There are just two weeks left until Judgement Day and the release of Netflix's Terminator Zero. The highly anticipated anime series will premiere on the streaming platform on August 29th and ahead of its debut, Netflix has shared a new sneak peek.
The latest teaser — which absolutely nails the overall tone and vibe of the original movie franchise — focuses on Skynet as it prepares to its deadly assassin back in time to hunt a scientist named Malcolm Lee. Created and executive produced by Mattson Tomlin (Project Power, The Batman II), Terminator Zero is set in the same universe as the original Terminator films but focuses on characters we haven't met before.
The series shifts the action to Japan where Lee is currently working to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet's impending attack. But while Lee navigates the moral complexities of his creation, Skynet — during its future war — has sent back its own cyborg assassin to stop him. This new sneak peek depicts the time-traveling process.
Directed by Masahi Kudo at animation studio Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Kaiju No. 8), the official synopsis for Terminator Zero reads:
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.
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’s hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future, which forever alters the fate of his three children.
“I was looking at the franchise and the first two movies in particular,” Tomlin previously Tudum. “And why are we still talking about this franchise 40 years later? You strip away killer robots, you strip away Judgement Day, what do you have left? You have stories about families.”
Terminator Zero features a star-studded voice cast that includes Timothy Olyphant as the voice of the Terminator; Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka) as Kokori, an advanced AI that serves as Japan's own Skynet competition; André Holland (Moonlight) as Malcolm Lee, the computer programmer who developed Kokoro; Sonoyo Mizuno (House of the Dragon)as Eiko, a resistance fighter sent back in time to prevent Malcolm from launching Kokoro; and Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale) as Prophet, a philosophical guide for the human resistance.
The debut of Terminator Zero was unfortunately prematurely spoiled as the series was leaked in its entirety as part of Netflix's data breach. All eight episodes were released online, but hopefully you managed to avoid any spoilers. Thankfully, we only have two more weeks to wait until the series makes its highly anticipated debut on August 29 — Judgement Day.