Love, Death and Robots

I wondered whether I would do a video or written article on this, but for now I decided I’d share some quick written thoughts on Love, Death and Robots. Spoilers ahead.

The show continuously popped up in my queue, but I never got around to checking it out. I came across a random Twitter conversation where someone was praising it, which was enough to make me take the plunge. The anthology format, and the (mostly) sci-fi subject matter has drawn comparison to Black Mirror but I feel like this show doesn’t have the same overarching theme Black Mirror does.

As a whole, Black Mirror focuses on how technology affects human interaction. A lot of stories in Love, Death and Robots bring this up, or bring up the larger issue of human technologic hubris. However, there are a few that don’t carry this message. If people go in expecting another Black Mirror they may be disappointed. I like sci-fi, I like fantasy, I like action. Those qualifiers made me enjoy Love, Death and Robots.

What I find interesting is that the episodes seem to have a more polarizing reaction than Black Mirror. I bring Black Mirror up again since the formats are similar. Black Mirror has a set of stories that are generally well-regarded e.g. White Christmas, White Bear, USS Callister and some that are generally reviled e.g. The Waldo Moment and Metalhead (personally liked it).

In contrast, people’s favourites list can differ so drastically for Love, Death and Robots. Some of my favourites don’t end up on some people’s lists at all. I didn’t hate any stories, but some I was more ambivalent about, are loved by others. However, Beyond the Aquila Rift seems to be the most common mainstay in the favourites list (judging from Twitter threads I’ve perused).

I like the difference of opinions, and how people generally seem open to exploring their different reactions and interpretations. One thing that irks me a bit is when people say they didn’t like a certain style due to the animation. I feel like the first episode (as listed on Netflix) seemed to set the tone, and the next followed with a similar style. However, I viewed the different styles through the lens of a comic book reader.

Now, I don’t like some artists as much as others. While art enhances a story I don’t fail to get into a story, or fail to appreciate the writing because I don’t like the art. Over time, I have learned to just adjust to one artist’s style and go back to another without the art ruining the experience for me.

With that said, let’s get into it.

There are some stories where I liked the message or the ending, but didn’t like the whole story as much as others.

Good Hunting is a thinly-veiled colonialism critique, where a magic being loses her power as her country gets more industrial. Then she is literally turned into a machine because a colonial gentleman can “only get hard for machines.” Not subtle, but I did enjoy the imagery. The ending, where the magical being is turned into an upgraded, robotic version of herself and seeks revenge on the colonial rapists (literally and metaphorically) is one of my favourite moments of the series.

Zima Blue had the most beautiful ending in my opinion. This being, who has evolved from a robot with a single purpose — learning new things with every upgrade and becoming a revered artist — ends his career by going back to the beginning. Zima has accomplished everything he wanted to. He needs a purpose in life, and a simpler existence gives him that purpose. As a pool cleaner, he goes back to having a simple, objective task: One that can’t be interpreted one way or another (at least not as much as art). It was also great hearing Kevin Michael Richardson’s voice again.

I did see Aquila Blue‘s reveal coming when Greta’s cut healed quickly. I figured the main character must be in a simulation but the reveal’s exact nature was still a surprise. The ship has literally been entangled in someone’s nest, and the reveal of the spider’s form legitimately gave me chills. I just wish the episode ended right there, instead of cutting back to another simulation.

Fish Night almost seems like as a lesson on naivety. The older guy was wary of where their careers as door to door salesman are going, but the kid is more optimistic. When the kid says he wishes he could be a sea creature swimming without a care in the world I immediately thought “except getting eaten.” Ultimately he isn’t watching his surroundings and gets killed (or it’s all a hallucination and the kid died while sleeping, like some people think).

Shapeshifters is the werewolf story I wish I wrote. I will finish rewriting my own by 2021 (after I finish my sixth book), but Shapeshifters presented another great twist on a werewolf story, with literal dog soldiers. The look and abilities of the werewolf characters were a joy to watch and I found the story to be one of the most suspenseful on the list.

Lucky 13 was almost a love story and a ghost story in its own right, with the sci-fi as a backdrop.

Three Robots is the funniest of the series, probably helped to put it second to break up the more serious nature of Sonnie’s Edge. I find Sonnie’s Edge to be another very popular and critically-loved entry. In a sense, it sets the tone for the series: If you can handle the violence, nudity, language etc. then continue on. However, different users have different episode orders, so maybe this could be different depending on the user. For some, Aquila Rift was the first episode and maybe the “”first effect” impacts the reception for that episode.

