'Love, Death + Robot' Vol. 4: Further adventures about the mining science fiction

*** This article was written for the edition of May/June '25 by Animation magazine (No. 350) ***

Netflix Love, death + robot -The five-time Emmy-coated animated animated anthology series, which returns to a fourth season of raw imagination from tire, massive science fiction shorts from Are, Massing Massage, Fantasy and Horror Shorts. This modern heritage in the film from 1981 shows itself Heavy metal is an experimental cuisine that constantly grows up in the art of animation every conceivable taste. Created and managed by Tim Miller and David Fincher with Jennifer Yuh Nelson on board as a surveillance director, Love, death + robot is a fever dream of extraordinary stories that have been adapted by a team of incomparable talent that one jewel after the other delivers.

Chat with Miller, Nelson and the famous animator Robert ValleyOne is immediately reminded of how this show has developed into a characteristic brand of wonderfully denied, hardcore animation excursions since 2019:

Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Animation magazine: Love, death + robot is widespread by legions of fans and animated enthusiasts. How did you hold constant hands on the creative bike to keep it Love, death + robot On course through these four seasons and what was your core view?

Müller: I wanted to do one Heavy metal Show because it influenced me as a child because I wanted to be an animator, but I didn't want to encourage yogi bear on Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Heavy metal gave me hope that they could find a place in animation that was able to tell adult stories with adult topics. It was Heavy metal And Fritz the cat And midnight demonstrations in the shopping center with my friends, and it was incredible. So I try to reinvent it. Fincher and I hit Kevin Eastman, the one heard Heavy metal Magazine, a hundred versions of this show with Guillermo del Toro, Jim Cameron and Zack Snyder. I was a train on the ticket, but I was there and we just couldn't sell it. Finally Fincher said: “F – it just let us do it on Netflix and call it something else” and “and Love, death + robot was born.

Jennifer led the troubling science fiction episode Spider rose, This has a significantly cyber punk-meet-room opera flair. His cruel end was changed by Bruce Sterling's short story from 1982 from 1982 on which it is based. How was this decision made?

Müller: I am a bit slavish to the original how Jen and Robert will tell them. I almost always fight for the author's original intention. Which does not mean it is not better. It is only more difficult for me to solve it.

Nelson: We try to be loyal to the short story. I think that's one of the lead principles of the show and why the stories are so good because they are based on really great stories. It was not an easy thing to change the end. I actually made the other version at some point and it was a hard exchange. I think something changes when you visualize it. If you write it, it's a little more in your head. When you see it, it is much more. A similar thing that we did on Pop squad [in Volume 2]. We had children who were killed several times, and you can't show that. So we had to find out how to do things so that she reads visually. In this special you will see yourself in something for more than 12 minutes and then watch someone kills it on the screen and eat it! And that was a really hard bridge to cross. I had the feeling that it was a way to get my favorite hotel into the short film when you see the conflict on Nosy's face when he will do what he will do. I had the feeling that I was still in the Love, death + robot World in which they have no happy things, but it stopped from being so terrible that people would say: “No”.

Canyon: I think I get ready to eat my son. I come to this point. He is 14.

Müller: This is probably the age in which they taste best.

Love, death + robot [c/o Netflix] — 'Spider Rose' | Jennifer Yuh Nelson | Blur Studio

Robert, the striking segment you have led, is 400 boys. It is a post -apocalyptic gangland story based on Half -life Creator Marc Laidlaw's short story from 1983 in 1983 in Omni Magazine. It feels a bit like A clockwork orange with huge babies and with stylistic and thematic nods too The warriors. Did the classic from Walter Hill also influenced this piece in 1979?

Canyon: Yes, I'm totally a fan of this film. I saw it before all of these streaming platforms when they occasionally showed it on TV, and I always took the time to look at it. So I read the short story 400 boys, boys, And for me there was really a lot The warriors Influence there. I mentioned Tim and that seems pleasant.

I also looked at a film called especially City of God; It is a Brazilian film. There is so much in this film that I just seen it as a reference. The warm colors, the coarseness of it, the way the director dealt with several characters. I thought there were many small lessons that I wanted to learn from it 400 boys. It is what I wanted, more than just little buddies.

How did you choose this striking language of the angular shape and the saturated color palette 400 boys?

Canyon: This cocktail, which has long brewed the stylistic appearance of the animation and deal with the people I have worked with. In particular, the Jamie Hewlett von Gorillaz and Peter Chung, the Æon river Guy. One of them is about stylistic simplicity and graphics. This is Jamie Hewlett. Peter Chung is more like total details, precision, with manga influences. We have cobbled this crew together Zima Blue, And since then we have done about six productions. We added people and added some new folds to our small trick bag to push things a little further. In the end, we bitten a little more with this production than we can chew.

The episode staged by David Fincher, Don't stopShows the Red Hot Chili Peppers who make a funny live performance in Marionette. How did that come together?

Müller: It was as simple as I called David and said: “Age, you have to make an episode for this season. We need a high talent from high -performance director.” And I told him I wanted him to make a music video. He said, “Ok, I'll do the red hot chili peppers as dolls. Team America-Stil. “It was so fast because he had the idea in his head and it was thrown around forever.

Nelson: The band was fantastic and during the entire MO cap meeting they brought their own instruments with them. These are very surprisingly high -quality, priceless things you have made to scan so that you can do it exactly. And they just had a great time. Since you are friends, you also brought your A-game with you to make sure we had all the movements we needed.

Müller: I think it's great that these boys have so much trust in David. There was no question: “Are you sure that this is a good idea?” They were just down. I have no idea whether David showed you anything about the work in the progress because it got together pretty quickly. David is so precise, sometimes you have to decode your reviews because they are written in Haiku form. But as soon as you understand it, you are very precise and the episode is beautiful.

Love, death + robot Volume 4 premiere on Thursday, May 15th. The three previous seasons are currently streamed on Netflix. Further information on Vol. 4 in our previous post here.