{"id":37713,"date":"2022-06-05T15:45:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-05T15:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/love-death-and-robots-most-beautiful-episode-was-a-love-letter-to-moebius\/"},"modified":"2022-06-05T15:45:12","modified_gmt":"2022-06-05T15:45:12","slug":"love-death-and-robots-most-beautiful-episode-was-a-love-letter-to-moebius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/love-death-and-robots-most-beautiful-episode-was-a-love-letter-to-moebius\/","title":{"rendered":"Love, Death and Robots’ most beautiful episode was’ a love letter to Moebius’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Volume 3 of Love, Death and Robots<\/em> covers a lot of ground: haunting alien landscapes, frighteningly realistic sea monsters, cute zombie apocalypses. But, even still, one episode in particular manages to stand out: “The Very Pulse of the Machine.” It’s a beautiful, lonely animated short about an astronaut named Martha (Mackenzie Davis) trapped on Io, a desolate moon of Jupiter, while possibly communing with the Moon as well – or maybe she’s just hallucinating. It’s based on a short story of the same name by Michael Swanwick and features an art style clearly inspired by the late French artist Jean \u201cMoebius\u201d Giraud.<\/p>\n

Following the new season’s premiere, I had the chance to talk to Emily Dean, who directed the episode, about how the visuals came about, the challenges of adapting the short story, and why she found herself wandering a beach while wearing motorcycle gear. Also, <\/strong><\/em>spoiler warning:<\/em> we discuss the episode’s ending and what it ultimately means.<\/p>\n

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n

What was your first contact with this short story? Did you know about it beforehand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was invited in by Blur Studio to read a bunch of short stories that they were considering for volume two. I read a lot of them, and I landed on “The Very Pulse of the Machine.” And I just fell in love with the story from the get-go. <\/p>\n

What was it about it that stood out? Was there something that you thought would make it work particularly well for an adaptation like this? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I was really drawn in by the psychological element to the story and the notion of this female astronaut stranded on this moon trying to survive. And I really loved the female point of view, but I also loved this conversation that this character was having with this unknown entity throughout the story. And I thought that was very existential – not just because of the physical nature of trying to survive on a desolate moon but, you know, in being in conversation with something greater than one’s self. I found that very interesting. <\/p>\n

\n