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TV/Streaming The Very Pulse of the Machine
Tim Miller
Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Sophisticated Sci-Fi Is Back Tim Miller and Jennifer Yuh Nelson guide us through the third season of their acclaimed anthology Love, Death + Robots. By Ramin Zahed
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he third season of Netflix’s multiple-Emmy-winning series Love, Death + Robots offers only nine episodes of various lengths, but it also delivers some of the anthology’s most sophisticated and eclectic offerings. We have the return of the beloved characters introduced in the first season’s Three Robots, who are continuing their journey on our postapocalyptic planet. There’s an original and thrilling sea-faring episode (Bad Traveling) about an unforgettable monster, directed by live-action master David Fincher (Se7en, Mank, Zodiac), who is an executive producer on the series. Volume III also includes the jaw-dropping and visually stunning Jibaro by Alberto Mielgo (the man behind this year’s Oscar-winning short The Windshield Wiper and Volume I’s The Witness). The anthology’s creator and exec producer Tim Miller also returns with Swarm, a remarkable adaptation of Bruce Sterling’s novelette about an unusual hivelike form of life on an alien planet. In short, some very high-flying episodes and glorious eye candy are on the menu! “One of the biggest [announcements] about the third season is that David Fincher has direct-
ed his first animated film,” says Miller, the founder and creative director of Blur Studio, who came up with the idea for the anthology more than a decade ago and pitched it all over town until Netflix came on board. “It’s everything you’d think it would be, and it really delivers on the promise. I think it’s one of the most horrifying and gripping films he has done. It’s just his style — and the tone of the piece goes back to Se7en.”
Deep, Dark Universe Miller, an Oscar-nominated director (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and producer (the two Sonic the Hedgehog blockbusters) who is a huge fan of science=fiction stories, says it’s hard for him to say what makes the third season of the show stand out from previous ones. “I think that this one has some really beautiful stories,” he notes. “It’s difficult for me to say that any one is different from the others. We kind of just make the best version of what we think we can create. I can’t say that this year’s The Very Pulse of the Machine is better than Pop Squad. I can’t make that choice. I cry when I see both of them … People that have seen the third season
tell me that it’s a little darker.” Volume III also showcases the talents of the amazing Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the Oscar-nominated DreamWorks veteran who directed Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3 and has been the show’s supervising director since season two. “The third season episodes took a bit longer to cook,” she points out. “David Fincher’s episode is quite ambitious; it’s about 20 minutes long and the longest one we’ve ever done. Alberto Mielgo started working on The Witness from the very first day. Then he won an Emmy for it, then won the Oscar for his short. He said Jibaro was the most ambitious thing he’d ever done. For Alberto, it was being able to do something that he was almost afraid to do. And then, we also have the return of familiar faces with our Three Robots coming back [this time directed by Patrick Osborne], and also pushing the familiar faces beyond their comfort zone.” According to Yuh Nelson, the episode The Very Pulse of the Machine took the longest to make. Directed by Emily Dean, it centers on a wounded astronaut who begins to hear a mysterious voice that may lead her to safety … or death. “This short was based on a prize-winning sto-
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june|july 22
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