The beauty of an anthology series is that while some episodes may not hit for one person, other episodes of the same series may quickly become favorites. However, amongst all these differing opinions, sometimes one story will be universally loved, as was the case for "Three Robots," a fan-favorite episode from Love, Death + Robots Season 1. The episode is about the titular three bots trying to better understand people decades after humanity wiped itself out. These three were so beloved that Season 3 of Love, Death + Robots brought them back for "Three Robots: Exit Strategy."
Directed by Patrick Osborne, "Three Robots: Exit Strategy" follows a similar formula to the Season 1 episode, with the robots learning even more about how humanity failed itself. This is Osborne's first time working on Love, Death + Robots, and prior to that, he has worked as an animator on films like Big Hero 6 and was the director for the Oscar-winning short "Feast." During a special screening of the Netflix series, CBR had a chance to talk with Osborne about his short.
CBR: What about Love, Death + Robots appealed to you about telling stories in this specific series?
Patrick Osborne: I was a huge fan of the first season. Not a lot of opportunities for animators exist in making no-holds-barred adult content, and everything that I have ever done before was for children. So I was thrilled to kind of have no limits as far as storytelling goes, and the script for "Three Robots" that John Scalzi wrote was already awesome, so I thought it was going to be fun -- and it was.
Talking about animation, what about animation lends itself to the stories told in Love, Death + Robots, do you think?
Mine, in particular, are three literal robots, so they couldn't be live actors. Even when the stories have humans in them, I love the extreme directionality that animation has. Everything, every single thing on screen, was a choice, which means that it's kind of up to the limits of your imagination, which was an incredible opportunity to be able to do it at such a big spectacular level.
Speaking about your episode, specifically with your "Three Robots," what themes were you excited to explore with this episode?
I liked that it's apolitical. It kind of says that all humans are idiots, and we're all gonna just kill ourselves and kill each other. I like that. You know, my Trump voter parents will think it's for them, and tech-bro, liberal elite will think it's for them, too. It's kind of a fun "everyone's a target" kind of story. It was a little stressful, considering it was one of the favorites in the first season. I think it's an upgrade that people will like.
Wrapping this up, what's it like to tell the sequel to one of the episodes from the first season since this is usually an anthology format of one-offs. What's it like to jump into a continuation?
It's a little bit stressful, considering I didn't have anything to do with the first one, and it was great and loved, so I hope the audience loves it as much. I like the idea, even in the anthology series, of surprising the audience with a follow-up to something previous. I don't think there are any rules against that in the anthology world, so I thought that was really cool.
Catch "Three Robots: Exit Strategy," streaming now on Netflix as part of Love, Death + Robots Volume 3.