Spoiler Warning for Terminator Zero
In 2024, Netflix launched Terminator Zero on August 29th, which is also the in-universe day of Judgement Day in the Terminator franchise in both 1984’s The Terminator and 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Terminator: Zero is the second television series based on the popular sci-fi franchise after the short-lived live-action Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and the latest entry in the series, arriving five years after the sixth film, Terminator: Dark Fate.
The Terminator franchise is one based on time travel, and because of that, it has a complicated and, at times, convoluted timeline. Films like Terminator 3: Judgement Day, Terminator: Genisys, and Terminator: Dark Fate all contradict one another and represent three different potential alternate sequels to Terminator 2: Judgement Day due to the franchise changing hands which has altered the plans over the decades. Terminator Zero attempts to tie all the films and the previous television show together, similar to how Alien: Romulus connects all the entries in that franchise together. Terminator Zero‘s timeline placement and new time travel rules change the entire Terminator franchise as fans know it while cleaning up some messes made over the years.
Terminator Zero Takes Place in the Original Timeline and a New Timeline at the Same Time
Terminator Zero takes place in two distinct timelines, one in Japan on August 29th, 1997, and the other in 2022, during which humanity fights against Skynet. The storyline in Japan in 1997 is important as it is August 28th in California, the day before Judgement Day, which was established in both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
In Episode 4, Skynet launches its missiles, and Judgement Day seemingly begins. Audiences know in Terminator 2: Judgement Day that John Connor, his mother Sarah, and the T-800 stopped Judgement Day from happening back in 1995. This would suggest that Terminator: Zero is part of the original timeline where Skynet launched and destroyed the planet. This, in turn, led to an adult John Connor sending his friend Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother, causing John’s eventual birth, who will then stop Judgement Day from launching in the first place. Terminator Zero would theoretically be a prequel to The Terminator, as it was in the original timeline before John altered it in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. However, Terminator Zero presents a new wrinkle that suggests it isn’t a prequel or a reboot but instead a sequel that diverges from the timeline.
This timeline from Terminator Zero is very different from what fans have seen before, as Skynet launched, and Judgement Day happened, but only partially. Skynet has seemingly been stopped for now. Meanwhile, the human race is left to deal with both A.I. forces, with it hinted at some humans joining the side of Skynet while others join Kokoro. Terminator Zero appears to take place in a timeline where Skynet launched on August 29, 1997 but shows an alternate event from the movies. How does this work within The Terminator timeline? Well, this timeline has been changed already.
Terminator Zero Timeline Has Been Altered
The big twist in the penultimate episode is that the timeline has already been altered. Scientist Malcolm Lee is, in fact, from the future where Skynet nearly destroyed humanity, the one glimpsed in 1984’s The Terminator. He was born in 2025, about four years before John Connor sent Kyle Reese back in time. In 2045, he created Misaki, a machine that was made with a blank-slate consciousness, removing the specific reasoning from Skynet’s programming blueprints, which allows her to create her own identity and, in essence, give her free will. Malcolm hopes this can make her a bridge between humans and machines.
Yet the other Resistance fighters could not accept Misaki, and therefore, Malcolm and Misaki both traveled to 1983 in the hope of creating a better future/timeline, one that was more technologically advanced. Masaki gives up her CPU (central processing unit) to Malcolm to activate Kokoro. Kokoro was created to stop Judgement Day from happening, with the ultimate goal being to bridge the gap between humans and machines. Instead of humans destroying machines or machines destroying humans, the goal was to make a peaceful future between the two.
Confused? Well, the franchise time travel mechanics come in handy to explain that while also cleaning up the messy continuity left over from the movies and revealing the big twist of the series.
Terminator Zero Rewrites The Timeline Rules of the Franchise
In The Terminator, traveling through time is presented as cyclical. It is a closed connected loop. Skynet sends the T-800 back to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to resistance leader John, but John then sends Kyle Reese back to protect her. Reese and Sarah hook up, which results in her getting pregnant with John. Meanwhile, the Terminator is destroyed by Sarah, but the arm left behind is discovered and studied, leading to Skynet’s own creation. Skynet’s actions to kill John Connor before he is born result in both his creation and Skynet itself. The cycle is broken in Terminator 2: Judgement Day when Skynet is stopped.
