This is a new series from Netflix, although I would instead categorize it as a “series of Vignettes” but from what I’ve seen so far, I wouldn’t draw the comparison to Animatrix because most of these short films (think 10-20 min in length) are not related. Instead, they are more like the Coen Brothers the Balad of Buster Scrugs in that they are at least in our universe (so far) but set in far in the future.
I’ve watched 4 so far, and they are very NSFW, with a mix of blood, gore & robots. There is even quite a bit of humor to be had as well. Each one has stayed with me two days later.
I’m looking forward to watching the rest & hope a 2nd season is optioned.
The first one, Sonnie’s Edge is my favorite so far.
I really liked this. In fact I hope that particularly popular episodes will be picked up for something bigger (if possible).
My personal ranking from best to worst:
Zima Blue
Secret War
Good Hunting
Lucky 13
When The Yogurt Took Over
Blindspot
Beyond the Aquila Rift
Three Robots
Sonnie’s Edge
Shape-Shifters
Sucker of Souls
Suits
Helping Hand
The Witness
Ice Age
The Dump
Alternate Histories
Fish Night
Tomorrow i go on a long ass plane ride (19 hours in the air weeee). Is this going to be wildly inappropriate for me to watch on a plane (with headphones obviously)?
I’d say you will probably be uncomfortable watching it if anyone can see your screen. There’s a fair amount of nudity–both male and female–in the earlier pieces, though it peters off toward the end…
I just finished these up last night. Very nice animation, and a very nice variety in animation styles. Overall, I thought the writing was flat and predictable in most of the pieces. If I were asked to go back and watch again, I’d probably cherry-pick about 4-5 of the pieces and ignore the rest.
Is this going to be wildly inappropriate for me to watch on a plane (with headphones obviously)?
Only if you’re uncomfortable having generous quantites of CG dong on your screen.
BTW, (almost) all of the shorts are adaptations of published SF short stories. Authors I recognize are John Scalzi, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Liu, Joe Lansdale, Marko Kloos, Michael Swanwick.
Beyond Aquila rift (Alistair Reynolds): I read the story before so I didn’t get a surprise shock. It has the best CGI faces thought. Sonny’s Edge, for example, had too much uncanny valley.
Overall, I enjoyed Love, Death & Robots. Surprisingly, I think the shorts that worked the best were the straight scifi military thrillers like the soviet one and the shapeshifting adventure. The shorts that focused on some cool twist at the end were more inconsistent, but some were quite cool (I liked the one where the guy wakes up from stasis in the ship). I think an extra 10 minutes of length would have helped a number of these, and give the writer’s the ability to turn it from flash fiction to a short short story.
Ha I had the same experience. My first thought watching it was “why would they go to the effort to recreate Mary Elizabeth Winstead to such great detail when you could just make this bit live action?” before it dawned on me.
