The popularity of the Netflix series Black Mirror has given rise to a new hybrid genre – micro fiction designed to be stand-alone hits of dopamine that engages and challenges the audience. It aligns with the current target demography’s short attention span and need for intellectual challenge from a work of art. It utilizes the advantages of genres like fantasy, horror and sci-fi to tend to these needs. Love, Death and Robots is the latest in this genre. A series of 18 animated shorts from the creator Tim Miller and Executive Producer David Fincher, it strikes the target audience with the highest precision.

Ranging from Steampunk to Cyberpunk, Love, Death and Robots deals with a myriad of themes like nihilism, religion, purpose of existence, time and alternate history using animated shorts that are a spectacle to watch. The creator has used a wide gamut of animation techniques from stop motion to 3D CGI and animation styles ranging from Final Fantasy to Disney to Hanna-Barbera.

Main Themes

1) Current socio-political state of America.

A few of the shorts on Love, Death ad Robots need to be viewed in parallel with the current socio-political state of USA. References to corporate greed, authoritarianism, racism and the military-industrial complex are used as plot devices in these shorts.

When the Yogurt Took Over is a short that depicts exactly that – a sentient and super-intelligent yogurt gains control of the US government and surprisingly leads the society to a debt-free and prosperous state before realizing that humans are doomed anyway. The yogurt takes off in giant space ships in search of a better habitat and leaves the humans helpless to fend for themselves.

Shape Shifters presents us with an alternate timeline where werewolves are part of the society, but they face discrimination from the mainstream population in-spite of their enhanced physical strength and agility. The plot follows two werewolf soldiers on military tour in Afghanistan. They take the brunt of the risk and danger faced by their unit even though they are segregated and hated in their barracks. This brings back the memories of the ‘Dont Ask Dont Tell’ policy in the US armed forces and the current attempts to ban transgender personnel from active duty. The filmmaker expertly captures the angst and helplessness of marginalized people who have devoted their lives to serve their country.

2) Post-Apocalypse

It is not a surprise to find post-apocalyptic themes in an anthology like Love, Death and Robots. A staple favorite for sci-fi and fantasy lovers, post-apocalypse can be used to portray the self-destructive nature of man and the meaningless nature of consumerism.

Three Robots is a short whose portrayal of the eventual self-destruction of the human civilization rivals that of Wall-E. Three sentient robots take a tour of a post-apocalyptic city while commenting on the human culture and its products found among the rubble of the ruined city. One of them even finds a possible ancestor in a broken X-Box. Their walking tour ends in an intact nuclear missile silo inhabited by genetically engineered talking cats. This weird, wonderful and surreal short leaves the audience with the realization that the planet wont miss the humans after their extinction.

Suits is the story of a community of farmers armed with weaponized mecha suits who fight off aliens appearing from mysterious portals. Its a charming tale of human spirit and survival told from the perspective of redneck farmers. At the end of the short, it is revealed that the human race has migrated to a distant planet filled with aliens and the portals are malfunctions in the force field surrounding their bio-domes. It pays homage to the Alien franchise with the creature design and the usage of mecha suits.

3) Nihilism and the Purpose of Creation

For an anthology about artificial intelligence and robots, Love, Death and Robots raises the obvious questions about the purpose of existence, religion and creation. It is referenced throughout the short films. The quippy female robot in Three Robots sarcastically mentions that the humans were created by a sentient deity and afterwards stating that the origin of the human race was a warm soup. In Zima Blue, an automated swimming pool cleaning machine upgrades itself over the centuries to evolve into a world renowned painter. Zima creates works of art bigger than the planet using a peculiar shade of blue as the whole population stand in awe of his genius. As his last work of art and magnum opus, he dives into a swimming pool of the same shade of blue and devolve himself into the pool cleaning bot as an act of self-actualization. In Witness, an exotic dancer and a mysterious man play out the roles of victim and assailant in an endless loop, while interchanging the roles in each iteration. It questions the fundamentals of reality and the nature of time.

Love, Death and Robots is not limited to these themes. It challenges the viewer’s belief systems, dabbles in feminism and gender issues and various other subjects. Visually brilliant, content-wise weird and wonderful, this movie is worth paying a month’s Netflix subscription fee. It warrants multiple viewing for it is one of those movies that has a lot of inter-text. With enough graphic gore, nudity and “Fincherism” for the average sci-fi geek, trippy and psychedelic visuals for you to get high and intellectually superior for a student of cinema, Love, Death and Robots is the love child of Black Mirror and Animatrix. Netflix has done it again.