Just a heads up that a very 2000 AD-esque series has landed on Netflix.
'Love, Death & Robots' is an anthology of eighteen animated futuristic shorts, very, very much in the Tharg's Future Shocks style. The episodes are between five to seventeen minutes long and feature a range of topics and animation styles, some of which are jaw droppingly good.
I've watched the first four and in the main, really enjoyed them. At times I felt they were trying a little too hard with the gratuitous nudity and violence, but not enough to spoil the experience (yeah, like gratuitous nudity ever spoilt anything!)
The four I watched were:
Sonne's Edge - underground, cybernetic monster fights. The CGI in this one looked incredible and the story certainty sets the graphic tone of the series.
Three Robots - like an Alan Moore comedic Future Shock, three robots go on a sightseeing tour of a post apocalyptic planet Earth. Funny and poignant this one.
The Witness - this one was more of a Time Twister. The animated style is absolutely stunning, extremely photorealistic with jarring bursts of graphics and cartoons bleeding into the shots. The tale shows a (mainly naked) woman escaping a killer after she witnesses him brutally murdering someone who looks just like her...
Suits - A digitally painted animation style for this one. It tells of a family of farmers preceding their land from monsters, using cool exosuits.
As I said, up to now, I'm really enjoying this. Like 2000 AD, because of the anthology format, if one isn't floating your boat, the next one comes along fairly quickly.
I'm going to binge the rest over the weekend, but currently, would recommend the series to you bunch of degenerates, especially if you are a fan of Black Mirror.
I shall check these out. And not just because you said "nudity".
Well, like a spoilt child, I binged them all! Here's my thoughts on each:
Sucker of Souls - classic animation, not the best story with some weak characterisation.
When the Yoghurt Took Over - Funny, Pixar-esque tale. I really liked this one!
Beyond the Aquila Rift - stunning CGI over a pretty decent Future Shock.
Good Hunting - Anime style story of magical creatures in a steam punk Hong Kong. Fantastic, reminded me lots of INJ Culbard's work.
The Dump - loved this one. Looks a lot like Wall-E with a really fun little story.
Shape Shifters - almost genetically bred dog soldiers a-la-Kingdom. Stunningly photo real cgi in parts, over a great story of Steve Dillon werewolves in the Middle East.
Helping Hand - similar to the Sandy Bullocks film Gravity, but way more gruesome!
Fish Night - cell shaded animation as things get trippy for a father and son trapped in the desert. Decent idea, but a weak story.
Lucky 13 - awesome CGI tale of one woman's relationship with her rickety old combat craft. Great!
Zima Blue - shades of McMahon artwork (especially the lead reporter) in this fascinating tale of an intergalactic artist.
Blindspot - a fairly classically animated tale of cybernetic heisters. Okay, a bit Saturday morning cartoon.
Ice Age - a really funny live action tale as a couple find a mini civilisation in their freezer! Nuts!
Alternate Histories - fabulously rendered demo of an app that can show you alternate histories. The 'demo' shows you five different scenarios if Hitler died. Top-notch stylised animation and some very funny outcomes!
The Secret War - Beautifully rendered film that is as close to Fiends of the Eastern Front as we could possibly wish for. 2000 AD fan heaven!
In all, I REALLY enjoyed this, and it really makes me want a 2000 AD TV Show. Admittedly, at times it felt like watching an extended cutscene from a computer game, but I didn't really mind that, and as I said in my previous post, the sex and violence is a little gratuitous (but I certainly don't mind that either!)
I'd love to hear others' thoughts about this, particularly individual episodes.
Cheers for the heads up- I'll be jumping on the these!
Watched the first two, and while the production is impressive, the dialogue is pretty painful, the characters stock archetypes, and the twists weak. The problem isn't the excesses in the execution, the problem is that the overall package feels a bit juvenile and serves as a reminder that if you want animation that treats its audience like a grown-up, you're better off watching kids shows.
But YMMV - I probably just came into this expecting too much after it got a pretty good rec up above.
