Love, Death & Robots on Netflix...
Apr 26, 2019 16:02:45 GMT -5
Post by darthgall on Apr 26, 2019 16:02:45 GMT -5
So staying up way too late while my wife's traveling for work, and I indulged my curiosity on the Netflix show "Love, Death & Robots".
Remember the old Heavy Metal movie from 1981? I guess this is the modern redux. Supposedly David Fincher wanted to do a Heavy Metal reboot, and some Hollywood stuff happened, and this is the result. It's Heavy Metal with the serial numbers filed off.
Anyway, each episode is about 15 minutes or so, most are photo-realistic CGI, and it's pretty neat scifi stuff, but it's definitely a unique flavor.
I think it's a worthy successor to Heavy Metal; I was kind of obsessed with that movie when I was in high school, and LD&R looks like a polished scifi spectacle made by teenage males.
What I mean is it has some of the same flaws Heavy Metal did: excessive swearing trying to be edgy, gratuitous female nudity, and especially gratuitous, graphic, gory bloody violence.
Having said that, I still like it (watched a little over half the episodes so far), but it's definitely not for everyone. The tone is pretty dark and gritty for most of them:
"Sonnie's Edge", "Beyond the Aquila Rift" and "The Secret War" could all have been plucked from the pages of Warhammer 40K.
Oh and "The Secret War" gets a few bonus points for the possibility of being straight out of Lovecraft.
The CGI was really extraordinary, photorealistic and mostly avoiding the uncanny valley weirdness; see those three for what I'm talking about, but also "Shapeshifters" about shunned werewolves that are in the USMC.
Plot and character are a bit thin (but they're only 15 minutes, so what do you expect?) but there's still some real artistry going on here.
"Zima Blue" is about an artist's final creation, and was truly poetic. "When the Yogurt Took Over" and "Alternate Histories" are comedic, and I found both pretty funny.
The main reason I'm writing about this to this forum:
Every time I'm watching these, especially the super-realistic, scifi ones, I keep thinking "Man a Conan story would look AMAZING in this style!"
And not just Conan, but I'd love to see some straight old-school fantasy done like these are.
I know the line between scifi and fantasy can get pretty blurry, but for all the spaceships, robots and monster-aliens, I'd love to see some episodes featuring castles, swordsmen and wizards. The technology can clearly create any of that, and there's no reason they couldn't bring Frank Frazetta paintings to life.
When the NY Times and Washington Post are writing stories about popularity of D&D, I think you know there's a mainstream appetite for that.
I'd love to see this show, or another, tackle actual licensed D&D, or Pathfinder, or Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser... it seems so obvious!
Anyway, I'd recommend readers of this forum sample some episodes, but be advised it is definitely R-rated so send the kiddies to bed first.
And while I'm hovering around the topic, anybody know of any good animated, low-magic, medieval fantasy that's in the same vein?
Mick
Remember the old Heavy Metal movie from 1981? I guess this is the modern redux. Supposedly David Fincher wanted to do a Heavy Metal reboot, and some Hollywood stuff happened, and this is the result. It's Heavy Metal with the serial numbers filed off.
Anyway, each episode is about 15 minutes or so, most are photo-realistic CGI, and it's pretty neat scifi stuff, but it's definitely a unique flavor.
I think it's a worthy successor to Heavy Metal; I was kind of obsessed with that movie when I was in high school, and LD&R looks like a polished scifi spectacle made by teenage males.
What I mean is it has some of the same flaws Heavy Metal did: excessive swearing trying to be edgy, gratuitous female nudity, and especially gratuitous, graphic, gory bloody violence.
Having said that, I still like it (watched a little over half the episodes so far), but it's definitely not for everyone. The tone is pretty dark and gritty for most of them:
"Sonnie's Edge", "Beyond the Aquila Rift" and "The Secret War" could all have been plucked from the pages of Warhammer 40K.
Oh and "The Secret War" gets a few bonus points for the possibility of being straight out of Lovecraft.
The CGI was really extraordinary, photorealistic and mostly avoiding the uncanny valley weirdness; see those three for what I'm talking about, but also "Shapeshifters" about shunned werewolves that are in the USMC.
Plot and character are a bit thin (but they're only 15 minutes, so what do you expect?) but there's still some real artistry going on here.
"Zima Blue" is about an artist's final creation, and was truly poetic. "When the Yogurt Took Over" and "Alternate Histories" are comedic, and I found both pretty funny.
The main reason I'm writing about this to this forum:
Every time I'm watching these, especially the super-realistic, scifi ones, I keep thinking "Man a Conan story would look AMAZING in this style!"
And not just Conan, but I'd love to see some straight old-school fantasy done like these are.
I know the line between scifi and fantasy can get pretty blurry, but for all the spaceships, robots and monster-aliens, I'd love to see some episodes featuring castles, swordsmen and wizards. The technology can clearly create any of that, and there's no reason they couldn't bring Frank Frazetta paintings to life.
When the NY Times and Washington Post are writing stories about popularity of D&D, I think you know there's a mainstream appetite for that.
I'd love to see this show, or another, tackle actual licensed D&D, or Pathfinder, or Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser... it seems so obvious!
Anyway, I'd recommend readers of this forum sample some episodes, but be advised it is definitely R-rated so send the kiddies to bed first.
And while I'm hovering around the topic, anybody know of any good animated, low-magic, medieval fantasy that's in the same vein?
Mick
