The Reel Rejects - TERMINATOR ZERO 1x7 & 1x8 Breakdown & Review!!

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Starting point is 00:01:28 Madsen. Snaps and Team. All right, gang, Terminator Zero. We don't have the longest time to talk, but we've talked a lot so far. So, G, in totality, what did you think? I give the show a solid 9 out of 10. I give it a solid 9. Okay.

Starting point is 00:01:47 Because I thought I would land more around the 8, but this finale really did a great job. You know, like along this journey, the things that we've been expressing, I'm actually glad we watched it two episodes at a time and took the time to talk. about it because as opposed to just why doing a full long bench is allowed to capture the ultimate experience of like what we're emotionally going through as we're watching this show and I do think that you know the first half I really did love that and then his last half is when they started really you know under they they knew the rules and the toys to play with with Terminator in terms of like time travel artificial intelligence and what else can we do to mess with timelines

Starting point is 00:02:25 and stuff like that so I really like that they embraced all that but I was wondering how is this going to actually land by the end of it? And I was just kind of wanting a couple of answers. I didn't expect more than what I was bargaining for. At the same time, they gave us, like, twists I just didn't even, like, think about or was even speculating on of, like, who's this, or what might they be? And right down to the Terminator itself. And I thought it was a really great ending that made the one aspect that we've been back and forth on

Starting point is 00:02:56 has been this whole thing with Malcolm and Kokoro. which I actually imagine in rewatch that all those scenes would play better now now that I understand what they really are because they really had me sold into some like it must be like some he knows 1997 because of a convergence

Starting point is 00:03:15 of timelines or something and the memories overlapping or whatever that's what I thought you know because I've seen so many time travel things and that's like one of the aspects that they go down sometimes it's like the hodgepodge of things colliding together and I don't

Starting point is 00:03:29 You did throw it out there, though, at some point. You did? You did? Do it out like a few minutes before they revealed? No, like episodes ago. I was like, is he from the future? Yeah. God, I didn't hear that. Good on you, man. You got a lot of predictions, right.

Starting point is 00:03:39 You got a good amount. Sorry, this is the one show where I was like, oh, I got a lot of these things. She was half a robot. Yeah, you got that right. He was for the future. She was also a robot. I think they nailed that a lot, and they, I thought this was a really gripping finale with, like, I was just so absorbed into the mood of this, of this final episode.

Starting point is 00:03:59 and not knowing, like, I don't know if you should shut Kokoroa or not. Like, I really don't know what the answer is. It's like, they know how to throw you into, this was that I kind of wanted from the debate is to have me as an audience member be like, I don't know what I would do, actually. I'm not sure why I would do this or do that. And then actually go, and then it answers even, I didn't even think of myself now. It answers the question of Iko going back. She's saving her family.

Starting point is 00:04:24 Yeah. You know, like, and she didn't even know she was doing that. Yeah. So I'm wonder if that old lady's like an old version of her or something. I don't know what the hell we're watching that. Well, yeah. The old lady who knows everything? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:35 I still have slight variations on questions about the future. But yeah, like, and I like actually, as much as I feel like there's always a healthy debate to be had about like, you should always answer whatever question. I like having some peripheral magic of like, I'm not quite sure who she is. and maybe on a rewatch it'll become more clear or something like that but I like that those twists with her

Starting point is 00:05:01 and with The Terminator where yeah she's secretly kind of going back to protect her family and gaining a new purpose to answer her lack of purpose or what seems like a hopeless fight in the future

Starting point is 00:05:12 but then you also have what was my train of thought so locked in I like that you have that and then you also have like the Terminator needs a human for function. It's not just about like, oh, we got to kill this person

Starting point is 00:05:28 or oh, we got to come back and plant this weapon or whatever. It's like, no, we need this kid. So it's like half protection mission, but it's a very sinister one at that. It's like a delivery fetch. And so like that, when that was coming together, I was like, oh, that's another unique twist on

