Love, Death & Robots: major SF authors in a new anthology Netflix series

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

There's something that I think was fairly clear in what happened which was that their craft had indeed ended up in some nether regions of space where this hive-like place existed where ships and their crews were lost.  And also clear is that there was a Matrix-like simulation being applied to the folks that ended up there to keep them from understanding their plight.

Less clear to me:  was that being created from a benevolent angle and the entity that was doing it really didn't want to expose them to reality and only did it under duress?  

Also unclear:  was the arachnid the one and only entity and if so, was it eating these people while sedating them with the Matrix-like dreamworld?  I think so, but I'm not 100% clear.

This one stuck with me a lot too.

See, I came away with the impression it was the one creature who had shanghaied the ship and was feeding off the crews. The simulation was merely a way to keep them from knowing what was happening.  That all seemed obvious... perhaps there was more going on, but they didn't make that apparent...

[drawkcabi]

43 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

See, I came away with the impression it was the one creature who had shanghaied the ship and was feeding off the crews. The simulation was merely a way to keep them from knowing what was happening.  That all seemed obvious... perhaps there was more going on, but they didn't make that apparent...

This plus the possibilities Trisk put forth roughly ping-ponged around in my brain after it was over but I was confused as to if it was supposed to be ambiguous or I somehow missed something that made things definitive.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

I think that possibility is totally on the table and the ending, if one interprets it in the most pessimistic way, looks that way.  But the way that the simulation seems to offer the choice...in a sort of red pill / blue pill kind of way, makes me think a bit.  

But I did also totally wonder about something you touched on...was this hive a place ships ended up accidentally because space travel is hard, or was it luring ships as you suggest.

I'd be curious if anyone who knows the book knows whether that text offers concrete answers / how much does this short on Netflix mirror that book?

The book makes it no more clear, though it's more implied that the eldritch creation Gretathing is honestly compassionate, and is trying to care for them as it says it is. The book is also significantly more unknowable and beyond sanity in the description of things. 

And also way less porny.  

[karaddin]

There are 2 aliens visible in the periphery of one shot as he's waking up, so definitely not a solitary alien but I still think benevolent. It's just a more creative take to have the horror creatures genuinely trying to help despite never getting anything out of it. 

[Jaxom 1974]

One of the main reasons I took "lure" away from the story was the shot at the end of the entire web of ships and detritus...it felt like an actual web...

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

One of the main reasons I took "lure" away from the story was the shot at the end of the entire web of ships and detritus...it felt like an actual web...

Yeah, I think that's a failure of the artists. It looked like a random ball of crappy trash caught in a giant web. The book makes it far more vague and disturbing without making it specifically about trapping. 

[john]

I’m conflicted about this series.  I really really like the concept of a sci fi anthology of short episodes, and the animation was generally pretty good.  But I thought most of the storylines were quite basic.  I liked Sonnie’s Edge, one of the few that had a twist I didn’t see coming, which is interesting because I’ve never read Hamilton.  Besides that I enjoyed the ones with no particular agenda, like Ice Age or Suits.  Didn’t like the Reynolds ones but I’m not much of a fan of Reynolds in the first place.  The discussion of Aquila Rift in this thread is a lot more interesting than I thought the episode was at the time.

I seem to have another different order than I think has been mentioned so far: Aquila Rift, Robots, Sonnie, Fish Night, Secret War, Ice Age, Witness, Suits, Soul Sucker, Yoghurt, Good Hunting, Dump, Shape Shifter, Hand, Lucky 13, Zima, Blindspot, Alternate Histories.

[Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn]

Quote

You are not ready for this.

Does Greta-like alien think that after many simulations Tom will really believe everything she says is true?

And Tom is hypocrite because he doesn't love inner beauty of alien but Greta's outer beauty. This story has parallels with Beaty and the Beast.

[lacuna]

4 hours ago, Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn said:

Does Greta-like alien think that after many simulations Tom will really believe everything she says is true?

And Tom is hypocrite because he doesn't love inner beauty of alien but Greta's outer beauty. This story has parallels with Beaty and the Beast.

1: Seems like that's an impossible question to answer based on the info given.

2: He's hardly a hypocrite. If we deescalate from "alien race who seemingly/probably use simulations to keep prey pacified" to "human relationships", lying about who you are isn't love, and any love you get from it isn't real. If anything, it's a story of catfishing.

And I don't get the parallel either - Beast was "ugly" from the beginning. Unless you're talking about Belle, who is kind of horrible in some ways.

ETA: Fuck, took me hours for it to even occur to me that you might be thinking of the folk tale version and not the Disney version, sorry.  After reading a synopsis though, I'm still not sure I see it.

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Triskele said:

When I saw the hype for this show I saw a few "it's male-gazy" criticisms, and this one jumped out once I watched.  

I didn't think that one was the worst of the lot, and the story kind of explains it (I think it would have worked better if it had been a female captain instead, and had what she wanted most of all as the 'hook'). Witness was really, really bad, and as far as I can tell had no reason in the show for being that bad. 

[drawkcabi]

Just rewatched Acquila Rift and a couple things occurred to me.

1. Greta says it's always the same routing error that brings ships there, so f she's to be believed if it's always the same place ships end up maybe she made her web there to catch them all.

