Andrew Liptak at The Verge has a handy post up that lists the online sources for most of the short stories serving as material for Love Death+Robots.
In related news, I’ll never get tired of seeing Samira Wiley as Lt. Colby, the pilot of Lucky 13 in the Netflix version. Yes, the original character in the short story is Halley, but they had to make a few minor changes for reasons. Just trust me on that one.
Regarding Shape-shifters, I want to let the veterans know that I am well aware of the fact that it has Marines address other Marines as “soldiers” (which they’d never do in real life; a Marine is a Marine and not a soldier.) But I guess they kept that bit because of the “dog soldiers” pejorative. In the original short story, Decker and Sobieski are Army, members of the 300th Special Operations Company (Lycanthrope), and the script writer for the show changed them over to the Corps without also changing the Army-specific terms in the story.
The two other goofs I noticed were Decker and Sobieski addressing the Master Sergeant as “sergeant”, and the Marines wearing their sleeves rolled while in the field. Both are details only few people outside of the Corps would notice, but every Marine would.) Rest assured that I know the differences. Regardless, it’s a kick-ass adaptation of the short story, and it’s really growing on me more and more the more I watch it. It’s even motivating me to pick up Decker’s universe again and go ahead with the series I had in mind for him. (The story was supposed to be part of his backstory.)
I’m super pleased with the way everything turned out, and the fan response has been phenomenal. Interestingly, “Shape-shifters” has tended to be either among peoples’ very favorite episodes, or all the way at the bottom of their lists. “Lucky 13” is either well-reviewed, or somewhere in the middle of the list, so Shape-shifters is the more polarizing one. (One of the viewers who hated it said it looked like bad Twilight fan fiction, which did amuse me.)
More than anything the entire series reminded me of an animated version of the magazine Heavy Metal.
I’m a fan and thus biased, but this story was at the top of LD&R’s (somewhat mixed-bag) anthology. I went back and re-read the Lucky 13 short story after watching LD&R. The two stand well as separate stories AND one being adapted from the other. Usually I have to shift to one or the other perspective to appreciate an adapted work, so that was a neat trick.
Whatever the production reasons for deviating from the original, Samira Wiley sold her character extremely well. She fully owns Lt. Colby. And I think the dropship actually stood out as a character more strongly in this version, in a way unique to the visual storytelling medium, without beating us over the head with it. The character and emotional beats fit right into what I’ve seen about “relationships” between soldiers and machines in the real world.
From your comments here and your writing generally, you clearly work hard to create an authentically built world in your stories, and that stood out here (speaking as a non-veteran). I believed these characters, the equipment they flew, and the situations they encountered. Does that track with your own sense of the final product? And how involved were you in the actual production, e.g. visual design, dialogue choices, control over story changes, etc.?
“Lucky 13” was not only my favorite episode of the anthology, it’s the only one I would consider flawless. By the middle of the episode, I cared more for a plane than I did about any of the human / robot characters in all the rest of LD&R. By the end we had mist in our eyes. My husband and I loved it so much we rewatched it immediately after our first viewing, after which I bought and read your short story.
I’d never read your work before, and I was really surprised to discover that the author of “Lucky 13” was one of the two hero writers from Puppygate. I remember reading about it at the time and being really impressed by your courage and strength of character. I’m happy that I was able to “independently” discover your writing through the show.
I’m glad you did, and thank you for the kind words! That’s some high praise.
Hi Marko!
“Lucky 13” is the first (and so far only) episode I have watched and I thought it was excellent, and I’ll definitely be purchasing “Frontlines” to read, as this is what everyone keeps commenting it was based off of. I had a question. I noticed the “VMM-764” patch worn by the characters and wondered if this was something you wrote into the story or if one of the animators took some liberty to add. I work closely with many Marines at MCAS Miramar including those at the actual squadron, and was curious about the connection. I would love to hear about it. Thanks!
The patches and uniforms were entirely done by the animation team at Sony Pictures Imageworks. They managed to put in quite a few Easter eggs, too. (For example, the code flashing across the screen when Colby activates the self-destruct ends in the letters “GTFO”.)
“Reasons” ? Well..trust no one – I am pretty sure lots of us would like to know the backstory to writing Halley OUT of that story. Shapeshifters was a good story – more of that ‘universe’ would be interesting.
Can’t wait for Frontlines to be picked up as a Netflix series.
So you are thinking about starting a new book series about Decker? Where’s the Pre-Orden button?
I discovered the short story after watching shapeshifters and was so hoping there’d be more so I’m stoked to know theres more planned
‘Lucky 13’ was great, but I’m a Frontlines fan so that’s to be expected. Long-format of that series would be a dream 🙂
‘Shape-Shifters’ has really stuck with me. I think the rapid character-building then the brutal and graphic animation reinforces the tragedy to make it a very memorable short movie.
So how does one differentiate bad ‘Twilight’ fan fiction from… well… ‘Twilight’ itself?
Technology for detecting lankies
Lankies are invisible to radar and lidar but might I suggest sonar, which has some land based perimeter security applications in the modern day, or perhaps seismic sensors tuned to only pick up the specific seismic patterns given off by lanky footfalls.
So you are thinking about starting a new book series about Decker? Where’s the Pre-Orden button?
Technology for detecting lankies
lankies are invisible to radar and lidar but might I suggest sonar, which has some land based perimeter security applications in the modern day, or perhaps seismic sensors tuned to only pick up the specific seismic patterns given off by lanky footfalls.
My wife was unable to finish the wolf one, the violence was a little too on the nose. Lucky13 was among my fav of all of them, but it was such a great set of shorts that it was difficult to even rank them.
if the “changes for reasons” turns out to be more content, then I’m pretty happy about that!