Love, Death, and Robots- Netflix Animation Anthology

Finished watching the final episode of this over lunch today. On the whole I really enjoyed it, though there were definitely episodes I preferred far more than others. I'm not a huge fan of 'get really close to photorealistic but don't quite get there' like a number of the episodes did, so I generally liked the less-uncanny-valleyesque ones more.

Favorites would be Zima Blue (loved the animation style and the story was intriguing), Lucky 13 (yeah, I know- in the uncanny valley but since it was more about the plane and the characters were in armor/suits most of the time it didn't bother me as much) though I'll admit liking this one more once I realized who made the dropships ;), and Good Hunting (have a soft spot for steampunk and the whole 'technology sufficiently advanced/magic aspect was neat). Didn't really like the 'space jump gone wrong' episode, the werewolf soldiers one, or the final episode (Russians vs. demons). Wasn't the most fond of the first episode either, though it was a good one to start with to make it quite clear that this was NOT going to be a series that young children should be watching. Laughed my ass off at the alternate histories one and got a kick out of the 3 Robots and the Yogurt episode. 

I hope that they make more- while I wasn't as fond of some of these they were neat and different.

I started watching it last night, got through 4 or 5 episodes. Which episode did you get first? I got Yogurt first then 3 robots. 

Im a few in. Wife dont care for it, but its pretty neat.

EvanB said:

I started watching it last night, got through 4 or 5 episodes. Which episode did you get first? I got Yogurt first then 3 robots. 

Interesting, I had heard they varied the order- I got the 'giant monsters deathmatch' episode first. I think it was Edge, 3 Robots, and The Witness as the first 3. 

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I didn't bother even asking if the Dancer was interested in watching it with me, I had a pretty good idea she'd not be interested. She does the same thing- she started the Lorena Bobbit documentary and told me yesterday and I said she was more then welcome to keep watching that all on her own...

I've been enjoying it; like you said it's hit or miss, but most worthwhile anthologies are. Lucky 13 was awesome, I fell in love with that ship. Unlike you, I really liked Sonny's Edge, the giant monsters fighting each other one. Not because the writing was great - just a little too much "I'm going to be rude because we're badass anime characters" going on in it - but because the premise and the twist were incredible. I didn't see it coming at all and really enjoyed it.

In reply to dculberson :

I didn't actively dislike Sonny's Edge, I just wasn't as fond of it as the others. I didn't see the twist coming either, though I expected the 'betrayal' at the end, I just didn't expect the turn things took after.

There was a discussion about the anthology over on Fark, and someone noted that if you liked Sonny's Edge, it came from a short story collection called 'A Second Chance at Eden' by Peter F Hamilton (and that if you really liked it, it's essentially background material for the same author's "Night's Dawn" trilogy).

Tracked down and read the short stories 'Good Hunting' and 'Zima Blue' were based on. 

The original story for Zima Blue was solidly better than the adaptation of it (bearing in mind that it was pretty much my favorite of the anthology) because the adaptation completely left out one of the most important themes of the story.

I'd put the original story and adaptation for 'Good Hunting' on about the same level- the differences were fairly subtle and minor and didn't change the overall impact at all.

I'm looking forward to reading more of the works by both authors as I picked up some of their material to read when the Dancer and I are on vacation in a week and hopefully spend most of the time relaxing on the beach reading...

We basically binged it in one night. It was great, hopefully there's more coming soon. 

Yogurt, 3 robots, and one other are based on short stories by John Scalzi, probably one of the biggest names in modern Sc-fi. One of my favorite authors. I haven't watched the series yet, but it's high on my list. Interesting about varying the order, I hadn't heard that.

In reply to ultraclyde :

Ahh, I really enjoyed Old Man's War. Scalzi is a good author.

In reply to ultraclyde :

I think Alternative Realities was the other Scalzi-based short. All three were ones I solidly enjoyed. I laughed quite a lot during the Hitler-deaths and at the antics in 3 Robots- especially those of the pyramid-shaped robot (Bad ball! *whack* Think about what you've done! *whack*)...

I haven't finished watching all the installments yet, but I am really enjoying the variety.   The level of creativity is certaily refreshing even if I didn't like a couple episodes that much.  

Gust started watching this morning while on the excersize bike. First episode I enjoyed the twist, that was the monsters fighting one. I really laughed at 3 robots, the dialog was very well written. 

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Would you mind sharing the adapted story titles? Zima Blue was definitely one of my favorites of the bunch! 

sobe_death said:

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Would you mind sharing the adapted story titles? Zima Blue was definitely one of my favorites of the bunch! 

Sure- though for the two I read it was easy since the title of the episodes were the same as the original stories.

Zima Blue is a short story by Alastair Reynolds, it is part of the short story collection "Zima Blue and Other Stories". Full disclosure on this one: my local library system doesn't have this book, but I tracked down a PDF of it online and read it there.

Good Hunting is a short story by Ken Liu and is part of his book of short stories, "The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories." Our library does have this and I checked it out but only read the story in question so far (we're going on vacation next week and I'm trying hard to not read any more of the books I checked out so I won't have read all of them by the time we get there...)

I really love short films and these don't disappoint.  I think I've only seen 4 but I like to watch a couple before bed just to make sure my dreams are interesting.

On a slightly related topic... totally hooked on Umbrella Academy and Russian Doll, too.  Finished both of those last week.  In typical Netflix fashion, they'll probably find some way to berkeley up season 2.

On an other related topic... say goodbye to Jessica Jones, Nick Cage, and a few others.  Disney bought Marvel so it's all moving to Hulu.

I didn't read about it or know anything about it prior to giving it a watch. I thought it was pretty good, it reminded me of a more adult version of the twilight zone. I am more into the short stories rather then the animation.

Last night I got the one with the flourescent fish ghosts.  I thought the VO acting was terrible, and I didn't get the story.  Not to mention the contradictions in physics.

Otherwise, they've been great.

In reply to Curtis :

Got that one too. Reminded me of a bad acid trip.

The steampunk fox/girl one was neat.

I liked them all, but Lucky13 and Sonny's Edge were my favorites. 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

. Reminded me of a bad acid trip. 

What is it they say?.... a bad acid trip is better than a good day at the office?

And is it wrong that I was kind of attracted to the fox?