Yet since then, the franchise has had many sequels with the basic idea that Judgement Day was only postponed and that John and Sarah have only delayed the inevitable. Future entries say Skynet launches in 2004 (Terminator 3: Judgement Day), 2011 (The Sarah Connor Chronicles), and 2017 (Terminator Genisys), and in one, they do stop Skynet, but Judgement Day still happens under the watch of a new A.I. known as Legion in the 2020s (Terminator: Dark Fate). Meanwhile, Terminator Zero shows that Judgement Day could occur in 1997, but with a different outcome.
Terminator Zero taps into this idea of the various Judgement Days and offers a new explanation that ties them all together: all the Terminator stories after Terminator 2: Judgement Day, including Terminator Zero, are in different realities branching off from the same point in the timeline. This is precisely explained in the second episode of Terminator Zero, The Prophet says “Skynet has sent a Terminator back in time. In doing so they’ve created a new timeline. The window to follow won’t stay open long.” This is delved more into during the sixth episode when The Prophet explains how time travel works. She draws a yellow line and explains that people move along it on a linear path, but when one travels through time, it is different. She says:
“When you go back in time, you go to
a
past
, not
the
past.
The point in time you’re traveling to and the point you’re coming from are different timelines…the point in time you are traveling to and the point you’re coming from are two different timelines. Every instance of time travel, every time someone has stepped foot into one of those machines, all they’ve really done is swap out one reality for another.”
This means that throughout the franchise, whenever someone travels back in time, they create a new timeline of events that branch off from that point. When someone goes from the future to the past, they arrive in an alternate timeline from the future they originated from. This means that Kyle Reese, The T-800, Grace in Terminator: Dark Fate, and now Eiko in Terminator: Zero are landing in timelines that do not lead to the futures they hail from but set up new paths they can alter. The idea of alternate branching timelines was first teased in Terminator Genisys but made more explicit here. Terminato Zero now establishes how they can all exist without needing to line up, which honors the final message of T2: there is no fate but what we make.
Terminator Timelines
With Terminator Zero now firmly establishing alternate timelines to the Terminator time travel rules, it can be difficult to keep up with which films and events are connected. Here is a helpful guide to the eight timelines in the Terminator franchise. All of the timelines branch off from the events of The Terminator and T2: Judgement Day, with the exception of Terminator Zero, which seems to only result from The Terminator and branches off without Terminator 2.
- Original Timeline — Skynet launches, wiping out most of humanity. John Connor becomes the hero of the resistance and sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother, Sarah Connor, in 1984 from a Terminator. The Terminator arm that is left behind is studied, which means Skynet creates itself and brings about its own creation.
- The Terminator/Terminator 2 Timeline — John, Sarah, and the T-800 stop Skynet from ever launching, creating a new future from the original timeline.
- T2: Battle Across Time — The Universal Studios attraction created by James Cameron shows the T-800 and John Connor going into the future to destroy Skynet once and for all, creating the first alternate timeline ending in T2.
- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines/Terminator Salvation — Judgement Day is postponed to July 25, 2004, and Skynet launches. John Connor and his wife, Kathern Brewster, lead the Resistance, while Skynet turns Marcus Wright into a new advanced Terminator that John Connor was not prepared for.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles — Judgement Day was delayed to 2011, and John and Sarah go into the future to 2007. In this timeline, Sarah Connor also treats the cancer that she died from in the Terminator 3/Terminator: Salvation timeline.
- Terminator Genisys — When John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to save Sarah Connor, Kyle winds up in a timeline where a T-800 is protecting Sarah Connor, altering the future and now Skynet will launch in 2017 as an app called Genisys.
- Terminator: Dark Fate — Skynet was successfully defeated, but a Terminator that was already sent to kill John Connor finds him and terminates him. Instead of Skynet, an artificial intelligence named Legion is created and enacts Judgement Day sometime in the 2020s.
- Terminator Zero — After watching past attempts to travel back in time to kill/save a person from the past, Malcolm Lee traveled back to 1983 from the future with Misaki to prevent Skynet from launching with the hope of bridging the gap between humans and machines. Skynet launched on the original Judgement Day of August 29, 1997, but a second AI, Kokoro, also launched and counterattacked Skynet.
That is how Terminator Zero fits into the wider Terminator timeline. Malcolm Lee traveled to the past from the original future glimpsed in The Terminator and created a brand new timeline, one in which he hoped to bridge the gap between humans and machines to create a peaceful future. A new path is set with a new future on the horizon as the characters and franchise navigate an unknown future.
Stream
Terminator Zero
on Netflix now.
