On Monday, Netflix released the first official trailer for Terminator Zero, the upcoming anime series set in the Terminator universe. Produced by Skydance Entertainment and Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass), the series takes place after the events of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day and centers on Eiko (Sonoya Mizuno), a soldier sent back in time to protect the life of Malcolm Lee (André Holland), a scientist developing an artificial intelligence that could threaten the genocidal ambitions of Skynet, the malicious A.I. responsible for waging war on humanity. To do so, she’ll have to fend off a Terminator (Timothy Olyphant), a robotic assassin sent to ensure that Skynet’s plans go off without a hitch.
As you can probably guess, the trailer features a ton of visual callbacks to the original Terminator film and Judgment Day, including shots of a nuclear explosion engulfing a city, an assembly line of T-800 endoskeleton faceplates, a person being transported via a time field generator, and a Terminator tinkering with the machinery beneath the exposed flesh of its forearm.
The footage looks appropriately dark and explosive, with Eiko running through a blood-splattered hallway and firing at a gas canister to fend off an advancing Terminator. It’ll be interesting to see how this new animated chapter in the Terminator franchise will build on, and complicate, the very dense (see: confusing) chronology of the films, which focus on the lives of John Connor and his mother Sarah as they attempt to survive a robotic assassin sent from the future to prevent her from leading a successful resistance against its machine masters.
Directed by Masashi Kudo (Bleach) and executive produced by writer-showrunner Mattson Tomlin (Project Power, The Batman), Terminator Zero will star Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka), Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale), and Timothy Olyphant (Justified) alongside Mizuno (Devs) and Holland (High Flying Bird).
Terminator Zero will premiere Aug. 29 on Netflix.
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