The time has come for answers. After building up a steady stack of intriguing mystery over the last six episodes, the moment has finally come for Terminator Zero to reveal all and cough up the backstory for AI creating scientist Malcolm Lee.
It’s been something of an easy ride for Lee, because while his family has been running all over town being chased by a ruthless murder robot, he’s been sat in a holographic chamber chatting to his creation about the nature of humanity. However, as conversations go, it’s got higher stakes than a particularly spirited episode of Hot Ones as the existence of an entire, dystopian future rests on whether Kokoro will decide to aid us in thwarting Skynet and halting the rise of the machines.
It’s expositions and admissions a go-go as Terminator Zero spills the tea and drops origin stories aplenty.
With time running out, the fateful debate between Kokoro and her creator, Malcolm finally gets to the good stuff. After discussions about the nature of humanity and whether or not our warlike nature means we’ve earned a one way ticket to the scrap heap, the question of Malcolm himself is finally address. How does this man of the present know so much about the future down to the smallest detail and how has he managed to create an artificial intelligence so advanced, it’s way more intelligent that Skynet, the rival AI Kokoro has been created to squash? After a glimpse at all of his documents, Kokoro has surmised correctly that Malcolm Lee is from the future and now that the time travelling cat is finally out of the bag, Malcolm gjve her the bullet points of his remarkable life.
Born in a skull strewn world in the year 2025, Malcolm was a precocious street rat by 2032 and was soon scooped up by the human resistance to fight for the cause by using his tiny frame and nimble ways to lay traps for T-800s and lure them into termination. However, after salvaging a Terminator skull and studying it for years, Malcolm realised that fighting Skynet to a standstill via a war of attrition simply isn’t going to have a happy ending and instead thinks that creating a good, “happy” AI may be the way to go to supplant Skynet instead of killing it and by 2025, the first incarnation of Kokoro was born that was allowed to name itself – you guessed it – Misaki. However, Malcolm’s fellow flesh bags are horrified when they discover that one of their own is creating his very own AI while they suffer under the boot of another and after an extremely violent intervention, both Malcolm and Misaki manage to procure the use of a Time Displacment Device and flee back to 1983 to get to work on saving humanity.
However, while Malcolm spills his guts, the Terminator sent to make sure that Kokoro never gets let loose arrives with his eldest son, Kenta, hostage. Will the scientist trade in his son’s life for the future he’s fought so hard to change?
There’s a very good chance that you’d guessed some of Terminator Zero’s already simply by the fact that most twists found within the franchise are often linked to some paradoxical fuckery or a hidden robot in sheen’s (read: human’s clothing); however, the reason that Zero’s versions of them has felt so fresh is it’s doing tgem in a way that casts a new light on the franchise as a whole.
Take the birth of Misaki which is practically the complete opposite of every other AI in the franchise insofar that she was actually raised to make her own decisions about her outlook, her beliefs, even her own name while Skynet was merely a bunch of parameters and algorithms supplied by Cold War hardened military men. In fact, Kokoro’s damning testimony of her more violent rival suggests that Skynet didn’t wage war on us because it had total awareness, it turned on us because it didn’t have enough. This is an incredible bit of retro active character building for an entity that is basically unknowable despite being played by both Helena Bonham Carter and Matt Smith at different points throughout the franchise. It’s with the teaching and nurturing of Misaki that we now realise (beyond the obvious coolness factor) why the animation studio behind Ghost In The Shell was given this gig as it truly feels like the natural next step after T2 saw a T-800 have its processor switched to “learning”. In many ways, Terminator Zero has suddenly become a parable about the raising of a child – give it the right information mixed with the right attention and chances are you’ll nurture the type of empathy Terminators often lack.
Not only does this story illuminate both Misaki, Kokoro and even Skynet even more as we gain a proper understanding of them, we now finally understand Malcolm better, although it may have been better if we hadn’t because as he takes us through his life from the moment of birth to now, his dedication to his self imposed mission may be as iron clad at the Terminator’s. Creating a new AI in a world thoroughly destroyed by one was never going to be embraced by his peers, but even I was shocked when he suddenly snaps and murders his own comrades when they come to execute Misaki and it’s that absolute dedication to his mission that leads to the episode’s banger of a cliff hanger when he refuses to save his son in order to let the infiltrating Terminator into Kokoro’s inner chamber.
But while the opening up of so many characters could have caused Model 107 to simply feel like just another Ghost In The Shell/Ex Machina/Battle Angel Alita rip off, the episode wisely reminds us which franchise we’re actually in by giving us footage that all Terminator fans endlessly hunger for – time spent in the future war. I gave to be honest, there’s something about seeing the original design for the tank like Hunter Killers rolling over mounds of human skulls once again that hits me right where I live and I’ll never get tired of the sight of skinless T-800s marching across the landscape. In fact, the sequence where a pre-teen Malcolm lures one of the killer contraptions into a trap is nicely reminiscent of Kyle Reese’s introduction in Terminator Salvation we he pulls of a similar trick.
So, with almost all the backstory cleared up (there’s still a hefty wedge of mystery around Eiko and the Prophet, remember), Terminator Zero is now free and clear to plough into its final episode as we’re doubtlessly on the verge of a crunching showdown between all the players. But who will get to Kokoro first – Misaki or the Terminator? Who will Kokoro pick – mankind or herself? And did the Terminator really give Malcolm one less mouth to feed when we cut to black from Kenta face with the sound of a gutshot? Doubtful – but then, the future is not set, remember?
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