Starting point is 00:05:44 what the Terminator's presence is for, which is one of the most gripping aspects of Terminator one to two. You know, and I thought, yeah, this carried on tradition. It's like you can do things to tribute properties by recreating moments or showing iconography. But I think what's cool about something like this is they seem to take the choices, twists, and tropes that this series tends to want to make. And it seemed like they really got

Starting point is 00:06:11 to think them through and really present those thought processes. It's like there are all the other Terminator sequels that at least, aside from three, which I haven't seen all of. They all have some interesting ideas about how the mechanics work or what twist we could put on them, but a lot of times they feel like they're undercooked in service of like, let's get to some cool stuff. Yeah. And this really felt like in both the nuts and bolts

Starting point is 00:06:34 of like how they use the T-800, how they use the motifs of Terminator, but then also how they use the philosophical implications and quandries of Terminator. It's thought was like so lovely, and it made for good like twists and turns, good unexpected developments, because you're not

Starting point is 00:06:50 used to seeing something. I'm not as accustomed to seeing something like this go as deep and especially in the age of, you know, so many streaming series where you're like, damn, this could have been condensed and it would have felt richer. This felt like, man, I could keep watching a lot of this. I could keep watching a lot of these conversations and I can keep watching a lot of these situations and the tension that they're able to ring out of both the action and the, I think that is an excellent point. I feel like that's what you want from a well-drawn debate, but not often do you feel as much in the shoes with the decision?

Starting point is 00:07:23 Because it's always like, yeah, the circumstances are ridiculous. But when it comes down to it is just like, do I turn the machine off or do I leave it on? You know, which is a very human, you know, sort of position you could put yourself into the shoes. Yeah, I think Terminator is one thing that with this franchise is sometimes I think, I thought maybe the last I was getting too complex for its own good. And I feel like what they did was they managed to make the complexities and make it feel very rich. and I was really appreciative because something to me as like a Terminator fan

Starting point is 00:07:53 is that you have to bring it back to reminding us about the Terminator itself because we were getting so lost in like Kokoro and Masaki like all this other stuff that wasn't about the Terminator. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so to-chasing the kids around. To bring it back around to the Terminator

Starting point is 00:08:12 in a way that allowed her to feel focused with a gripping finale and to even have you kind of question like, Wait a minute. What's this Terminator's motives exactly? Why is this Terminator doing? Like, suddenly it's not so crystal clear what the Terminator's doing. And I liked watching that in its action scenes. Like, oh, I thought this kid was just used as a bargaining chip or as leverage to threaten. And next thing, you know, he's like saving this kid from being crushed by a bunch of rubble. I'm like, what the hell what's going on right now? And I loved how they brought it back to that. And I appreciate that they managed to take something. Normally when you take a franchise where what makes it so powerful is, something that is really grandiose, but simplifying it. And then when they were going kind of big and complicated, I was worried he was going to get too complex. And it didn't.

Starting point is 00:08:57 I think by the end, they wrapped it all around. Like the reveal, I like how all the things with the timelines are sort of this convergence of people's different choices. You know, the dad goes back in time, but then his son,

Starting point is 00:09:08 25 years from this present timeline since this terminator back in time to make sure this kid makes a choice. But maybe, maybe that's true. Maybe that isn't because he didn't even listen to the termination. He ultimately didn't turn the EMP on. Well, and there's that layer, too, on Kent's little moment there, because he has been given this portent of, like, you have purpose and you'll broker this deal. And maybe he still could or will, but, like, he has to choose not to go on the special timeline

Starting point is 00:09:35 that involves me directly being special. Yeah. You know, and, yeah, it's like the human sacrifices are, like, muddier and more interesting. And I think something like that, yeah, where you get to project under the Terminator and they have that whole conversation about like i don't want to project my personality onto you and with the terminator specifically they let you do that here and i think yeah they they managed to create something that feels in the spirit of defying fate like i feel like it's good it complements a show about like the questions of fate and can we forge a new path not having the most predictable action is good so like

