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[mango drank]

Automated Customer Service: Meh, probably the worst one.
Ice: OK-ish, gets by mostly on its style. Not as good as its predecessor Zima Blue.
Pop Squad: Not bad. The first one to make an effort at an interesting plot.
Snow in the Desert: Not bad, but the plot feels half-finished, could've used a few more minutes of story after that "ending."
The Tall Grass: Cool visual style, paper-thin otherwise. Felt empty.
All Through the House: The best one. Great concept. I literally LOLed a few times.
Life Hutch: OK-ish. But why was the killer sentry robot so dumb and had such limited sensors? Hard to believe.
The Drowned Giant: Wacky. Pretty good. Felt like a Beeple piece, turned into a 10-minute story.

They need to hire better writers for these, though. You can tell a few tried, but a lot of them felt like they were phoned-in by interns, and just trying to coast on visuals. But visuals on their own aren't enough, as cool as they are.

 

[Cattlyst]

Thought it was decent. Had a lot to live up to after season 1 and wasn't quite on the same level, but still enjoyable. Some of the cgi is incredible in places, almost like live action. Has the uncanny Valley been crossed?

 

[SebastianShaw]

Thought it was decent. Had a lot to live up to after season 1 and wasn't quite on the same level, but still enjoyable. Some of the cgi is incredible in places, almost like live action. Has the uncanny Valley been crossed?

Yes. Watched with a friend and he said Snow in the desert was real life at first

 

[Outlier]

My top 3:

3. Life Hutch - Most realistic CGI character I've ever seen.

2. Snow in the Desert - Exciting action with second most realistic CGI character.

1. Pop Squad - Interesting subject matter with good story telling and pacing.


Honorable mentions:

Ice - Cool 2D art-style and presentation.

Automated Customer Service - I actually chuckled. It's good to smile sometimes.

All through the House - Anxiety inducing... if you're child minded... or an actual child.


Dishonorable mentions:

The Tall Grass: Why? Didn't do anything interesting with the monsters in grass idea and the CGI wasn't interesting and varied in framerate.

The Drowned Giant - Would have been interesting if we got to see what happened to the Giant, rather than listening to the wondering monologue...

 

[bitbydeath]

Automated Customer Service was one of my favourites, along with Life Hutch and All through the house.

Pop squad and Snow were decent but felt too incomplete to rate highly.

Ice had great art and meh to the rest.

 

[KyoZz]

Overall I'd say it's ok. Not as good as season 1 but still enjoyable and some idea are cool.

Snow in the Desert is really cool, the best episode imo.
Life Hutch has some amazing CGI (best 3D character yet) but the story is meh and the robot is freakin' dumb.
All through the House was short but effective.
The Drowned Giant is... ok.
Pop Squad is in the same category as Life Hutch for me, it is not developed enough but great visuals.
Automated Customer Service was fun but nothing crazy, he insists too much on his message.
Ice is nice visually speaking, great art but is not developed enough, like so many other...
The Tall Grass is very predictable but it look amazing.

And again, those CGI are next level for Michel B. Jordan:

 

[Konnor]

Pop Squad and Snow in the Desert were the only decent ones that even made an effort to build an interesting world. The show already wasn't anything special but this was next level mediocrity.

 

[vpance]

Overall I'd say it's ok. Not as good as season 1 but still enjoyable and some idea are cool.

Snow in the Desert is really cool, the best episode imo.
Life Hutch has some amazing CGI (best 3D character yet) but the story is meh and the robot is freakin' dumb.
All through the House was short but effective.
The Drowned Giant is... ok.
Pop Squad is in the same category as Life Hutch for me, it is not developed enough but great visuals.
Automated Customer Service was fun but nothing crazy, he insists too much on his message.
Ice is nice visually speaking, great art but is not developed enough, like so many other...
The Tall Grass is very predictable but it look amazing.

And again, those CGI are next level for Michel B. Jordan:

Don't think it was 100% CG. Creators did an AMA and apparently his face was a mix of live action and CGI. Probably visual capture plus all the lighting effects added on top.

 

[Cattlyst]

Yes. Watched with a friend and he said Snow in the desert was real life at first

Same here. I was watching with my partner and both she and I weren't sure if it was live action or cgi when the guy took his mask off and drank water!

