Love, Death, and Robots: Pop Squad

    "Pop Squad" was my favorite episode that we watched from Love, Death, and Robots because the premise of the  episode is incredibly fascinating to me. This short was created by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and is based off the short story by Paolo Bacigalupi. The separation of classes is illustrated by the wealthy literally living above the clouds on top of the lower class, where they are left to live in the nearly uninhabitable part of the world underneath the wealthy city. The different perspectives of life also highlight how different the two classes are. The wealthy are willing to give up having kids and hunt down any "breeders" of unregistered children in order for themselves to live forever. I believe the wealthy realize that by living forever and not allowing more people joining the society, they have frozen society and will stay rich forever. 

    The episode opens with Briggs eliminating two unregistered children, but he is followed by the memory of a stuffed dinosaur that belonged to one of the children. This guilt follows him as he begins to truly examine the world he is living in and questions if it is as perfect as they think it is. They are injected with "rejoo" which "rejuvenates" life back into the wealthy, making them young forever. Briggs visits a collectibles store where he follows a woman with a stain on her shoulder, indicating that she has a child. We see the lower class' perspective when Briggs visits her house to hear more from her perspective. The woman explains how living forever doesn't feel like living because everyone becomes desensitized to life and new experiences. She tells Briggs that her daughter breathes life into her because she knows that her time is limited with her, and she gets to witness her daughter experiencing new things. She tells Briggs, "I love seeing things through her little eyes. They're so bright. They're so full of life. Not dead. Like yours." This makes Briggs realize that he has been dead for years, living the same mundane life with no new experiences or changes. The last scene of this episode is so powerful. Briggs exits the house, sparing the mother and her child, and sees his partner on the police force. He shoots at her to protect the mother and her child, and his partner shoots him because she notices that he's had a change in heart. Before Briggs dies, he walks in the rain, symbolizing that he is being cleansed of his prejudices and the brutality that he has shown to innocent children. He looks up to the sky and see a bright light, clearly symbolizing that he's dying, but this also represents enlightenment. He finally feels something new and realizes that he is finally living, moments before death. He gave up an eternal life just so he could feel something again. I also noted a parallel to the "Zima Blue" episode we watched. Both Zima and Briggs ultimately decided to go back to their roots and abandoned their god-like statuses in order to feel something again. 

    Touching on the depiction of the future in the episode, I thought the concept of extending cities above the clouds was very interesting. It raises the question; what are humans going to do once we inhabit every space we can find on Earth? Extending cities up seems like the only answer and it was really cool seeing how they envisioned these extended cities into the skies. Since everything is extended into the sky, they have flying cars which look so awesome in the animation. The thought of flying cars is so interesting to me because it is used so much in movies and tv shows. It makes me wonder if and when we will be able to develop something as advanced as flying cars. I also thought the animation style in this short was amazing. Nelson used facial motion capture to ensure that the audience can clearly see Briggs' internal conflict and understand the way he feels. The animation style depicts the futuristic city of the wealthy beautifully. Everything looks so shiny and glamorous, and it heavily contrasts the dark, dreary, overgrown city that the poor have to live in. Ultimately the animation gives the audience a better sense of this futuristic society and the emotions all of the characters are feeling throughout the short.