Reviews of Love, Death & Robots (2019) and related work

• Entry: “Three Robots” (2019)
• Entry: “Beyond the Aquila Rift” (2019)
• Entry: “Ice Age” (2019)
• Entry: “Sonnie’s Edge” (2019)
• Entry: “When the Yogurt Took Over” (2019)
• Entry: “The Secret War” (2019)
• Entry: “Sucker of Souls” (2019)
• Entry: “The Witness” (2019)
• Entry: “Suits” (2019)
• Entry: “Good Hunting” (2019)
• Entry: “The Dump” (2019)
• Entry: “Shape-Shifters” (2019)
• Entry: “Fish Night” (2019)
• Entry: “Helping Hand” (2019)
• Entry: “Alternate Histories” (2019)
• Entry: “Lucky 13” (2019)
• Entry: “Blind Spot” (2019)
• Entry: “Zima Blue” (2019)
• Entry: “Automated Customer Service” (2021)
• Entry: “Ice” (2021)
• Entry: “Pop Squad” (2021)
• Entry: “Snow in the Desert” (2021)
• Entry: “The Tall Grass” (2021)
• Entry: “All Through the House” (2021)
• Entry: “Life Hutch” (2021)
• Entry: “The Drowned Giant” (2021)
• Entry: “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” (2022)
• Entry: “Bad Travelling” (2022)
• Entry: “The Very Pulse of the Machine” (2022)
• Entry: “Night of the Mini Dead” (2022)
• Entry: “Kill Team Kill” (2022)
• Entry: “Swarm” (2022)
• Entry: “Mason’s Rats” (2022)
• Entry: “In Vaulted Halls Entombed” (2022)
• Entry: “Jibaro” (2022)

Love, Death & Robots (2019)

Seen in 2020.

A compilation of animated shorts.

moving picture animation fiction series

‣ “Three Robots” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

Based on a John Scalzi short. I wonder whether the original also refers to Matthew Inman & co.’s inane Exploding Kittens.

References here: “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” (2022).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Beyond the Aquila Rift” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

The character animation still looks as loose as Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005), including the sex scene, but it’s Alastair Reynolds.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Ice Age” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

It reminds me of the 1995 adaptation of Sandkings (1979), but it doesn’t have any depth; it’s very much a fantasy without extrapolation.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Sonnie’s Edge” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

In the category of science-fiction twist narratives about competitive martial arts under remote control, it’s only as smart as “Vital Ingredient” (1956), but in the execution, Altered Carbon (2002) meets Pacific Rim (2013).

moving picture entry animation fiction cyberpunk

‣ “When the Yogurt Took Over” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

Scalzi gloated to a friend that even this, perhaps his worst story, had been optioned for an adaptation. The adaptation is in the style of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), a case of imitation without ambition.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Secret War” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

The creatures are almost Lovecraft’s ghouls from “The Rats in the Walls” (1924), but turn out to be mere demons. The Russians are almost Delta Green’s version of SMERSH, but turn out to be completely generic tough guys. The visual execution is that of a US shoot-’em-up video game. It is especially wasteful to have the Siberian sinkhole lead nowhere interesting.

References here: “Lucky 13” (2019), “The Tall Grass” (2021).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Sucker of Souls” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

Some neat character designs and animation, but everything else is mediocre.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Witness” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

The script is dumb but the implementation isn’t bad.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Suits” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

The beautiful visual design work makes the unusual influences blend: Scrappy US mecha, Starship Troopers aliens, video-game violence and a ludicrous premise, where people still raise cows for slaughter on some far-future world where cows are grossly maladapted.

References here: Arcane (2021).

moving picture entry animation mecha fiction

‣ “Good Hunting” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

A colonial steampunk “Blood: The Last Vampire” (2000), set up like a superhero origin story.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Dump” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

References here: “Mason’s Rats” (2022).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Shape-Shifters” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

Relatively well conceived for a modern fantasy action piece. It alludes to Dog Soldiers (2002) and has the inherent, glaring implausibility of the werewolf myth, but the script skillfully weaves werewolves living openly (a homosexuality metaphor) into the culture of competence, machismo and terror in the films of the War on Terror, such as The Hurt Locker (2008). This works because the US army has a long-standing infatuation with unintellectual warrior cultures, to such an extent that it probably would hire werewolves to spot snipers if it could. The Afghan werewolves don’t fit into this thematic structure—the Taliban would surely persecute them—and the animation is boring.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Fish Night” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

An intelligent fusion of a conservative anti-transgression ghost story with a joyful and dysteleological fantasy of nature.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Helping Hand” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

The ambition was a simple hard-SF scenario, touching on the “mistreated working class in outer space” motif. That’s a good ambition, but the writers neither bothered with realistic precautionary measures (i.e. rope, anchoring, remote control), nor understood what would happen to a naked limb in a vacuum. Such ignorance is common and often deliberate in straight-up horror, but not in hard SF.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Alternate Histories” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

The plot could have been a late entry to the Merrie Melodies (1931). It’s gleefully Hitler-centric and in that way a metafictive comment on alternate history, with a couple of good ideas hidden away in its cartoon logic.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Lucky 13” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

Some neat designs and animation, but dehumanizing video-game violence takes the place of any driving idea, as in “The Secret War” (2019).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Blind Spot” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

Boring writing and animation in this US pastiche of Kawajiri Yoshiaki.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Zima Blue” (2019)

Seen in 2020.