This thread brings up the idea of Netflix using the metrics for the most popular episodes to create standalone shows. It seems like Sonnie’s Edge might be a contender if that were the case. I can’t help but wonder if being the first episode helps as well, since it is burned in people’s minds as their first taste of the series.

The last episode, The Secret War, is also great in my opinion but seems much less universally-loved. I loved the soldiers’ last stand and the action sequences as a whole. I love that we got a brief background on the conflict, tying it into historical fiction.

As mentioned before, I didn’t hate any of the episodes, but the ones above all stood out for me more than others. What about you?

Grandma

My grandma passed away in July of this year and I completed a small piece earlier this morning,  putting together some of the thoughts swirling in my head following her death. I am still open to expanding on the thoughts below, and perhaps turning it into a short story. For now, I wanted to share it as it is.

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Maybe to someone looking in from the outside, her favourite grandson seemed insensitive to her death. He was laughing and drinking with his family, people he knew from childhood and people he was meeting for the first time. He did the eulogy, but his voice shook from stage fright more than grief. Perhaps her death was only a vacation for him, a retreat to a tropical island. That was what onlookers thought, and the grandson started to question himself as well.

He had yet to shed tears. Maybe the death wasn’t real for him yet. He saw the body but reeled away from it, feeling his stomach turn as he viewed Grandma’s face. She seemed so much smaller, shriveled. Her skin wrapped around her bones like plastic wrap.

The grandson felt his stomach turn again as he entered Grandma’s room. He looked to the bed, where his grandma usually laid. Then he looked to the couch beside, where he spent hours talking and watching television with Grandma whenever he visited. The room was familiar and carried so many good memories, yet the grandson couldn’t bring himself to enter it. Her presence still lingered here, adding weight to the air ahead of him. She threatened to suffocate him.

The grandson felt like something malevolent lingered here now, a perversion of the woman he loved. His dad suggested he sleep in her room, like he used to when he was a child. That suggestion was ignored and the grandson continued avoiding the room, feeling like something was lying in wait for him there.

Her death stayed with him when he returned across the sea. One of his favourite songs became a cruel reminder. “Grandma’s Hands” was now a reverse lullaby- threatening to make him cry when its words rang out.

He had a bookmark with her face on it, and a prayer dedicated to her memory. It was the only one he’d used since the funeral, finding comfort in the picture of his grandma as he remembered: smiling and healthy. Sometimes it was just another bookmark, with its content forgotten by the user and scrutinized by strangers on the bus. Other times, the bookmark was his own talisman, giving him access to a multitude of good memories from his childhood.

The Funeral

Sorry for the delay with this blog post. I have added apartment hunting to my to-do list so I’ve been busier than normal. This is in addition to work, the gym, guitar and writing my second book.

Before you get worried: the below piece is fiction.

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Her pictures were hung all over the church,

In her best dresses, with her best makeup,

 

I stood on the podium,

I was supposed to talk about how great my sister was,

How sad I was that she was gone,

How empty my life was without her,

Yet I couldn’t,

 

My sister was nothing more than a person I had the misfortune of sharing blood with,

She was rude, insecure, ungrateful and manipulative,

There is nothing to mourn with her passing,

She wasn’t murdered,

She didn’t commit suicide,

She just passed away in her sleep,

 

Why do we feel the need to not only downplay someone’s faults when they die,

But also try to paint them as a perfect human being,

Not a single speaker talked about her issues,

Saying that she had problems, but that she was still family,

They all tried to make her look like Mother Teresa,

She is far from it,

She was more than flawed,

She wasn’t even decent,

She was my sister,

She is dead,

And I’m celebrating.

 

Life

We still don’t know what it’s true meaning is, but we know that a big part of life are the relationships we form with one another,

The people we surround ourselves with,

Who shape who we are,

And we can only hope that chance and fate bestow us with people who bring happiness into our lives,

Although the world seems to revolve around money and fame, the loss of someone we love always makes us remember our true priorities,

We remember them and all the people who mean the most to us, those who are always there for us and truly give without asking for anything in return,

The world is filled with negativity, sadness and betrayal, but the people we care about always make us forget that,

The only good thing we can take from their passing is that they will find peace, and we can continue to honour them with our memories,

More importantly, we can honour them by letting go of the petty things that cloud our own peace,

Our insecurities, our grudges,

Our loved ones probably lectured us about this at one point,

It’s easier said than done, but we can’t truly be free until we let go of these anchors,

We can be more grateful for what we have and remember that we were blessed to be in the presence of someone who truly brightened our lives.