LOVE, DEATH, + ROBOTS SEASON 1 review
(Reviewed by Melody Werner)
Love, Death, + Robots is a 2019 anthology helmed by Joshua Donen, David Fincher, Jennifer Miller, and Tim Miller. A Netflix Original, it seemingly came outta nowhere and blew everyone away. Unlike the other Netflix anthology I've sung praises of, Black Mirror, LD+R is much less narrow in focus--the only big things tying the whole show together as a singular vision are: 1) each episode is in actuality a short film (6-17 minutes in length), and 2) each short is for mature viewers only. It just hit Netflix very recently with a little over 20 episodes, and no second season has been confirmed yet though I would expect one to occur if that was ever in the cards since everyone appears to be smitten with it thus far.
Being a Netflix production, a certain level of polish is to be expected. What's cool about this series is how every episode changes things up. There seems to be an even-ish distribution of animated and live-action shorts, but they all have different aesthetics to them. Some of the animated episodes are 2-D animated, others are 3-D--but none ever feel as if they are copying the look and feel of, say, Disney or Pixar or DreamWorks. Some of these animations have really unique styles that I'd love to see more of. There are some niggles to be had presentation wise, such as some fight scenes being too zoomed in to intuit what's going on (Shape-Shifters in particular is a bad offender of this). Short films especially suffer when pitted up against wonky visual storytelling, and some of these shorts don't hit the nail on the head, but it's not so prevalent as to be a major concern. Especially when other shorts like Sucker of Souls and Suits N-A-I-L the action scenes.
As punchy shorts, you usually want a good build-up before a nice twist or otherwise satisfying payoff. It's not like a longer form of film or television where they can fuck around for a long time and get away with that sort of filler, so long as they are overall entertaining or fulfilling; shorts, however, have got to have a greater satisfaction to time ratio (if you will). Those collected in LD+R excels, with some providing raucous laughter, others bursts of thrills, others balls to the wall spectacle, and others still charming whimsy. The brevity never feels like an albatross around any of these stories's necks, though I could definitely see any of them being expanded into full length features. In particular, I would like to see Sonnie's Edge, Sucker of Souls, Three Robots, Suits, Lucky 13, Zima Blue, and Blindspot given such treatment but everyone will have their own favorites as with any anthology. I didn't think there were any clunkers per se, though there were some definite weak links including Shape-Shifters and The Secret War. But they, I repeat, aren't bad by my estimate. Just solid with sparks of brilliance.
While short films are probably not the best place for complex characters, I still found myself rooting for all of the characters in these that I was supposed to. Not because I'm a sheep (though I am), but because of how they are written really fucking well. Like, there are some lines in here where I was going "Damn, that's so clever." Not something I get to tell myself so often, but I found that a routine utterance during my watch of LD+R. And hey, motherfuckin' John Scalzi wrote an episode, and it was expectedly spectacular. Something that may be questionable to some is its treatment of women characters. Personally, it didn't bother me too much, but I could definitely see some people taking umbrage with its apparent predeliction towards using either rape or blatant rape metaphors--which I definitely didn't think gel well with the stories such elements were used in, which were more pulpy. The good news is this isn't really ever used to fuel some ill-advised "You took my stuff!" revenge quest and the women are always eventually put into positions of power by their own volition, but I'm not so sure if these things are still handled well enough since it's such a tough line to walk--and your mileage will absolutely vary as to whether the episodes containing such material are worth skipping for you (head's up: those are Sonnie's Edge and Good Hunting).
All said, I absolutely adore this. I can easily see it becoming a classic people come back to time and again. From now on with all anthology reviews, I'd like to rank my top 3 or 5 or whatever entries for fun. Those are:
1) Three Robots
2) Lucky 13
3) Blindspot
4) Helping Hand
5) Sucker of Souls
Honorable mentions: Zima Blue, Alternate Histories, Sonnie's Edge, Ice Age, When the Yogurt Took Over, Suits (sorry, I just liked too many of 'em)
Now, this was originally intended to be a reboot of Heavy Metal (was surprised to see that, though I am now kicking myself for not noticing the similarities), so I would suspect a follow-up to be in the cards since this season looks to have done well. We'll have to wait and see. If one never comes to pass, what we've gotten in this anthology is some pretty dope shit and hey--we can always turn to Dust or CGMeetup for our short film fix, right? (go check those out if you haven't already) Suffice to say, LD+R is a damn thing of beauty. Loath am I to say it, but Love, Death, + Robots season one gets a 10/10.
Master-class
Summary:
An excellent set of solid to stellar shorts. Funny, heartwarming, hair-raising, fascinating, inspiring--all in bite-sized chunks.