Also, of course I noticed Thom looked like hell when awaking to "reality" but on second viewing I saw that he looked like he could be drained of blood and Suzy looked like she had just recently died from being drained and Ray looked like he'd been dead a while but could have been the same way.

So maybe Greta feeds on each life drinking their blood but she also, in her way, takes care of the "souls" she uses for sustenance so they can think they are in a pleasant enough simulation until she's used them completely up.

Also, just went onto IMDB to look at the actors who played voices of the characters and HOLY SHIT they animated them to look just like the actors who played them.

I mean I know they did this in "Lucky 13" but only because I recognized Samira Wiley from "Orange is the New Black" and "The Handmaid's Tale".

But these are the actors:

Thom:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1397732/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t1

Greta:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5691121/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t2

Suzy:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9925112/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t3

 

I guess other episodes probably did similar with their character designs too, but the near perfection with "Lucky 13" and "Acquila Rift" is just amazing! The uncanny valley really seems to be shrinking.

[drawkcabi]

24 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I like your phrase "the uncanny valley seems to be shrinking."  I had a similar thought with several of the episodes on this like Sonnie's Edge, Acquila Rift, the Werewolves in Afghanistan (blanking on the title), Soviets v. Ghouls (also blanking on the title).  

All of these looked like video games but better than ever like the tech just jumped up to closer to reality / shrinking the uncanny valley.

Heh, speaking of that.  The Soviets v. Ghouls really reminded me of Dragon Age in the sense of there's some hole in reality via which some ghouls / demons are flooding in.  

I think a real indication of the valley narrowing is I visually recognized an actor as an animated character (Wiley). Before this with animation it's always been "I know that voice..." which also happened with "Lucky 13" but I knew what actress I was watching as soon as I saw her.

 

Isn't it an urban legend that they dug a hole in Russia so deep it literally went to Hell? 

Ah I found a wikipedia article about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_to_Hell_hoax

 

Wouldn't be surprised if this inspired both Dragon Age and The Secret War

[Ran]

Netflix has ordered a second season volume of Love, Death, & Robots. Yay! Also, veteran animation director Jennifer Yuh Nelson has been brought on board to be supervising director for the next season.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Netflix has ordered a second season volume of Love, Death, & Robots. Yay! Also, veteran animation director Jennifer Yuh Nelson has been brought on board to be supervising director for the next season.

Cool. It was rough around the edges but was a breath of fresh air to have 5-30 minute episodes with a wide range of animation styles. Hopefully some more writers next time too.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I hope we get more stuff based on stories by Alastair Reynolds.

Maybe a Merlin story or something from the Revelation Space universe.

 

Stuff based on works by Greg Egan or Robert Reed would be awesome too.

[Ran]

12 hours ago, red snow said:

Cool. It was rough around the edges but was a breath of fresh air to have 5-30 minute episodes with a wide range of animation styles. Hopefully some more writers next time too.

Saw someone say they had interviewed the director of the "Helping Hand" episode a week ago and LD&R came up, and they indicated that their understanding was that the plan was definitely fresh faces for each volume. That said, as I noted earlier, Tim Miller asked the writer of "Sucker of Souls" to create another story featuring the characters because he enjoyed it so much. So we may see a revisit or two, but I'd expect mostly new writers.

[red snow]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Saw someone say they had interviewed the director of the "Helping Hand" episode a week ago and LD&R came up, and they indicated that their understanding was that the plan was definitely fresh faces for each volume. That said, as I noted earlier, Tim Miller asked the writer of "Blindspot" to create another story featuring the characters because he enjoyed it so much. So we may see a revisit or two, but I'd expect mostly new writers.

That sounds like a good balance. I'd probably say the same about the animators too. Although they should at least ensure the animators and writers are mixed up. Although that might be tricky in cases where the animators wrote their episode as well. Guess my point is i definitely want to see the likes of  " the witness" animation again but I'd like a really different story.

Hopefully it's already underway so we get another edition soon. Although i guess they can produce quite quickly when it's actually a dozen teams making one episode.

[Ran]

11 minutes ago, red snow said:

That sounds like a good balance. I'd probably say the same about the animators too. Although they should at least ensure the animators and writers are mixed up. Although that might be tricky in cases where the animators wrote their episode as well. Guess my point is i definitely want to see the likes of  " the witness" animation again but I'd like a really different story.

Hopefully it's already underway so we get another edition soon. Although i guess they can produce quite quickly when it's actually a dozen teams making one episode.

Some of them took a lot of months to make, I think. I wouldn't expect another volume this year.

Re: "The Witness", Alberto Mielgo posted a teaser for a short film titled The Windshield Wiper, which he says is his next project. Similar style, and you can see he copped a couple of key character designs in "The Witness" from his work on that. More story, but there's sex and nudity (both genders, included in the teaser for that matter, so NSFW): 

 

[Ran]

"The Witness" is now nominated for an Emmy in Outstanding Short Form Animation category. Up against episodes/sketches from Robot Chicken, SpongeBob SquarePants, Steven Universe, 

[maarsen]

On 7/16/2019 at 4:12 PM, Ran said:

"The Witness" is now nominated for an Emmy in Outstanding Short Form Animation category. Up against episodes/sketches from Robot Chicken, SpongeBob SquarePants, Steven Universe, 

I doubt that it will win. I loved the animation but the nudity will rub a lot of people the wrong way.