Love, Death & Robots (2019)

I managed to watch Love, Death & Robots, I watched the short stories in two days time. I had high expectations, based on what people had already reviewed. Almost in all the post, I start with a brief review of the movie, this particular time I would like to be briefer.
Love, Death & Robots is a collection of animated short stories having the title as the main theme. The collection consists of 18 independent films, with no relation among them.

The shorts are the following:
1) Sonnie's Edge
2) Three Robots
3) The Witness
4} Suits
5) Sucker of Souls
6) When the Yogurt Took Over
7) Beyond the Aquila Rift
8) Good Hunting
9) The Dump
10) Shape-Shifters
11) Helping Hand
12) Fish Night
13) Lucky 13
14) Zima Blue
15) Blind Spot
16) Ice Age
17) Alternate Histories
18) The Secret War

First of all, no boast intended, I'm writing in English just for practising. I know that I write worse in English than in Spanish, but that is exactly the reason to practice. I hope my terrible grammar offends nobody. After that, I shall start.

I'm not willing to do an extensive analysis of each short, instead, I would like to write about the generalities of the complete season.

In many of the animated shorts, we realize some common topics, feminity, empowerment, time cycling and dystopia.   We notice characters like  Sonnie, Beth, Helen, Gary, Yan, Alexandria, Lucky 13, Lieutenant Colby or Gail, which are self-conscious of their situation, it seems that the female characters tend to be more powerful than their male counterparts, as we can see with Greta or Suzy in Beyond the Aquila Drift.



I'm aware that feminism is quite a delicate topic nowadays, of course, I'm not willing to argue, just share my particular point of view. Sonnie is a tough lady, but she is not tough because she survived to battles or raping if you watch carefully the battle, whilst the beasties are rumbling a phallic structure and movement is seen during the stabbing scene. Sonnie is tough because she has made her mind, she decided that in every rumble she will kill her molesters, she decided to live in the edge, what I'm trying to say is that everything that she will live is her decision, no one else, that is empowerment no matter the gender.



The contrary happens with the girl that witnesses the murder, she did not decide to see anything. During most of the animation, she flees from the man, until the end when she decided to use the gun. The open end suggest that the prey becomes hunter and eventually the places will be switched in an infinite cycle The man with the moustache and the girl never establish a conversation, none of the main characters even when they realise what is happening to decide to break the loop, the thing is that in a visually stimulant world, where pleasure is the fuel, words seems nonsense.



Another common place in the animations is the inability of the humanity to conceal their reality, this is clearly stated in Aquila Rift, Thom is unable to realize what is really happening, whilst Suzy notice it immediately, or the humans in the yoghurt short, or the eviction man in the dump yard. It seems that for us, humans the reality must not change or we will panic. In good hunting we watch the same, humanity decided that magic shall not exist, this steampunk story is great.  I really loved how they manage to merge both steampunk and magic in one story, I like the idea that we humans determine what is right or wrong, no matter who we affect. Chinese decided to annihilate these canine-shape women, English people (represented by the major) decided to impose the steam machines and their power over the Chinese. In the end, we notice that we can deny reality (at least in the story, magic is a reality), just at it happens in the dump yard of "The Dump".



I feel comfortable with the idea that all the animations are dystopias, nowadays is common to see the promotion of multiculturalism, even some people understand the winning of France in the last Football World Cup, as a proof of a successful multiculturalistic society. In "Shape-shifters" we notice the opposite, the werewolves in the army are not integrated into the barracks, just because they are slightly different. Who understands Decker? The other marines (other than Sobieski) or the Afghan son and father? I would think that the Afghans, as they understand, even when they have a language barrier, that a duel was coming in the night. By the end of the animation, we understand that Decker has no place with the Marines, nor the Afghans, he is just a werewolf not understood yet.



Just as it happens in Zima Blue, Zima is not fully understood, just after he tells the story to the journalist, we as spectators know the leitmotiv of Zima and the reason of the blue colour. When we think in transhumanism we usually think the phenomenon in one sense, we humans will become more humans (literally what the etymology says), but the question is, obviously, what makes us humans? Feelings? Reasoning? Desires? Zima had everything of this, he was the living evidence of transhumanism but he did not feel complete. Many times in news and literature, we read futures where artificial intelligence (AI) destroys humanity, indeed there is some sort of derision in the yoghurt animation. We, as humanity, give silicon-based objects a gift they did not ask, intelligence and self-conscience (eventually). We think that AI will notice our "bugs" and destroys us.


Zima blue suggest, that both carbon-based and silicon-based, will feel unsatisfied even if we become almost almighty, the animation suggests that simple things many times make us feel more satisfied that big achievements. In "Ice Age" we see the same idea, the cooler civilization, a mirror of ourselves, grows and evolves during a 24 hours time lapse, finally they end they just disappear and reboot, an infinite loop as we see many times during the animations, we might walk very fast or very slow, but we ended just where we begin, status quo?. There it is, this is the key of the success in any story, soap opera or movie, at the everything returns to its initial state, ss Kavafis says the important is the, not Ithaca, eventually, we will return to the beginning, would the journey be worthy?


Finally in Secret War, as in Sucker Souls or Alternate Stories, we watch our reluctance to return to the beginning and our incapacity to do so, Mensheviks wanted the power and rely on spiritism to achieve it, inheriting a ghoul invasion in Far East Russia. In the end, we watch a bombardment to the place where all ghouls come from, but it might be useless. Again, we humans, want to reboot. In Sucker Souls and Alternate Stories, we see the same, snatching an ephemeral victory, just to end in the beginning.


Sincerely I loved all the animations, the style is incredible, the stories are entertaining and some of them addicting. If there will be another season, I will surely watch it, the graphics, the designs, the dubbings and the dialogues are excellent. I highly recommend this series.

I hope my grammar English wasn't that bad, my next post will be in Spanish.