Comedy
Kaos
This modern retelling of Greek mythology falls into a pit of questionable themes and content concerns deeper than Tartarus.
Nuclear missiles fall from the sky, decimating the world below.
It’s a dream Malcolm’s suffered for a long time, and he’s convinced that it’s more than just a recurring nightmare. In fact, he’s confident that, in 1997, advanced AI Skynet will become self-aware and launch nuclear strikes on humanity after assessing the human species as a threat to its existence.
That means Malcolm, living in that pivotal year, doesn’t have much time left.
It’s why he’s so often locked away at Tokyo’s Cortex Industries, working on Kokoro—Japan’s own AI answer to Skynet. Malcolm hopes that Kokoro can be trained to see that humanity is valuable so it’ll protect humankind from Skynet’s genocidal attack.
And then a Terminator—a robotic assassin—arrives from the future, looking to find Malcolm and, erm, blue screen him, permanently. A human soldier named Eiko also arrives from the decimated year of 2022 to protect Malcolm.
These events only serve to give Malcolm confidence that Kokoro must be the answer to saving humanity from AI-induced nuclear holocaust.
But then Kokoro starts asking Malcolm questions of “her” own.
Questions like, “What makes you think humanity is worth saving?”
If you ever wondered what other countries were doing during the events of the Terminator franchise, Terminator Zero will give you some insight about Japan’s reaction.
As the country develops Kokoro, it’s obvious that Japan’s AI is a lot more nuanced than that of Skynet. It’s thoughtful, it’s contemplative, and it’s split into three ethereal projections, representing heart, mind and spirit, respectively. As you might glean from that, Malcolm’s conversations with this AI often veer toward the spiritual—and not always in good ways.
The anime likewise contains some sexual content: Both humans and androids are seen naked, though nudity for both is more reminiscent of a Barbie doll—correct anatomical structure without any critical pieces where they should be. And Eiko’s relationship with another female character seems to go beyond platonic.
True to the original film trilogy, Zero loves the time-travel trope of both the good and bad guys sending a single soldier from the future to protect someone from the past. And as these adversaries fight, plenty of animated blood is shed by any unfortunate enough to get caught in the middle. They’ll throw some heavy language out at each other, too.
The Terminator franchise has never been described as an upbeat watch, but Terminator Zero often feels even bleaker—probably as a result of Malcolm’s struggle to answer Kokoro’s question regarding humanity’s worth. Fans of the franchise may appreciate how this new entry goes a bit deeper philosophically than its predecessors—but the content issues might make you want to terminate your viewing experience.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
As Malcolm develops Kokoro, Eiko and the Terminator both arrive from the future to find him.
A man is shot in the head. The Terminator steps on a dead body, crushing its skull. We see many other dead bodies. The Terminator’s face is partially blown off to expose its metallic skeleton. Someone crashes his car and is left dead or unconscious. The Terminator slaughters a hiding colony of men and women.
In a dream, a nuclear blast destroys a city, which causes Malcolm and his children to have their skin burned away down to the bone.
We see naked androids, though they’re missing any critical bits. Eiko has a close relationship with another woman named Annie. While not explicitly stated, the two seem to have a more-than-platonic relationship—whether it be familial or romantic.
The f-word is used once.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
This modern retelling of Greek mythology falls into a pit of questionable themes and content concerns deeper than Tartarus.
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