 

[GloveSlap]

I agree with most of the critiques. Stunning animation, but nothing came close to the emotional depth of a Zima Blue or Good Hunting. Nothing near as cool as Sonnie's Edge or Aquila Rift either.

It did seem a little more consistent than Season 1 though, as there weren't any real stinkers IMO.

 

[MastaKiiLA]

I watched this last night. Surprisingly consistent quality across the collection. More consistent than the first volume, but I think the first volume hit higher highs. It might be nostalgia though, as I haven't rewatched it.

My least-favorite shorts were unsurprisingly were probably the 2 that didn't have robots in them. I prefer the Black Mirror-esque robot-centric stuff. Still, super easy to get in and out of these, so always worth a watch.

 

[bitbydeath]

Reflecting on Pop Squad it’s probably one of the worst stories.

Spoiler

Guy has been murdering children for hundreds of years and now has an epiphany because why? A teddy? Old toys?

It was pretty dumb and went nowhere.

 

[vpance]

I agree with most of the critiques. Stunning animation, but nothing came close to the emotional depth of a Zima Blue or Good Hunting. Nothing near as cool as Sonnie's Edge or Aquila Rift either.

It did seem a little more consistent than Season 1 though, as there weren't any real stinkers IMO.

Yeah, I liked them all to some degree. Couldn't say the same with S1. This is fine when we know S3 will be coming sooner.

At the end of the day I just want to see some great CG that hopefully has some interesting stories too. Can't expect too much from shorts.

 

[Fbh]

It wasn't terrible but it was disappointing. If nothing else I think it was more consistent than S1, no chapter was as good as the best ones from S1 but no chapter was as bad as the worst ones from the previous season either. Tough that's a bit of a hollow victory considering the lower number of episodes.

IMO the main thing that S1 did MUCH better was that most episodes actually felt like a short story. In contrast, this season half the episodes were basically just a story concept where they had an interesting world or setting but nothing much to actually tell, and the other half were little more than just some cool animations to show off nice tech or a unique visual style.


Some really nice animations though. That Michael B Jordan CG looked almost real.

 

[Camaway2]

What a fucking let down Jesus

Amen to that. Loved the first season, was hyped for the second. First disappointment was just 8 episodes, how can you do an anthology with 8 episodes?

Sat down to watch them and was left extremely disappointed. Lame, boring storylines, with one of them even repeated twice ("uh, look a malfunctioning robot trying to kill you").

"Tall grass" felt like a poor take on Shyamalan's Sign, "Snow in the desert" and "Ice" felt like Mandalorian fanfiction while "Pop Squad" was a fanboy Blade Runner's phantasy.

The only actual good one was "All through the house", not enough to save this batch. Shame.

 

[Fbh]

Amen to that. Loved the first season, was hyped for the second. First disappointment was just 8 episodes, how can you do an anthology with 8 episodes?

Sat down to watch them and was left extremely disappointed. Lame, boring storylines, with one of them even repeated twice ("uh, look a malfunctioning robot trying to kill you").

"Tall grass" felt like a poor take on Shyamalan's Sign, "Snow in the desert" and "Ice" felt like Mandalorian fanfiction while "Pop Squad" was a fanboy Blade Runner's phantasy.

The only actual good one was "All through the house", not enough to save this batch. Shame.

Yeah All Through the House was easily the best one.
Ironically the shortest episode in the season, and yet the only one that actually felt like a short story.

Pop Squad was really disappointing, it exemplified how most episodes this season just felt like some "setting" pitch video.
They begin by showing you the only interesting element, and so the rest of the episode just feels like a bunch of nothing. IMO they should have kept the role of the detective hidden, make you think he is chasing regular criminals, then end the episode dropping the reveal that he is actually going after people who decide to have kids

 

[Nikodemos]

It wasn't terrible but it was disappointing. If nothing else I think it was more consistent than S1, no chapter was as good as the best ones from S1 but no chapter was as bad as the worst ones from the previous season either. Tough that's a bit of a hollow victory considering the lower number of episodes.

IMO the main thing that S1 did MUCH better was that most episodes actually felt like a short story. In contrast, this season half the episodes were basically just a story concept where they had an interesting world or setting but nothing much to actually tell, and the other half were little more than just some cool animations to show off nice tech or a unique visual style.

