“We wanted to bring the horror element back”: Terminator Zero Pays the Perfect Homage to James Cameron That Masashi Kudô Ensured Was Crucial to the Story
- James Cameron might not have been involved with the anime series Terminator Zero, but it still has elements he introduced.
- Director Masashi Kudō revealed that they made sure that the series has horror element which was in the first film.
- Terminator Zero being set in 1997's Japan gave leverage to the show's tone because of the conditions there at the time.
Terminator is finally back in town after six long years in Terminator Zero. Legendary filmmaker James Cameron laid the foundations of the sci-fi action franchise all the way back in 1984. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the titular role, the first movie was a critical and commercial hit.
Its popularity was so widespread that it spawned an entire franchise centered around a dystopian future where intelligent machines, led by an AI called Skynet, wage war against humanity. Cybernetic assassins called Terminators go back in time to protect or kill pivotal characters, which can alter the future.
Evidently, Cameron was way ahead of his time when he made that first movie. Since then, numerous sequels, TV series, and even web series have been made. The most recent of these is the anime series Terminator Zero, which pays homage to the Avatar director’s vision.
Terminator: Zero Pays Tribute to James Cameron by Bringing in This Element from the First Film
James Cameron is easily one of the most talented filmmakers in the industry with some of the best sci-fi franchises including Terminator and Avatar. Although he has been involved in some capacity with some of the subsequent Terminator projects, the new anime series is not one of them.
Terminator Zero follows the story of Malcolm Lee who is working on an AI system that will compete with Skynet. However, a day before Judgement Day, he finds himself and his three children being pursued by a cybernetic assassin sent from 2022 to protect them.
Masashi Kudō has directed all eight episodes of the show from a script penned by Mattson Tomlin, who made uncredited contributions to the script of The Batman. Recently, Kudō revealed to Nexus Point News how he created the visual tone for a dystopian world that was on the brink of annihilation.
We wanted to bring the horror element back that was in the first Terminator film. So that’s where we started. The tone of the visuals are a little darker, like something scary coming out of the dark, that’s what we wanted to go for.
This is a shoutout to the way Cameron designed the first film to be on just this side of horror. The fact that the director paid such close attention to detail seems to be the secret behind the show becoming such a huge success.
Japan’s Predicament in 1997 Aligned with the Tone of the Story
The show might have taken inspiration from Cameron’s vision but it is also different in quite a few ways. To begin with, this is the first anime show in the franchise. Further, it is set in Japan which is something that has not been seen in any of the projects of this franchise before this.
Despite this, the timeline of the story seemed to align with the country’s predicament in real time in 1997. Kudō admitted that this helped with the tone of the show.
It’s set in 1997, in Japan, and back then in Japan we were going through a lot. [It was believed] that at the end of the century something horrible was going to happen, and that was sort of a trend back then. So I think the whole zeitgeist of Japan at that time really blended well with the tone, and was thematic to the story too.
That said, the show does not veer away from the theme of the franchise at all, complete with gory and brutal fight scenes that will definitely keep fans at the edge of their seats. Not only do these scenes detail the horrors of war, but also show how devastating the consequences of resistance can be.
Terminator: Zero is available for streaming on Netflix.