Starting point is 00:10:07 scenes like that where he saves the kid from the rubble but he's clearly fighting you know the other iaco like yeah you get to bask in that moment of like oh damn i don't really know it's happened or is going to happen and I just know it's gripping and that's a special feeling to get from like you know there's a lot of stuff that's cool and enjoyable but it's it's nice to feel like you are just caught up in the moment even you know when it's in animation it's not photoreal well that was the crazy part about it was other than like the little girl where they hinted at her being a little bit more special than this show was actually kind of telling us at the time because she's like the one who knew what a terminator was and all these things And they really illustrated how Kenta is really important for the future. But you still get this sense that every character was significant. They kept talking about how the kids are so important, the kids are so important. And you do get that sense that there is some level of significance to them that we haven't even discovered yet. So I do like that we have, there's like still more of these.

Starting point is 00:11:09 I think what's cool about the conversations they set up is that there's more conversations to sort of mine from it. like the conversations can continue yeah uh versus like just start a new conversation and we've entered we're in like brand new terrain and it's like i don't know why koko will want the t800 head at the very end brought to her like i don't i don't know or it's i don't know like give me the CPU is all i can think like can we what can we learn about sky net from the cpues of these things but the reveal of masaki being the first creation and how they led to that was a brilliant reveal malcolm's whole backstory that he's from the future and the journey that he went on. It's just crazy.

Starting point is 00:11:48 Like that illustration of the human choices that he made and watching how, you know, the machines are making their choices by playing, you know, jury essentially, a witness jury to what humans do. And that kind of dictates their, I don't know the word for it. The outcome determined. That's the ruling of what they're like modus up or what they think about the human race. So yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:20 Yeah. I was kind of blown away by this finale. I feel it was the other twist. Iko be in the grandchild. We got them and there. Grandma. Missa Makasa. Not Mikasa.

Starting point is 00:12:30 Masakasa. His mother. Makasa is attack on time. Masaki. Well, and just the idea of like, I think it's a nice idea for a Terminator to explore like, oh, okay. Like, especially in an age where AI is. becoming more and more of a thing directly in the, you know, focal conversation of society. I think it's interesting that they went with that angle of like, oh, how did we build and program this to start with?

Starting point is 00:12:55 What prompts did we give it as like the bedrock of its mind? And I feel like, you know, they extrapolated that really nicely. They didn't have to do that. They didn't have to, I don't know. I feel like they really had time to hack out all the elements. because there was an emotional aspect about like selflessness and love and family but there's also you know about trust and sort of recognizing that certain times there won't be answers and certain times you just only have you know the suffering of the moment or whatever and i and i

Starting point is 00:13:31 you said something earlier about like it's not getting too big and i and i think it's kind of neat when you look back and realize like oh yeah this you have the future you know the wasteland and stuff like that. But for the most part, this does feel like a movie that is just sort of contained because you're mainly at their house on the road to Cat Town, or you're in the Kokoro, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:52 penthouse of the, you know, building there. Like, you're not actually doing a whole bunch of like crazy gallivanting. You're pretty focused on a lot of down-to-earth and geographically close-knit spaces. This feels a little bit more like what older Wachowski's would have done with Terminator

Starting point is 00:14:09 versus like a James Cameron's Terminator yeah yeah absolutely like this doesn't feel like a James Cameron thing to me at all it feels like it's funny that Alien and Terminator endure so much and have both Ridley Scott and uh James Cameron tied to them because it's like I also thought of like a Ridley Scott or you know it's like with his side of alien he wants to do all the philosophizing and you get the sense that Cameron is very responsible for putting the action element that is crucial to that franchise there so like I think you know the original Terminator movies have a good, and especially too has a good grip on that

Starting point is 00:14:44 philosophy. And like, yeah, that's part of what's cool about this world is the question about you know, AI ethics, you know, humanity and how we behave that affects these things. Like they're great, there's a great bed of moral and technological

