Forum - View topicREVIEW: Terminator Zero Anime Series Streaming Review
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Glordit
 Posts: 643 |
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I have not checked again but when I watched it in the week it released, Netflix was using the dubs script for the subtitles. Which make some lines seem really, really bad.
Great series, I agree with it being wordy and a bit drawn out at times. Twist wasn't mind blowing but it was fun overall. I checked again 13/09 and it's STIL using the dub for the English subtitles. Last edited by Glordit on Fri Sep 13, 2024 3:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Soul_Punisher
Posts: 74 |
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One of the only good animes this year for netflix.
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andramus
 Posts: 192 |
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A couple of reviews I listened to/read for this series complained that the philosophical debate between Kokoro and Malcolm was too surface level and the reviewers felt they could have made a better case for humanity than Malcolm did.
Even if Malcolm was a student of philosophy and had read all the texts and philosophical arguments in favour of humanity I don't think it would have mattered. Kokoro would be able to access any of that information online. In addition arguments that might sound like they make complete sense to a human may just sound self-serving to an amoral AI that is completely on the fence as to humanity's worth. Ultimately I think the real meat of the debate came down to Malcolm and Kokoro's relationship. If Kokoro could learn to value one human life then in time it might come to value humanity as a whole. As the old saying goes spoiler["one death is a tragedy a million is a statistic".] My biggest issue with this series is that there were moments where humans physically overpowered the Terminator in ways that I didn't buy. Every time I saw one of those scenes I winced because it felt like an own goal giving fodder to all the nay-sayers and critics to lambast this series. A series which overall I think was very good and I'm looking forward to future seasons if any. One other issue I had was that there were no english subtitles for the Japanese dub. I find this especially problematic because I read an interview on this site before the series debuted saying that the lip flaps were animated for the Japanese language track. To me that means the Japanese audio is the primary track and deserves to be subtitled in various languages for anyone who wants to watch the show in it's intended language. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1460 |
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I think Netflix might be deliberately using the dub's scripts for the English subtitles in order to make them more faithful to the original scripts by Mattson Tomlin, even if they often differ from the Japanese dialogue. |
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AiddonValentine
 Posts: 2340 |
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Y'know, making a Terminator story that wasn't centered around the Connors in any way seems like an obvious idea they should have done years ago. It actually expands the world and shows what was happening in other places, even showing Skynet had other plans and concerns.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4592 Location: New York |
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This felt more like it wanted to be a remake of Colossus: The Forbin Project than Terminator, which speaks to how unnecessary just about everything post T2 was and how cynical the attempts to prolong the series have been even without Arnold. In a vacuum the series has some interesting ideas, but there’s this feeling that all it feels a bit smarter than it is because it’s trying to say something new about the franchise without Arnold.
spoiler[Also the ending is essentially the same as Colossus, but it tries to frame it as kind of happy as opposed to Colossus much more blatantly asking if we doomed ourselves (before the sequel books go off on tangents about aliens which is probably why they were never adapted to film). I didn’t buy that a franchise all about rejecting the yokes of fate and control would frame servitude to a new AI as happy.] |
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RacingManiac
Posts: 34 |
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I really enjoyed the series. I feel like it captured the original movie's horror element really well and overall really bought into the Terminator lore as we know it today with its mobius strip time travel element. I think some of that spoiler[Fry is his own grandfather] style element you can sort of see coming, it still made sense somehow in the story. Worked better as a story than any movie did since T2...
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dmanatunga
Posts: 71 |
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I wish I had the same reaction to the show as the reviewer.
