A kid had to face the world in his own animated version and conquer life's biggest monster. ANI (The Harvest) It's as if a child's imagination is a safe haven, a place where the world is a playground for all the possibilities the mind could think of. And even the tight and humble space called home, situated on a busy Metro could not hinder the inquisitive headspace of a young Mithi (played by Zyren Dela Cruz), a boy who accomplishes the day by playing with his colorful toy robots that perform a vital role in his imaginary narrative. With a loving father and a mother that sings him a self-assuring lullaby, Mithi is blissfully unaware of the harsh reality. But life decided to toy with his fate, and Mithi's perfect little world is now showing its cracks, putting his vulnerability to the test and slowly depriving him of his happiness he thought would last forever. And through his eyes, the world suddenly transforms itself into a menacing monster. Set in a lush
"Love, Death and Robots" Season 1 Review - An Odyssey into the Comical, the Dark and the Weird
A collection of bite-sized tales of otherworldly creatures, unapologetic dark humour and cosmic mayhem specifically designed to tickle the imaginative minds.
The highly-stylized and sometimes gratuitous stereotyping of the sexes that is 1981's Heavy Metal has set its own respectable status when it comes to artistic unconvential filmmaking, largely due to its nonconforming structure wherein different short stories were stitched together, creating pockets of disconnected universes within a single movie.
Years later, the movie's choice of varied animation techniques still holds up in comparisson to the current standards and can easily be considered to be ahead of its time.
Reimagination
Heavy Metal has been planned to be reimagined under the hands of David Fincher, dated way back to 2008. The sci-fi fantasy elements of the original will be adapted but with better and more modern approach employing the likes of Zack Snyder, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro and more, as directors to a proper reboot that sadly, never happened.
But the fascination never really stopped though, just benched, waiting to be fully-realized with the right timing, budget and platform in which the semi-erotic themes and strongly suggestive nature of the film will be reintroduced to the morern audiences, testing the waters and maybe, just maybe, before going in full force with a theatrical release.
Fincher, teaming up with Deadpool director Tim Miller, who was also originally slated to direct one of the shorts in the supposed 2008 movie, has found their way to renew their parked obsession with the said follow-up with the release of 2019's Love, Death and Robots only available through Netflix streaming services.
Love, Death and Robots follows an unorthodox animation of 18-episodal shorts ranging from sexually-provocative sci-fi fantasies, monsterful dystopian realities, and comical dark innuendoes, each boasting artistic techniques from different animation studios.
Creative Freedom
Speaking of unorthodox animation, LDR was brimming with boisterous and colorful varieties of visual spectacles resulting from the creative freedom given to the studios behind this show, using an array of stylish animations from the heavily rendered CGI to the seemingly kid-friendly 2D artstyles that was intended to further accentuate the tone of the specific episode it was used in.
Blur Studio, the visual effects company behind the well-crafted animations of the show and headed by Jerome Denjean, Head of CG and VFX supervisor at Blur made a call to other competing teams and collaborated with them for this project.
As a result of this historic collaboration, they managed to create the most diverse and aesthetically appealing designs which truly paid off looking at the final product itself. They also used V-Ray rendering to perfectly simulate a hyper-realistic visual style and as well as to achieve a certain level of animation speed critical to the immersive experience in the actions sequences, specifically in the Sonnie's Edge episode.
Blur doesn't just specialize in realistic 3D models though as they also expanded into doing two-dimensional animation moving in a 3D-esque plane, combining to techniques just to sort of mix and match their guns, adding into the already magnetic eye-popping visuals that works hand in hand with the cleverly penned stories.
Overall, Miller and company's love for stylistic animations were fully recognized and really refined the method, not just for the betterment of the show but also confidently placed itself as a reputable benchmark in modern-age cinematography.
Standout Episodes
Inspired by underground fight-club but with intimidating colossal beasts, the pilot Sonnie's Edge soared as one of the standout episodes, packed with unrelenting action, hyper-realistic stylishness and a story that's interesting enough that it could easily birth its own stand-alone show. It's that good!
The second episode, Three Robots, is also a strong contender, offering a greatly different flavor than the pilot. Of all the episodes, it's the one the stood out the most when it comes to humorous popcorn slapstick banter amongst our robotic survivors, in this post-apocalyptic world where all humans were eradicated and highly-advanced robots dominate the land.
The dark comedy throughout the episode is both effective and entertaining especially when they make fun of the very mundane activities that we do as human beings.
Zima Blue is also a top-notch episode, not for its animation which reminds of Cartoon Network's Samurai Jack, but rather for the message that it conveys. A journey to self-satisfaction, a renowned artist Zima, famous for his mesmeric art pieces unveils his final work in the most shocking moment of his career.
Good Hunting just like Sonnie's Edge is also one of the best candidates at spewing a solo season. The protagonist, a huli jing, a wolf-like entity biologically engineered into a mechanical transformer, promised to hunt-down the men that tried to take advantage of the powerless. The artsyle is very reminiscent of old Disney 2D animation, particularly to that of Mulan.
What's interesting about this Good Hunting is not just the valid motivation of the characters but also the haunting worldbuilding, from the virgin provinces of China as it underwent drastic changes due to western industrialism. It's also important to note that in just 17 minutes, this episode successfully established a bittersweet romantic aspect between the two main characters and I am personally excited to see how it develops.
In Altering Histories, a fictional Multiversity, an online school-like community discusses the what-ifs of altering the history by demonstrating a variety of comical ways to kill Hitler. It's the shortest episode out of the bunch it perfectly encapsulates the idea of the multiverse.
All in all, this season has a lot of episodes made for everyone. Some of them are clearly stronger than the others but what's important is that each of them feels like a fresh surprise — a perfect binge-watch material.
Let's Be Reel
As an experimental brainchild of Fincher and Miller, Love, Death and Robots doesn't just reimagine the sci-fi blueprint but also redefined the animation genre.
The synergetic efforts of talented artists and imaginative writers and directors creates the perfect opportunity to explore into a more eccentric small-scale storylines to combat the sometimes tired de facto Netflix formula.
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