If you're looking for a sci-fi cartoon that skews older in its storytelling, give Gen/Lock a gander, as some of its spins on mecha tropes - particularly Evangelion and Gundam - will likely be lost on casuals, but it was interesting to see Western animation try its hand with characters capable of a bit of emotional range. It also has Maisie Williams (English) voicing a Scotch, and David Tennant (a Scotch) voicing an English. Why? I dunno, but I choose to pretend it's a nod to the original Highlander.
I've also heard good things about Final Space.
Watched the first episode of this and loved it, we're really looking forward to more. The bitesize running time of a lot of them means it'll probably be something we slip in between other shows or as a last thing to watch before bed sort of thing, which is nice.
The animation on the first episode was by Blur Studios I believe, who I recognized as having done the fantastic Dead Island trailer a few years ago (which turned out to be much better than the actual game) and the cutscenes for Halo 2 Anniversary Edition and the later Halos/Halo Wars 2, which I reckon are about the pinnacle of cutscene animation. Their stuff always looks incredible!
Looking forward to seeing what the other art styles are like.
That third one was pish!
Just devoured the whole lot in one go. As Pete says, we're certainly in 2000ad territory here - especially "Lucky 13" which could almost have been set on Nu Earth - but I suppose any futuristic war story will make me think that. Some of the animation was jaw dropping, and at times could easily be mistaken for live action - I'm looking at you "Shape-Shifters", "Beyond The Aquila Rift", "Helping Hand" and the stunning "The Secret War".
My only real problem with this series is it's treatment of women, which was most evident in "The Witness".
Watched the yogurt one at the weekend. Was a punchline stretched a bit too thin. Will watch more because they're short.
As I'm too lazy to find out for myself, I have a question. Zima Blue is an Alastair Reynolds short story. Is this an adaptation? Are the others original?
Watched the first one last night. It was pretty good, certainly good enough to make me watch the others.
Quote from: I, Cosh on 19 March, 2019, 06:44:54 AM
As I'm too lazy to find out for myself, I have a question. Zima Blue is an Alastair Reynolds short story. Is this an adaptation? Are the others original?
Haven't watched that one yet, but did watch Three Robots last night and noticed in the credits* it was based on a Joe Scalzi short story. His name only jumped out because a friend has been recommending Old Man's War to me recently!
*which you can only see on Netflix if you have the lightning fast reflexes to find the remote and hit the button in the 3 seconds before it auto-plays the next episode - drives me up the wall that.
Quote from: Keef Monkey on 19 March, 2019, 09:26:57 AM
*which you can only see on Netflix if you have the lightning fast reflexes to find the remote and hit the button in the 3 seconds before it auto-plays the next episode - drives me up the wall that.
me too - not so bad if it's when the credits are playing, but one series I recently watched on Amazon was poorly formatted and queued up the next ep about 2 minutes before the end of the previous one! grrr!
Not had that happen, would be infuriating! Maybe I'm weird, when a show finishes I like a few moments during the credits to catch a breath and reflect, and a lot of shows nowadays will have different songs over the end credits to each episode with that post-episode reflection in mind. Really ruins a moment when you get wrenched straight into another episode on those shows.
It's been annoying me with Russian Doll, but it feels particularly egregious with something like Love, Death & Robots where each episode is by different writers and animators. If you're going to make an anthology series like that and showcase a load of different teams and styles, it seems really bad manners to not let the credits play out.
Don't get me started in the way Netflix plays stuff if you rest on something for more than a second as you are browsing the menu.
There is an option on netflix to cancel the autoplay of the next episode, but it doesn't stop the minimising of the picture or the playing of trailers.
Dragging this back on topic, the first story was also based on a short story by one of the Hamiltons.
Failed to finish the third one so do not know if that trend continued.
Seán
Zima Blue and Beyond the Aqulia Rift are both Alistair Reynolds shorts so I'm looking forward to getting to those.
Reached Suits last night- Love the animation style but what those farmers need is Aux!
I *knew* I recognised the name, but had forgotten the story. I've got the last four to go through, Beyond the Aquila Rift is top runner so far; I loved The Yoghurt; Three Robots was fine but meh, Cats; Suits was great - certainly reminded me of Gene The Hackman; The Witness has great animation but isn't much of anything; Lucky 13 was fine but interchangeable, very by the numbers but still good.