Starting point is 00:15:00 and philosophical implication. Yeah. And I feel like it's totally at home in Cameron's stuff, but it feels like, yeah, they really prioritized running with that. and making like a really cool I think a lot of the mistake the Terminator movies make is we got to make a cool ass

Starting point is 00:15:16 action movie that's dark and gritty and you know has some sci-fi whereas this felt like we got to make a sci-fi show we got to make a sci-fi story that incorporates all these Terminator elements yeah like I don't even really concern myself with the action so that when the action showed up it was even

Starting point is 00:15:32 cooler and more rewarding it's like the last thing I sort of like think about with this show even when I want to talk about I'm not really thinking like when I went into the show that was the main thing I was like oh I want to do like the cool it's like term of your anime action sweet yeah I was like the only thing I was really thinking about it wasn't really thinking about like how are they going to enhance this story and take it to a new height and then that's what kind of had me

Starting point is 00:15:51 captivated by it was you could feel even when it wasn't crystal clear what they were perhaps doing um it was still you knew that they knew what they were doing yeah and you could there was a sense of trust behind the writing and direction and so yeah I think like animation wise violence was cool uh direct Seem was solid, the characters who were a little bit, uh, tough for me to get on board with. I was on board with all them by the very end. I really, I really

Starting point is 00:16:18 like the show a lot. I thought it was a great, great Terminator show and I feel like, uh, I hope it latches on a lot. I mean, we're fortunate enough for watching this before, uh, it airs. So we don't know how people are responding to her. I hate it. I, yeah, I'll be so sad. They probably will lift the day of them. I'm like, it's kind of a weird

Starting point is 00:16:33 sign. Yeah. I don't know. I mean like, you know, in the age of, you know, you got Romulus floating around out there. I feel like this in some ways I would expect to be even more agreeable that's a bit divisive I feel like this would be more agreeable and I mean to me this this we were talking about that thing early on this is kind of what I was hoping because it would be really easy to deliver a pretty decent looking anime that has a lot of cool terminator action but isn't much more than that and and I feel like that's that's kind of the trepidation I was expressing before about like the oh anime tie-in show

Starting point is 00:17:05 I'm glad that they really again prioritized using the direction, using the mood, using the language of the movies beyond cool skeleton robots and really going for and putting their money on the philosophy and the tension of just the

Starting point is 00:17:23 circumstances as drivers for all this because yeah like this is really quality piece and the animation looks great it's actually a lot of stuff I don't know I haven't been in love as much with certain animated streaming things lately but this felt really great in terms of like the drawn stuff looks amazing the way they incorporate cg embellishments is really choice and it complements most all of with a few minor exceptions it complements whatever the subjects are that

Starting point is 00:17:53 they're choosing to use those techniques on like this this was firing on all cylinders for me this didn't seem hindered at all by needing to be a successful terminator thing it just seemed like somebody's dream project and I'm happy about that so yeah but they also clearly love Terminator oh no totally yeah yeah it's exactly what you want it's like somebody who loves Terminator but who they also said like yeah like please take your idea and see it to its fullest extent yeah and and I'm like I don't know where you go I mean yeah there are places to go but I'm like damn you know to keep it up for season two is going to be a task but this also gave me hope that if they do a season two could be something really special and maybe this could be the place where we find

Starting point is 00:18:33 the Terminator actually works now instead of having to, you know, each new movie be like, maybe this one will save the franchise. But yeah, what did you guys think of the show? Did you like the series as a whole? Do you have a favorite episode or choice they made in particular? Props to Timothy Oliphant. Was that Jeffrey Wright on the, on Mac?

Starting point is 00:18:52 I don't know. Anyway, love you guys. Thank you for joining us and we'll catch you on whatever else comes out. That's cool. And, yeah. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D. Oh, Oh,

Starting point is 00:19:05 Oh.

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The Reel Rejects - TERMINATOR ZERO 1x7 & 1x8 Breakdown & Review!!

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