Personally, I'd rather have wildly fluctuating episode quality instead of bland consistency. I'd take a 9/10 next to a 4/10, instead of a 7/10 and a 6/10.
And yes, the stories have noticeably poorer narratives. Where are the twists? The one in Snow in the Desert barely qualifies as one.

They begin by showing you the only interesting element, and so the rest of the episode just feels like a bunch of nothing. IMO they should have kept the role of the detective hidden, make you think he is chasing regular criminals, then end the episode dropping the reveal that he is actually going after people who decide to have kids

Oh, yeah, that would've worked excellently, and would've had a proper S1-tier twist. Frankly, even the tired cliche of his lover getting pregnant with him, and now it's his kid on the line, would've been better than the nothingburger we got.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Would have enjoyed it more if there was female nudity. I guess the Feminists got to this one lol

 

[NahaNago]

Finally finished it. This season was really tame, with many of the episodes feeling more like teasers. I guess the episodes I liked most were pop squad and snow in the desert. I do wonder if LIfe Hutch was combining real life and cg for the episode. That was a pretty good episode as well. I give this season a rating of 6 out of 10. It was enjoyable but overall meh.

 

[Burger]

Unit Image and Blur once again doing master level animation work.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

The Tall Grass was my favourite, it felt like the opening of a survival horror game, mixed with some 10 cloverfield lane kind of mystery.
Unit image made Snow in the Desert look really impressive, they know their way around lighting; full performance capture with the cage camera setup makes a really impressive result, being able to capture much more micro-expressions than regular motion capture.
Blur did an awesome job with Life Hutch as well, the digital composite of mbj's face looked great, but honestly only when it was barely moving; when moving it broke the illusion for me.

For me:
Tall grass
All through the house
Pop Squad

I did have a massive LOL in the vacubot episode, when the customer service said: "It's vacubot's house now"; comedy gold.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Life Hutch: OK-ish. But why was the killer sentry robot so dumb and had such limited sensors? Hard to believe.

Because it's not a sentry, it's a malfunctioning maintenance bot.

 

[SF Kosmo]

thought S1 was rubbish. it's a cheap rip off of BM.

It's meant to be a rip off of Heavy Metal for what that's worth. When they lost the rights they decided to adapt classic sci Fi short stories instead of comics.

 

[mango drank]

Because it's not a sentry, it's a malfunctioning maintenance bot.

Yeah, I watched it again later and realized I missed that detail. Still, the animators designed the bot to look like a sleek hunter-killer feline, so there's some dissonance between what the story is saying it is and what they're presenting it as.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Yeah, I watched it again later and realized I missed that detail. Still, the animators designed the bot to look like a sleek hunter-killer feline, so there's some dissonance between what the story is saying it is and what they're presenting it as.

That's fair. I mean the segment doesn't work if it's not at least kind of scary but yeah.

 

[NahaNago]

I honestly didn't like Tall Grass that much. He was specifically told not to wander off and then he decides to do so. Smoke your cigarette and then get back on the train. I would have to say though that the giant episode was the worst episode.

 

[G-Bus]

Not as good as volume 1. Bit disappointed because I got so excited for more of these after the first volume.

 

[LaughingStock]

I'd love to see a feature film based on pop squad.

 

[NahaNago]

I'd love to see a feature film based on pop squad.

A full length movie about a guy who executes children is just too dark and depressing.

 

[jason10mm]

Pop squad makes no sense, the world building is fundamentally flawed. What is the end goal of the breeders? To enjoy kids until they are killed? Why are the children executed but the breeders sent off to jail(?). How is the world population stable if the immortals presumably die in accidents or suicide at at least a low rate? I felt it was empty.

Snow was great, it hinted at enough that you could fill on the gaps. Earth needed the regen because their science creates cyborgs, not full humans. There was CLEARLY a sex scene in there that got cut, shame on netflix!!!!

Ice was also flawed, not enough knowledge about modding to care why the kid didn't have it or why his bro faked the injury (or did he??).

The Santa one and the appliance one were contained enough to be fine. Life Hutch was a pointless technical exercise. Drowned Giant was melancholy bit ultimately a somewhat shallow commentary on modern existence IMHO.

Tall Grass was OK, needed a better set up and less being chased through the grass.

 

[bitbydeath]

I honestly didn't like Tall Grass that much. He was specifically told not to wander off and then he decides to do so. Smoke your cigarette and then get back on the train. I would have to say though that the giant episode was the worst episode.

