The Outer Worlds 2

[ropetight]

I loved Love Death Robots but I gotta be honest I have zero hopes in these being good. The good episodes on that show required a good script to go alongside the fantastic animation and considering this is AAA IPs we're talking about... well.

Love Death Robots is decline incarnate.
After they went through the short stories from the better authors like Alastair Reynolds in the first season, the struggle is real for that show.
You have 2-3 good episodes (usually from older authors, like JG Ballard and Harlan Ellison) with couple more solid ones.

And then there is a slop.
Including first episodes that are usually scripted by John Scalzi, known woke activist cuck, for whom the top of the SF satire is the joke about human stupidity garnished with contemporary politics.
Problem is, throngs of authors did it earlier and better than him, because Scalzi is not a nihilist by his nature (Old Man's War is completely different from his later ramblings), he is just mimicking it to look cool.

Animation is hit&miss, but I guess it is a positive.

I don't disagree about there being a bunch of stinkers but that's the positive of it being an antology series, if you don't like an ep just skip it. I like weird and well done animation so having a bunch of different studios do different shorts is something that basically caters to me. And sure season 1 was the strongest, but that's because nothing's gonna top Zima Blue. The crab episode alone made season 3 worth it IMO

Sure: Zima Blue is by Alastair Reynolds, Beyond the Quila Rift also, in completely different style of the animation - both very solid stories.
There is a lot of others that I liked (Drowned Giant by Ballard is also special in its tone, The Secret War is action packed horror, but also great, ...), some meh, and some stinkers.
Unfortunately, ratios changed drastically from season 1 (that was mostly good) to season 3 (there are 2 or 3 good stories).

Interesting animation sometimes can salvage bad or mediocre story (trippy Jibaro), but only sometimes.

Scalzi ones (Three Robots, Automated Customer Service, Three Robots: Exit Strategies) are all on the level "my 10-year old is incredibly bright, is worried about the world and writes short SF stories".
And yet, they are season openers (or second episode) and set the tone for the season.
Alternate Histories, When the Yogurt Took Over are not much better either, but they don't overstay their short welcome
Maybe Scalzi is a buddy with creator/producer Tim Miller, or Fincher, or they click on ideology, it is hard to say.

Things become much weirder when you realize how great the pool of the great SF short stories is, rights for the most of them are probably pennies, and this hack gets 5 stories in the anthology.

There is season 4, so we will see; I'm not expecting glorious turnaround, but it would be great to at least stagnate the decline.

 

[KVVRR]

I loved Love Death Robots but I gotta be honest I have zero hopes in these being good. The good episodes on that show required a good script to go alongside the fantastic animation and considering this is AAA IPs we're talking about... well.

Love Death Robots is decline incarnate.
After they went through the short stories from the better authors like Alastair Reynolds in the first season, the struggle is real for that show.
You have 2-3 good episodes (usually from older authors, like JG Ballard and Harlan Ellison) with couple more solid ones.

And then there is a slop.
Including first episodes that are usually scripted by John Scalzi, known woke activist cuck, for whom the top of the SF satire is the joke about human stupidity garnished with contemporary politics.
Problem is, throngs of authors did it earlier and better than him, because Scalzi is not a nihilist by his nature (Old Man's War is completely different from his later ramblings), he is just mimicking it to look cool.

Animation is hit&miss, but I guess it is a positive.

I don't disagree about there being a bunch of stinkers but that's the positive of it being an antology series, if you don't like an ep just skip it. I like weird and well done animation so having a bunch of different studios do different shorts is something that basically caters to me. And sure season 1 was the strongest, but that's because nothing's gonna top Zima Blue. The crab episode alone made season 3 worth it IMO

Sure: Zima Blue is by Alastair Reynolds, Beyond the Quila Rift also, in completely different style of the animation - both very solid stories.
There is a lot of others that I liked (Drowned Giant by Ballard is also special in its tone, The Secret War is action packed horror, but also great, ...), some meh, and some stinkers.
Unfortunately, ratios changed drastically from season 1 (that was mostly good) to season 3 (there are 2 or 3 good stories).

Interesting animation sometimes can salvage bad or mediocre story (trippy Jibaro), but only sometimes.

Scalzi ones (Three Robots, Automated Customer Service, Three Robots: Exit Strategies) are all on the level "my 10-year old is incredibly bright, is worred about the world and writes short SF stories".
And yet, they are season openers (or second episode) and set the tone for the season.
Alternate Histories, When the Yogurt Took Over are not much better either, but they don't overstay their short welcome
Maybe Scalzi is a buddy with creator/producer Tim Miller, or Fincher, or they click on ideology, it is hard to say.

Things become much weirder when you realize how great the pool of the great SF short stories is, rights for the most of them are probably pennies, and this hack gets 5 stories in the anthology.

There is season 4, so we will see; I'm not expecting glorious turnaround, but it would be great to at least stagnate the decline.

Yeah they should've left the three robots as a one-off instead of trying to make them the mascots of the show, it really doesn't need them anyways. I would also like more well done sci-fi stories ala Beyond the Aquila Rift rather than these jokey ones but considering these are shorts rather than movies I understand why they're a minority, not a lot of time to write and build both the stories and rules. Would love to see an adaptation of something like Blindsight, but then again, just how do you even translate that into 20 minutes?

We might just have different tolerances for the slop. Just one good short is enough to make the season worth it (while also dissapointing) for me, and at least season 3 did have two of them (Jibaro and Bad Travelling) while also having other ones that while just really silly they're charming in their own way even if just because of the animation alone like Kill Team Kill and Night of the Mini Dead. I'll concede that if Season 4 doesn't have anything on par with Jibaro or Bad Travelling then it might be best to just not renew the show for another season though.

 

[Jaesun]

Do we know yet who the project director/lead is for this?

Also, who owns The Outer Worlds IP?

 

[Roguey]

Do we know yet who the project director/lead is for this?

Also, who owns The Outer Worlds IP?

Brandon Adler. Microsoft now.