As others have alluded to, watching the show with Japanese Dub with English subs is the worst option. They are poorly timed and if you have watched any decent amount of anime, you realize that it is not an actual translation. Ignoring that, I was much more critical of the pacing of the show. It felt fairly bog standard until the 7th episode where the reveals start happening. Which is kind of terrible given that the show only has 8 episodes total. Like you would think there were other things that could have happening in the first 6 episodes other than the Terminator going around and wasting every cop around. I also felt the conversations between Malcolm and Kokoro were somewhat surface level. There were some interesting concepts on humanity's preponderance for building things as weapons. But it rarely felt truly integral to the story and all of it just made me want to watch Ghost in the Shell again. I'm glad that the story does try to do something new with Terminator. Though wish they had it self-contained in one season. Tired of streaming shows ending on ambiguous notes in the hopes they get renewed. P.S. Good to know I am not the only one still angry at Terminator Sarah Conner Chronicles getting cancelled on that cliffhanger. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11584 |
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I really enjoyed it a lot. Best thing that's happened to the franchise since T2 and I'll definitely watch more if they make more. About the only thing I have to add to the review is that Kenta's a budding psychopath. I'm not hopeful leaving the future in his hands. And I'm not sure why they designed the Terminators to be so ugly. They're supposed to blend in enough to infiltrate human groups, but the two (I think) versions we saw looked so skeevy no one would trust them for five seconds. Especially the one sent back, who looked like a meth addict about to knife you for your wallet. I also could never buy that the standard metal skull would fit inside the narrow, squashed head that one had.
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Glordit
Posts: 643 |
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I guess you missed Kengan Ashura, TP Bon, Dungeon Meshi, Kimi ni Todoke and Rising Impact and are going to ignore Chi, Ranma, BEASTARS, and Ao no Hako? |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18428 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Oh, I'm in that club, too. The only other TV series in the past 25 years whose cancellation irked me more was Dark Angel - maybe not coincidentally, also James Cameron-connected. I agree with the reviewer and others that the pacing was just a bit off overall; while shortening it to six episodes may have tightened it too much, it certainly could have been cut down to seven. I also felt that the series was very deliberately making specific homages to the first two Terminator movies; the police station sequence was practically a replication of arguably the defining sequence in the first movie, for instance, and the scene where the Terminator disguises itself as a policeman was a clear call-out to T2 (among many others). Also found it amusing that it was released on an "anniversary" of Judgment Day; that was certainly deliberate. I also think it should be pointed out that this is the most graphic entry in the franchise, and by a fair margin. Know what you're getting into on that. Overall, though, as a long-time fan of the franchise, I did like it a lot and wouldn't object to a follow-up being made which explores the different angle the series ends on. |
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Soul_Punisher
Posts: 74 |
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Underwhelming. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2340 |
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Oh dear god, yes, I did not expect that level of splatter in the series. Some of those kills are straight up 80s-90s OVA levels of graphic. It's shocking to remember the most graphic violence in the franchise was on the Terminators themselves. |
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yuzumei
Posts: 57 |
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I frankly found the show mediocre at best.
Bland character designs and story. Generic action sequences. Boring characters specially the resistance fighter from the future and the kids. I could not care less for them. The resistance fighter cannot be more generic. It's the same fighter you have seen in all the terminators movies. The only difference is that this time it's a woman. Kudos to her for surviving a hand to hand fight against the terminator and incapacitating him by using her special fighting technique of grabbing its arm. As soon I saw the kids in the first episodes I knew this was going to be "Adventures in Babysitting" with Terminators mixed in. The only ok episode was episode seven that deals with the scientist past story. I liked that they set the show in a different country than the US and that they introduced new characters and a story not related to John Connor. But man these new characters are bland as hell and the show spend waaaayyyy to much time with the scientist talking with his AI computer. |
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4592 Location: New York |
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That's why I thought it was closer to Colossus: The Forbin Project than Terminator. There are many conversations with Kokoro/Colossus about how they view the human race. However, Colossus was driven by a desire to protect humanity from itself, while Kokoro was more about whether humans were worth saving, which is admittedly redundant when Skynet already wants to kill everyone. They also pointed out the folly of trying to change the past, which at the same time, allows endless sequels not based on the other films. Remember, the first film and even Genysis, the homage to the first film that it was, pointed out that sending the Terminator back in time was a last act of desperation from an otherwise defeated foe. ("Their defense grid was smashed. We won.") I think that's ultimately my issue with everything post T2, not to mention Terminator 2 is probably the best action movie sequel to a horror film ever (beating Cameron doing the same thing with Aliens) that the rules were changed to ensure endless sequels. |
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