The giant episode isn’t too bad when you consider the comparables of a whale washing up on shore. The guys only sad about it because he sees it as a human (a giant one) while everyone else just sees it as a dead animal and treats it as such.

 

[down 2 orth]

The Drowned Giant was a total stinker. Felt like it was written by a self-obsessed Silicon Valley programmer.

Most of the other episodes were pretty good though. The Christmas one was hilarious, and even Tall Grass had some old-school ghost story charm in my opinion.

 

[eyesabitdull]

Dude, is anyone else super disappointed how there was only 8 episodes compared to the 18 episodes in the first season?

Like, here I was ready to settle in for a couple of hours of the series and it just ends.

And it ends on THE MOST BORING story out of the entire series.

To make things a little worse, I would argue that two of the episodes are so similar in tone and mood that it made the shorter amount of episodes feel even more of a disappointment.

I'm thoroughly disappointed at the output, but I'm highly impressed with some of the absolutely bonkers level of quality in the animation in some of the episodes.

If the peak of next gen gaming had a reference to look at, some of these episodes definitely fit the bill.

 

[Dacon]

And again, those CGI are next level for Michel B. Jordan:

This is the one I disliked the most. Doesn't help that I'm TIRED of Michael B Jordan.

 

[Bombolone]

Finished up the season.
Was disappointed at the beginning when I only saw 8 episodes. wtf?

I am a sucker for Anthologies, so the more (even if shitty), the better. I just like seeing creative works on display. (Enter the Matrix, Batman Gotham Knight)
So still disappointed in the quantity.

Overall not as good as the first season. Most of the stories didn't really push anything for me like the first season. Cliches and tropes, but pretty tech. (Maybe they went meta, and the tech on display is a bigger part of the whole this time)

I enjoyed 'All Through The House' the most. It was charming and funny. The expressions on the kids faces had me laughing. "It's exactly what I wanted..."

Nolan North had my ears perk up in Pop Squad. Had to IMDB to find out it was indeed him. Wouldn't mind seeing more of that world.

I like the Drowned Giant. Made me think about ourselves in macro/micro scale. What we do to 'him', who looks human, but the scale of it removes something, like guilt.
That they can write, walk over, denigrate and butcher 'it'. (But we easily do this to ourselves as well)
It put our nature under a microscope.
Made me feel like humans are just hopeless savages. No matter what the extraordinary, familiarity will always have us pissing and shitting everywhere. (but that's also okay because there is no judge, just existence and time moving on)

Look forward to season 3. Hopefully more episodes with better ideas and writing to match the beautiful visuals.

 

[down 2 orth]

I like the Drowned Giant. Made me think about ourselves in macro/micro scale. What we do to 'him', who looks human, but the scale of it removes something, like guilt.
That they can write, walk over, denigrate and butcher 'it'. (But we easily do this to ourselves as well)
It put our nature under a microscope.
Made me feel like humans are just hopeless savages. No matter what the extraordinary, familiarity will always have us pissing and shitting everywhere. (but that's also okay because there is no judge, just existence and time moving on)

That's not human nature. Human nature (if we're examining the darkest aspect, in the most pessimistic way) is to take ownership over anything that is fantastic and unique. Even in a fairy tale, the Drowned Giant is so off the mark that it could only be written by someone who is essentially illiterate in understanding humanity. We can't piss and shit on fantastic things, because most of us are too clueless to know that they exist. And if we do stumble on something that amazing, there will always be authority figures keeping us from getting anywhere close to it. That's the pessimistic take--if done properly. But the world is how you make it, so if you want to see people in general as fucked up and stupid, that's on you.

 

[bitbydeath]

That's not human nature. Human nature (if we're examining the darkest aspect, in the most pessimistic way) is to take ownership over anything that is fantastic and unique. Even in a fairy tale, the Drowned Giant is so off the mark that it could only be written by someone who is essentially illiterate in understanding humanity. We can't piss and shit on fantastic things, because most of us are too clueless to know that they exist. And if we do stumble on something that amazing, there will always be authority figures keeping us from getting anywhere close to it. That's the pessimistic take--if done properly. But the world is how you make it, so if you want to see people in general as fucked up and stupid, that's on you.

I wouldn’t be so sure.

 

[down 2 orth]

I wouldn’t be so sure.

It's not much of a comparison though: a beached whale and a human giant the size of a skyscraper.