It’s based on one of Alastair Reynolds’s short stories, and it has that classic SF short-story vibe, but the concept is largely nonsensical: A pool-cleaning robot becomes a sort of R. Daneel Olivaw figure, then a mimetic 2D artist, then a non-mimetic landscape artist like a future Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and then finally it reverts back to its pool-cleaning original version. As a game with telos, it doesn’t make sense, because it isn’t clear that the robot was actually programmed for Zima Blue; it seems to have been mere imprinting for no apparent reason. There is more sense in Rick’s remark to his latest creation that “You pass butter” in Rick and Morty (2013), which also has better character design and animation.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Automated Customer Service” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

References here: Big Bug (2022).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Ice” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Pop Squad” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

An adaptation of “Pop Squad” (2006). The visual design is clearly patterned after Blade Runner (1982), and it looks great. Unfortunately, the script pulls out the emotion and widens the plot holes of the original story instead of paving them.

References here: “Swarm” (2022).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Snow in the Desert” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

The story is mostly colour-coded nonsense, but the 3D animation looks as good as Avatar (2009) on what I’m sure is a tiny fraction of the budget.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Tall Grass” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

Another story like “The Secret War” (2019) but more stylized, with a protagonist who looks like H. P. Lovecraft without the chin. The ending is typical of the genre: The conductor indicates that the ongoing problem will continue to get worse, but nonsensically asks the main character to keep quiet about it.

Actively denying causality would diminish the narrative, but taking action on the assumption of causality would bring the narrative into alternate-history territory as opposed to a more idle fantasy. The writer lamely attempts to balance the two, achieving nothing.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “All Through the House” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

Neatly composed, with fine claymation-style character design. The joke doesn’t really land, but it is pretty clever.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Life Hutch” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

A series of competently executed but empty clichés, most prominently the idea that far-future wars in space should look like Star Wars (1977).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Drowned Giant” (2021)

Seen in 2022.

Well executed but idly written fabulism. For a better short piece on scale in fantasy, see “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule” (1984).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

A sequel to “Three Robots” (2019).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Bad Travelling” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

A series of moral dilemmas centered on a trolley problem. Stylized dramatic stand-offs with good animation. The character designs are unpleasant and I don’t think the story makes sense: The thanapod or death-foot crab is obviously able to traverse open water, and intelligent, which makes sense for an aquatic apex predator, but on the other hand, it’s apparently r-selected, stupid, gullible, and supernaturally able to defy gravity, yet dependent on humans to ferry it around. I like the detail that jable sharks are hunted for their oil like right whales were, but I dislike the obviously low security of the hold, where a light is apparently kept burning in the stairwell at all hours, while the oil is both flammable and explosive.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Very Pulse of the Machine” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

Bad voice acting, a dubious screenplay (adaptation) preserving the Romantic poets, and partly wonky cel-style 3D CGI that looks too clean for the subject matter. I could not tell whether the chest plates were really intended to bend so freely; it looks more like lazy rigging. More importantly, the excellent sound design and score raise the familiar story to a level worthy of Michael Swanwick, the original author. It feels numinous, like good Arthur C. Clarke.

moving picture entry Japanese production animation fiction

‣ “Night of the Mini Dead” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

There may not be a point to the bokeh-heavy faux-miniature style, but it’s cute.

moving picture entry zombie animation fiction

‣ “Kill Team Kill” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

A clever, warmly animated action comedy, parodying Commando (1985), Predator (1987) etc.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Swarm” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

An adaptation of “Swarm” (1982). It doesn’t miss the point like “Pop Squad” (2021), but it still feels watered down. The Investors are generically droopy Rick and Morty (2013) aliens instead of looking like Brian Froud’s Skeksis in The Dark Crystal (1982), which is what I pictured when I read “Spider Rose” (1982). The coldly lit, sparsely populated interior of the asteroid does not capture the jungle-like richness of the original, the dialogue glosses over the role of intelligence in the Swarm, and there is no sense whatsoever of Sterling’s physicality. For brevity, there is no reference to Shaper culture or ideology at all. Love, Death + Robots (ld+r) must indeed be an anagram of tldr (Too Long, Didn’t Read).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Mason’s Rats” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

Dull caricatured characters and a story that is nonsensical without being whimsical like “The Dump” (2019) or effective as a satire. All the labour of the animation feels wasted.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “In Vaulted Halls Entombed” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

I have not read Alan Baxter’s original, but this is a less imaginative application of “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926) to the US–Afghanistan war than, for instance, Mask of the Other (2011). The mocap animation is pretty bad and the generic cave environments remind me of “The Sword of Kahless” (1995), but the prison environment is pretty well executed.

moving picture entry fiction

‣ “Jibaro” (2022)

Seen in 2022.

A clever amoral fantasy where Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) meets Berserk (1989). The rendering is gamey but the character design and animation are excellent.

moving picture entry fiction