The Russo brothers’ adaptation of the robot adventure graphic novel The Electric State adds a prologue to the story
Anthony and Joe Russo, the Russo Brothers, have directed some of the biggest movies of all time, with their film Avengers: Endgame coming in second place just behind James Cameron’s Avatar – and on March 14th, the Netflix streaming service will be releasing their latest film, the robot adventure The Electric State. This one is an adaptation of a narrative artbook / graphic novel from acclaimed artist and author Simon Stålenhag, and features a prologue that takes place before the events of Stålenhag’s book.
The story of this film begins in July of 2017, when Free League launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Stålenhag’s book called The Electric State, which had the following description: In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her yellow toy robot travel west through a strange USA, where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside heaped together with the discarded trash of a high tech consumerist society in decline. As their car approaches the edge of the continent, the world outside the window seems to be unraveling ever faster as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.
The Russos teamed with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who worked with the brothers on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and The Gray Man, to turn Stålenhag’s story into a film that has the following synopsis: The Electric State is a spectacular adventure from the directors of Avengers: Endgame set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s. Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) stars as Michelle, an orphaned teenager navigating life in a society where sentient robots resembling cartoons and mascots, who once served peacefully among humans, now live in exile following a failed uprising. Everything Michelle thinks she knows about the world is upended one night when she’s visited by Cosmo, a sweet, mysterious robot who appears to be controlled by Christopher — Michelle’s genius younger brother whom she thought was dead. Determined to find the beloved sibling she thought she had lost, Michelle sets out across the American southwest with Cosmo, and soon finds herself reluctantly joining forces with Keats (Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy), a low-rent smuggler, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie, Captain America: Brave New World). As they venture into the Exclusion Zone, a walled-off corner in the desert where robots now exist on their own, Keats and Michelle find a strange, colorful group of new animatronic allies — and begin to learn that the forces behind Christopher’s disappearance are more sinister than they ever expected.
Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, and Anthony Mackie are joined in the cast by Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies), Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Woody Harrelson (Zombieland), Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), Brian Cox (X-Men 2), Martin Klebba (the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon), Jenny Slate (It Ends with Us), and Jason Alexander (Seinfeld).
The Russos produced the movie with Mike Larocca, Angela Russo-Otstot, Chris Castaldi, and Patrick Newall. Markus, McFeely, and Stålenhag executive produce alongside Tim Connors, Nick van Dyk, Jake Aust, Geoffrey Haley, Jeffrey Ford, Julia Angelin, Russell Ackerman, John Schoenfelder, Anthony Muschietti, and Barbara Muschietti. Anthony J. Vorhies, Joseph Micucci, and Murtaza Kathawala are co-producers.
Speaking with SFX magazine, Anthony Russo asked, “How do you make a big, giant fantasy film that honors the level of detail and inventiveness and vastness that Simon suggests in his art, and in his sort of vague narrative?” The answer was to come up with a prologue that shows how the United States became a dystopia due to war and technology. Stephen McFeely explained, “There’s a before and an after for both narrative purposes and world-building purposes. So what was the before and the after? For us and for Simon, to some degree, it’s a different kind of war. It’s called the AI War. And our AI is represented by various robots that are implied and sometimes taken straight out of his work.“
As SFX magazine describes it, “instead of the movie starting with protagonist Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) setting off on an adventure, we meet Michelle and her younger brother Chris (Woody Norman) before the war. Then post war, Michelle is a troubled orphan living in foster care in an America where all tech is controlled by an Elon Musk-meets-Bill Gates style tech leader Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) who has sent robots to the edge of the country behind a wall.” And then, the adventure begins.
What do you think of The Electric State adding a prologue to the original story? Are you looking forward to this robot adventure movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
