*Netflix has released the teaser trailer for the hotly anticipated anime series “Terminator Zero.”
According to Netflix’s Tudum, “Terminator Zero,” created and executive produced by Mattson Tomlin, will be part of the “Terminator” universe but will center on characters we haven’t met yet.
This new addition to the franchise is set in 1997 Tokyo, just before the Skynet AI’s self-awareness triggers the war against humanity. Here’s the official synopsis:
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,” creator and executive producer Mattson Tomlin told Tudum. “And why are we still talking about this franchise 40 years later? You strip away killer robots, you strip away Judgment Day, what do you have left? You have stories about families.”
The series boasts a voice cast that includes voices of Timothy Olyphant, Rosario Dawson, André Holland, Sonoya Mizuno, and Ann Dowd. Below is a breakdown of their characters:
- Timothy Olyphant (Justified, Deadwood) as The Terminator: Some things about The Terminator haven’t changed. The Terminator is still out there. It still can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you’re dead. Yet as Tomlin tells Tudum, this incarnation of The Terminator and Olyphant’s interpretation isn’t like any we’ve seen before. “It feels fresh and new and wholly its own thing.”
- Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka, Common Ground) as Kokoro: An advanced AI and Japan’s answer to Skynet, if brought online, Kokoro will be endowed with the same power as Skynet. Kokoro must calculate for itself: Is humanity the plague Skynet believes it to be? Or are human beings worth saving?
- André Holland (Moonlight, The Knick) as Malcolm Lee: A genius computer programmer and father of three, Malcolm Lee is haunted by prophetic nightmares of an apocalyptic future. He’s spent the last decade creating a secret artificial intelligence that he believes will be humanity’s last hope.
- Sonoya Mizuno (House of the Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians) as Eiko: Coming from a post-Judgment Day 2022, Eiko is a resistance fighter sent back in time to stop Malcolm from launching Kokoro.
- Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale, MASS) as The Prophet: In the future, The Prophet is the philosophical guide for the human resistance, a light shepherding survivors in the darkness of the unknown future ahead. “There were a couple of people that I wrote characters for,” says Tomlin, “and The Prophet was always Ann Dowd. So her dialogue was written for her cadence of voice … Her performance just rocks.”
The eight-episode anime series is coming to Netflix on Aug. 29. Watch the trailer below.
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