Love, Death, + Robots is a 2019 anthology helmed by Joshua Donen, David Fincher, Jennifer Miller, and Tim Miller. A Netflix Original, it seemingly came outta nowhere and blew everyone away. Unlike the other Netflix anthology I've sung praises of, Black Mirror, LD+R is much less narrow in focus--the only big things tying the whole show together as a singular vision are: 1) each episode is in actuality a short film (6-17 minutes in length), and 2) each short is for mature viewers only. It just hit Netflix very recently with a little over 20 episodes, and no second season has been confirmed yet though I would expect one to occur if that was ever in the cards since everyone appears to be smitten with it thus far.
Being a Netflix production, a certain level of polish is to be expected. What's cool about this series is how every episode changes things up. There seems to be an even-ish distribution of animated and live-action shorts, but they all have different aesthetics to them. Some of the animated episodes are 2-D animated, others are 3-D--but none ever feel as if they are copying the look and feel of, say, Disney or Pixar or DreamWorks. Some of these animations have really unique styles that I'd love to see more of. There are some niggles to be had presentation wise, such as some fight scenes being too zoomed in to intuit what's going on (Shape-Shifters in particular is a bad offender of this). Short films especially suffer when pitted up against wonky visual storytelling, and some of these shorts don't hit the nail on the head, but it's not so prevalent as to be a major concern. Especially when other shorts like Sucker of Souls and Suits N-A-I-L the action scenes.
As punchy shorts, you usually want a good build-up before a nice twist or otherwise satisfying payoff. It's not like a longer form of film or television where they can fuck around for a long time and get away with that sort of filler, so long as they are overall entertaining or fulfilling; shorts, however, have got to have a greater satisfaction to time ratio (if you will). Those collected in LD+R excels, with some providing raucous laughter, others bursts of thrills, others balls to the wall spectacle, and others still charming whimsy. The brevity never feels like an albatross around any of these stories's necks, though I could definitely see any of them being expanded into full length features. In particular, I would like to see Sonnie's Edge, Sucker of Souls, Three Robots, Suits, Lucky 13, Zima Blue, and Blindspot given such treatment but everyone will have their own favorites as with any anthology. I didn't think there were any clunkers per se, though there were some definite weak links including Shape-Shifters and The Secret War. But they, I repeat, aren't bad by my estimate. Just solid with sparks of brilliance.
While short films are probably not the best place for complex characters, I still found myself rooting for all of the characters in these that I was supposed to. Not because I'm a sheep (though I am), but because of how they are written really fucking well. Like, there are some lines in here where I was going "Damn, that's so clever." Not something I get to tell myself so often, but I found that a routine utterance during my watch of LD+R. And hey, motherfuckin' John Scalzi wrote an episode, and it was expectedly spectacular. Something that may be questionable to some is its treatment of women characters. Personally, it didn't bother me too much, but I could definitely see some people taking umbrage with its apparent predeliction towards using either rape or blatant rape metaphors--which I definitely didn't think gel well with the stories such elements were used in, which were more pulpy. The good news is this isn't really ever used to fuel some ill-advised "You took my stuff!" revenge quest and the women are always eventually put into positions of power by their own volition, but I'm not so sure if these things are still handled well enough since it's such a tough line to walk--and your mileage will absolutely vary as to whether the episodes containing such material are worth skipping for you (head's up: those are Sonnie's Edge and Good Hunting).
All said, I absolutely adore this. I can easily see it becoming a classic people come back to time and again. From now on with all anthology reviews, I'd like to rank my top 3 or 5 or whatever entries for fun. Those are:
1) Three Robots
2) Lucky 13
3) Blindspot
4) Helping Hand
5) Sucker of Souls
Honorable mentions: Zima Blue, Alternate Histories, Sonnie's Edge, Ice Age, When the Yogurt Took Over, Suits (sorry, I just liked too many of 'em)
Now, this was originally intended to be a reboot of Heavy Metal (was surprised to see that, though I am now kicking myself for not noticing the similarities), so I would suspect a follow-up to be in the cards since this season looks to have done well. We'll have to wait and see. If one never comes to pass, what we've gotten in this anthology is some pretty dope shit and hey--we can always turn to Dust or CGMeetup for our short film fix, right? (go check those out if you haven't already) Suffice to say, LD+R is a damn thing of beauty. Loath am I to say it, but Love, Death, + Robots season one gets a 10/10.
Master-class
Summary:
An excellent set of solid to stellar shorts. Funny, heartwarming, hair-raising, fascinating, inspiring--all in bite-sized chunks.
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