminator Zero,” being set in Japan. Netflix, Skydance, and animation studio Production I.G all wanted the show to have a Japanese component. So he decided to base the entire eight-episode series there, causing some unexpected challenges. “I was aware that there aren’t really guns in Japan, and I don’t think I quite appreciated how real that was,” he says.
He then went on to explain that during the first draft of season 1 scripts, there was a sequence where violence breaks out all over Tokyo, with many citizens pulling out firearms. “My partners at Production I.G came back and said, ‘Hey, so…there are no guns [in Japan]. If we needed a gun, we don’t know where we would get it.’ It was just such a stunning moment for me, like, ‘Oh, wow, I am an American.’”
As you can imagine this means “Terminator Zero,” will be devoid of all the gunplay fans have come to expect. However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be violence.
“There’s also a definite Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle kind of vibe in there,” Tomlin says. Making reference to Robert De Niro’s character in the classic Martin Scorsese film. “If I was going to fight a Terminator and I don’t have guns, what are the weapons that I could concoct?”
“There’s a completely valid version of the Terminator franchise where the Terminator is synonymous with Jason [Voorhees] and Freddy [Krueger], where he is this unrelenting serial killer,” he adds. “There’s a little bit of Friday the 13th in here. There’s a little bit of Michael Myers [from Halloween] in here.”
The Plot
“Terminator Zero,” will mostly take place in 1997, right on the cusp of Skynet’s military A.I. network becoming self-aware. This series will take place just before a decades-long war between machines and humans kicks off.
The story will focus on a soldier from this hellish future being sent back in time to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee. Lee, and his three children, are being hunted by a machine assassin disguised as a human because he is developing a competing A.I. system for Skynet.
“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,” Tomlin says. “What I wanted to do, if we get to do multiple seasons, is to see these kids grow up and see who they become.”
Tomlin took a lot of inspiration from the first two films. He even points to Kyle Reese (Micheal Biehn) from 1984’s “The Terminator.” “You don’t know what’s going on with that guy,” he said. “You do not know that he is the hero.”
“These are all original characters. We don’t know who anybody is. All of those answers are going to absolutely be revealed — and they’ll be revealed pretty quickly.”
All eight episodes of “Terminator Zero” will hit Netflix on Thursday, August 29th.
