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Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink Sony’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which is a heartwarming tale of a family learning to love one another and thwarting a robot uprising. Or is it?! We peel back the layers to find (and thankfully avert) a dark, Freudian psychosexual parable, a slightly confused message about the miracles and the dangers of technology, and a challenging and fascinating visual style.
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Further Reading
- Dieter Rams (Wikipedia)
- “What is ‘Good’ Design? A quick look at Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles.” (The Design Museum)
I wonder if this “we’re not really sure we care what genre this is or whether the story follows a satisfying arc” is a trend, because I feel like I’ve been seeing more shows and movies that–if they were released ten years ago–would be considered poorly edited. And if so, is it a deliberate outgrowth of the last decades of multi-genre programming, a post-modern approach to production where writers long for a creative #noFilter, or something else.
For me, it seems to have started with the third season of Twin Peaks, where it was clearly deliberate. But not every writer gets to be David Lynch, so it doesn’t always hold together.