I called two variations for the Witness- either the film the other option was that the protagonist was dispatched by the chap chasing her, only for him to see her again from the window- thereby intigating the whole sordid event 'again'.
I hope it gets better than the first episode, which is "mature audience" in the worst, most juvenile way - it was 90s 2000AD flashback time! Heavy Metal Magazine for sure - big fighty monsters! rape! swearies! lesbians!
The animation was pretty astounding, though I couldnt help wish it was being used to reanimate a mising Dr Who, or for that matter a Mills/Wagner/Gibbons Dr Who, or for that matter an Alan Moore future Shock
Yeah, pretty much what I thought - technically great, but very adolescent laddish 90s.
The robot family one is supposed to be pretty good. Apparently some are adapted stories?
There is a range of quality in there and I think that they just picked an unfortunate episode to start with as it really is something from the mind of a 1990's teenage boy.
I haven't seen them all yet but persevere, they do get better.
Quote from: SIP on 24 March, 2019, 06:36:42 PM
There is a range of quality in there and I think that they just picked an unfortunate episode to start with as it really is something from the mind of a 1990's teenage boy.
There are 4 different episode orders each randomly assigned to individual accounts.
Oh right, didn't know that. Guess mine started with the same episode as Leigh.
Fantastic surprise series
Rebellion Studios take note
Watched all of this, like many I was ready to bail early as the first episode (at least in the order I got them in) was a pretty grim 90s teenage boy nonsense that, despite probably some cutting edge cgi still managed to feel dated.
I thought it was great, I'm ready to forgive and forget any bad because there's so much good. I wish more episodes where animated rather than cgi (or, at least, used the cgi in some new way rather than being a very good looking cut scene).
More of this, please.
And yes, my god, why aren't rebellion producing something like this? Take the Alan Moore future shocks and just animate each one as its own distinct style...
-pj
Just watched the first one 'Sonne's Edge' and can't really add much to what has been said before.
Beautifully produced, I watched in UHD, but the dialogue is a bit stilted. Seemed to be a tad sweary for swearyness sake. Agree it's very 2000 AD but does, as previously noted, veer more towards the Metal Hurlant side of things.
Will watch the rest when time allows.
I'm very much enjoying (most) of these.
I found "The Witness" a bit much and didn't finish. The others are of varying but generally good quality and the short nature suits the format.
More like this please Netflix!
Quote from: Bolt-01 on 20 March, 2019, 10:38:58 AM
Zima Blue and Beyond the Aqulia Rift are both Alistair Reynolds shorts so I'm looking forward to getting to those.
Quote from: Pete Wells on 16 March, 2019, 08:39:03 AM
Sonne's Edge - underground, cybernetic monster fights. The CGI in this one looked incredible and the story certainty sets the graphic tone of the series.
I've heard nothing but positive things about this series, so it's definitely on me watch list, especially if they've filmed some Alistair Reynolds. And
Sonnie's Edge is a Peter F. Hamilton short set in the Night's Dawn universe with a
great twist which has meant it's one I've been recommending for years - sounds like
Sonne's Edge has perhaps been based on that too.
Well, I've got through 5 episodes of the first series and I love it so far. The Suits episode reminded me a lot of Kingdom, though the twist at the end was worthy of the finest Future Shocks ([spoiler]We're the invaders, not Them[/spoiler]! Love it).
So I made it to the end of these. Very much a mixed bag. I think my main problem with the ones I didn't like was that they didn't have a point.
They just seemed like cool ideas but lacling a good story that either had a revelation or twist or a metaphor that gave you a theme.
Nightfish, Secret War, Lucky 13, the one with Dracula, the werewolf soldiers, Witness, Ice Age... they were just... there.
The ones I liked most; Suits, Zima Blue, Good Hunting, Aquila Rift at least had something (apart from tits) to make you think a little beyond the animation.
Having said that, I'd welcome more.
Yeah, but tits!!!