LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS: Strong, Fresh, Imaginative Sci-Fi

This is the case with the anthology series Love, Death & Robots. If you haven’t had the chance to familiarize yourself with this creation yet, don’t waste your time reading my ramblings (but come back to them once you see the end credits of the last episode). This is, after all, an audiovisual feast that provides a variety of different experiences and reflections. Especially for you, I’m rushing with a short review and a subjective selection of the six best episodes of the production. Between the second Deadpool and the sixth Terminator, director Tim Miller managed to squeeze in some time to create an animated anthology series laced with science fiction and horror, in the spirit of the famous Heavy Metal.

The series is also signed by David Fincher’s name as an executive producer. However, it was Miller who bore the responsibility of writing the concepts for all eighteen episodes, directing one of them, and overseeing the creation process of the others. These two names are enough to set expectations for the production. The rather straightforward title is a clear suggestion that the Love, Death & Robots anthology delivers strong, imaginative sensations wrapped in the costume of science fiction.

And this is indeed the case. The eighteen episodes of the series are stories that, although they don’t have an overarching narrative theme, do share one superior characteristic – they all provide exceptionally strong, audiovisual punches, often laced with action, sex, horror, and black humor. They are like a collage of concepts that would have been incredibly difficult to sell to creators for full-length films due to their uncompromising and often graphic nature. There is more of this today in computer games, to whose style the creators of Love, Death & Robots frequently allude.

This lack of narrative consistency can often pose problems during the viewing experience. This is because it’s impossible to see any overarching idea that gives the whole thing a universal resonance. Something similar to what one feels when watching Black Mirror – today a sort of model for anthology work – where although each episode is a completely different story, they all speak with a common voice about technological threats.

On the other hand, and this is where my opinion situates itself, Love, Death & Robots is, thanks to its lack of cohesion, a completely surprising creation, and each episode of the anthology invites us on a short (the episodes are no longer than fifteen minutes) journey into the unknown, which is exactly what we love about sci-fi. It’s completely unpredictable what the creators will talk about this time or how they will conclude their story. This leads to swallowing individual episodes without the need for any drink, flowing with the feeling of curiosity. Many world-famous animators participated in the creation of the series, having worked on films such as How to Train Your Dragon and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

In Love, Death & Robots, you can therefore find a variety of animation techniques, with the most interesting ones, in my opinion, being the photorealistic ones, imitating reality, competing in this case even with the memorable Final Fantasy. Interestingly, a Polish studio, Platige Image, contributed to the project, producing one of the episodes. However, it wasn’t one of the episodes that left the biggest impression on me. The episodes that I actually considered the best, the most interesting, the most moving, and the most original are listed later in the article.

Some episodes reveal potential for a larger story, while others work best as a closed whole. Here are, in my opinion, the six best episodes of the first eighteen-episode season of Love, Death & Robots. Do you agree with my selection?

6. Suits

The action begins very innocently. A married couple living on a farm is brewing tea. Shortly afterward, everything takes an unexpected turn due to an alien invasion. However, the characters make it clear that this isn’t the first nor the last time they have to defend their home. They jump into large, powerful mechs, a more advanced form of exoskeleton from Alien: Resurrection, and prepare to fight the extraterrestrial force, lifting their guard high.

I like the action that fills this episode. I like its drama. I like its, shall we say, surprising ending. This is also one of those animations whose line art is pleasant, almost warm to the eye, featuring a wide color palette, which somewhat reminds me of the work of Blizzard in the field of computer games.

5. Beyond the Aquila Rift

When one of the crew members of a spaceship wakes up after years of hibernation, he wants to determine where he is, when it is, and if he may have veered off course. His former lover helps him discover the truth, and, to their mutual joy, they rekindle their passionate romance. Beyond the Aquila Rift has three main advantages. The first is that, in striving for photorealism, using motion capture technology, the creators have reached new heights. The second advantage is – let’s not mince words – the incredible sex scene, which, in my opinion, is one of the more realistic and intense scenes of this kind I have ever seen in animation. And thirdly – the unusually mysterious nature of the entire piece, which balances on the line between wakefulness and hibernation-induced sleep. That’s enough for me.

4. Zima Blue

A certain artist named Zima will go down in history for his unconventional use of a blue square. As the story progresses, the light is shed on his mysterious past, where one can find the sources of the artist’s fascination. I must admit that this seemingly inconspicuous episode captured me, especially with its melancholic, metaphysical atmosphere, slow pace, and moving conclusion. The starting point of this episode does not at all suggest what conclusions the creators ultimately arrive at. Zima Blue is, for me, another brick added to the theme of shortcomings in the idea of artificial intelligence, but the remarkably original way this issue is addressed draws attention. A masterpiece.

3. Shape-Shifters

In war-torn Afghanistan, two soldiers endowed with supernatural powers struggle with an enemy they can find not only on the other side of the barricade but also within their own unit. In my opinion, it’s all too obvious that this episode deals directly with the issue of racism. The two shape-shifting characters, half-human, half-dog, despite having abilities that could save the lives of many of their comrades, do not find acceptance in their environment.

That is until one of the characters decides to take matters into his own hands, face the enemy, and take revenge for the death of his friend. An incredibly powerful, emotional episode, with a fight scene that will stick in my memory for a long time. If anyone thought that the werewolf motif had already been overexploited in cinema, this episode will prove them wrong. More, please.

2. The Helping Hand

If you’re curious about what a shorter, animated version of Cuaron’s Gravity would look like, you couldn’t have chosen better. The Helping Hand is, just like its full-length spiritual companion, a creation marked by conceptual simplicity. In the episode, we meet an astronaut who, while performing routine duties on a space station, faces an unexpected tragedy. And although all factors point to the heroine having to say goodbye to this world (while being able to gaze at it from the perspective of orbit), in the last moment, hope appears. But I truly tell you, none of us would want to face such a dramatic choice. A simple, inconspicuous piece, yet it concealed so many emotions that it’s very hard to shake them off after the viewing. It’s also proof that if you want to shake the viewer, you don’t need explosive action or terrifying monsters. You simply need to offer the viewer a “helping” hand.

1. The Witness

A woman, right after witnessing a brutal murder, must flee from the murderer who is after her life. This short but intense journey will shake the very foundations of the reality she once believed in. In one review of this episode, I read that this is exactly what Alice would look like if she fell to the very bottom of the rabbit hole while taking LSD.

And it’s hard to find a better conclusion for this episode. The atmosphere is so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The neon-lit, dystopian city makes your head spin, reminding you of the best works of surrealists. The animation, which resonates with the style of comics, is polished to perfection in The Witness. No surprise – the animators responsible for its creation also worked on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But it’s the individual scenes, including the one in the nightclub full of sexual debauchery, and of course the final one, which turns everything we’ve seen so far upside down, that make your jaw drop. Revealing the meaning would be a disservice, but suffice it to say, mathematician Roger Penrose couldn’t have told his tale of impossible stairs any better. My hands instinctively join in applause.