Next Gen 2018

Next Gen is a 2018 “Netflix” film with funding from Alibaba’s Movie division and produced by Baozou Manhua, an animation studio I haven’t heard of. When I say the film is from “Netflix”, what I’m actually saying is that Netflix paid 30 million for the world wide streaming rights, an insane amount. It’s apparently based on Wang Nima’s original webcoimic “7723”, with “7723” being the name of the main robot. I have not read “7723” but it has it’s own stories with recent issues with the Chinese government claiming it’s too vulgar and the site being taken down for a bit.

I’ll admit that movie’s semi-“Cassette Futurism” aesthetic is what got me curious. I love the retro design of 7723 & Mai the main protagonist. However, Netflix throwing down 30 Million for a movie from an “unknown” animation studio, based on a webcomic which seems to be in trouble with China’s government added to my interest in the film. The real questions, is it any good?

Next Gen isn’t a flawless movie and the plot is fairly simple, almost laid out from the beginning. The world has become obsessed with robots with everyone having Q-Bots, personal assistants. Pin, the guy that sells these robots is actually evil and has an evil plan that’s over the top. Mai & 7723 need to save the day and defeat evil guy. Straight forward. The story isn’t going to leave you questioning life or viewing the world in a new perspective. That being said it’s a really enjoyable movie with some nice emotional moments and actions scenes. Mai’s back-story and rebellious nature will probably resonate with those from broken homes, loss parents, not fitting in, etc… As well, the way they explained her hatred for robots and the reason her dad left was done nicely. I also like the way they ended her emotional journey, finally admitting her dad was kind of a piece of shit for leaving, and how she was ok with it. She’s still a little mad but ready to move on. It was just… nicely done.

Along with decent character building, the world is well developed and it seems the writers took a moment to think how this world would work if robots did everything, to a point that it’s ridiculous. Hell the ramen bowls are robots that compliment you when you eat them, weird but I loved it. In addition the the city which the story takes place in seems to be a future New York/Beijing. It looks like the team pulled inspiration from Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, & WALL-E. You get a cutesy world with fun little robots on the surface, yet in the background a Blade Runner-esc skyline with a dingy lower level with hints of cyberpunk (not overwhelming). I wanted to explore the city more and seeing as Netflix dropped 30 million for distribution of the film I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to push for a series. Not sure where they would go with the story.

I also want to take a moment to talk about the directors, Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander, who in my opinion did a great job. Multiple scenes had good shot composition and clever transitions, and the camera work in general was lively and kept the movie interesting. Despite the fact so many big budget animated movies are CGI, most of them seem boring and flat. I would also say the movie had good lighting which gave a few of the scenes a great atmosphere. Overall Next Gen was a tight, and a well put together film. I’m not sure if I’m over selling their work. Maybe because I was expecting this to be a generic Disney/Dreamworks/Illumination “safe” PG movie so I had lower exceptions, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. Speaking of PG…

One of the most surprising bits of this movie was the TV-PG rating in the US, which shows the freedoms you get when distrusting with Netflix. I’m no saint but this movie caught me off guard with it’s swearing, or its lack of swearing, honestly the way it was handled was something I haven’t seen in a PG movie before. You have characters like the Dog & Mom screaming shit, fuck, motherfucker, etc.. except that it's all bleeped out, with hard bleeps. Not your usual convenient truck passing-by drowning out the language. Hard bleeps, like “the [bleep] you say to me?”. Not that I disagree with reasoning behind the swearing. At the end of the movie when the villian is attacking Mai, the mom attacks the him screaming “get the fuck away from my daughter”, which is honestly the most mom/parent thing to do in a situation like that. I would be interested in watching the film uncensored.

Net Gen has some great moments, likable characters, interesting world, good enough story, a good English voice cast, and was a well put together film that feels like it came out of nowhere. I hope to see more of Wang Nima work and Baozou Manhua, if they can produce similar quality films. If you have Netflix and like animation, watch it. If you don't have Netflix I would still recommend you watch, get a one month subscription and binge a bunch of stuff including this movie.

When we first enter Next Gen's world, it has the gleam of the digital city in Ralph Breaks the Internet combined with the cute-styled robots and griminess of WALL·E. At first glance, it seems promising.

The inconsistencies set in quickly, though. While I can forgive the simplistic writing—it's a kids' film after all, despite the (bleeped) coarse language, though targeted at older kids—I can't ignore the technical plot holes. Chief among them: Why 7723 only has the ability to fly until after falling off the highway and breaking its memory? Obviously, if that didn't happen, it would remove the plot's linchpin. (There's no humanizing sacrifice in 7723 deciding to delete all its memories to defeat Ares if the memory core never gets damaged.) But that big hole got me to pay closer attention, and there are many more, smaller, holes scattered through the script. It's distracting.

What this film does do well: Illustrate why Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics were a good idea. The robots in Next Gen are entirely too happy to harm a human on command. (This is understandable in-universe, of course, given who Justin really is.) But that's just an idle observation from one guy (me) who loved the Asimov references thrown into Portal 2 entirely too much.

Perhaps the biggest issue with this movie is that it's not a Pixar film. I know I wasn't too thrilled with Incredibles 2 (the last Pixar film I watched and reviewed), but there's no doubt in my mind that this script would have gained a lot more depth if Pixar had produced it. While I don't always like Pixar's animation style, the way they always build layers of meaning and sophistication into their scripts is hard to ignore. Movies made for kids don't have to be simplistic all the way down, but this one—frustratingly—kind of is.