Of Love, Death, and Robots...
The joy of originality and invention
Issue #368 Keith’s SciFi Musings July 23, 2023
It’s not that I don’t like superhero flicks, because they can be fun. And I refuse to be a reflexive Marvel hater simply because it’s essentially machine formula movie-making. There have been some good ones. And besides, true imagination has been MIA from Hollywood for…God…I don’t even know how long. Because it is apparently so much easier to make money off a corpse by spawning infinite sequels. Hooking the cables into the brain stem of money-making ‘hit’ to catch the last fading idea before the lights go out.
But then came “Love, Death, and Robots.” And…
So there’s this Ohio Players song called Heaven Must Be Like This…
…which is exactly how I felt when I (very) belatedly discovered this remarkable sci-fi/horror/fantasy series on Netflix courtesy of a fellow traveler who was (very understandably) shocked, saddened, disappointed, and appalled that I was not already up on the LD+R phenomenon. Three seasons of episode shorts that rarely last longer than 10 or 15 minutes, but that somehow manage to contain more story and creative impact per episode than just about any other entire series put together.
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If you know, then you know. If you don’t, then it is hard to describe. Mostly because our brains have been so programmed over the years to respond positively and acceptingly to the (significantly) lesser quality work that is boxed in by the corporate fear of originality and creativity that we don’t quite know what to do when the Real Thing shows up. We have contented ourselves with the mediocre and the derivative.
At best, we get truly outstanding shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld, both of which changed the game, but both of which were also lifted and translated from previously created works. There’s certainly nothing inherently wrong with that, and I was a huge fan of both. And there really was a good amount of creativity and imagination employed in how those stories were developed into what we saw on the screen.
But neither was completely original. And that’s not to say that original content is always deserving of automatic praise simply because it’s original. Because a lot of original programming is trash. Oftentimes because, though original, it is still obscenely derivative, trying so hard to copy something better - and thinking viewers don’t know any better.
But LD+R? The series that began in 2019 has gone on to snatch 12 Emmys, so obviously somebody is paying attention to the fact that there is nothing else out there remotely resembling this level of creative genius. At least not that I’m aware of. And hopefully, they (meaning ‘they’ who make the creative decisions determining what the rest of us are allowed to watch) are paying enough attention that more consideration will be given in the future to truly original and creative content that doesn’t play safe (once the Hollywood Writers Strike is over and if they prevail). Because creativity and imagination are what separates us humans from all the other species.
Once we give that up…?
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