Nate At The Movies

I really enjoyed reading The Electric State a couple weeks ago—its slow and observation-minded story was haunting and poignant—but I had a feeling that the Russos weren’t going to be able to honor Stålenhag’s work…and I hate to be right. Simply put, The Electric State movie was horribly misguided and really only borrowed a few robot designs, leaving behind the vast majority of the book’s social and technological commentary and replacing it with a boring—yet well-rendered—action adventure far too reminiscent of the Russo Brothers’ other works.

On the positive side, I thought the CGI looked great; the robots felt like a natural part of this world and interacted with each other and the humans very organically. That is, unfortunately, where the positives end. The biggest misses made by this film were in the story department. Could this story have been solid on its own if it had some better acting and dialogue? Yes. It was incredibly difficult to enjoy this, though, because of how fundamentally different its main story was from the book, and I don’t just mean all the new characters (many of whom I didn’t love).

Sentre’s background and motives were changed, the Neurocasters played a much different (and honestly sidelined) role—not to mention their effects from the book were nowhere to be found—and Michelle’s relationship to Skip (or, should I say, Cosmo) was altered in the name of a rescue mission narrative. I kept waiting for the film to include elements of the book in a sensible way, but it hardly ever materialized. There were a couple shots from the book that the film nailed—which should’ve been easy with Stålenhag’s amazing illustrations—though beyond that, The Electric State film seemed hell-bent on distancing itself from the ideas of the book. I understand that maybe the story of the book (or, admittedly, lack of a story) wouldn’t have made for a very good movie, but if you’re going to change the source material this much to fit your film-friendly narrative, just create something new!

While The Electric State (the book) is a tranquil, horrifying reflection on a society dominated by technology and the humans who can’t stay in control of it, The Electric State (the film) was a forgettable—though never outright awful—sci-fi adventure with weak acting, attempts at jokes that never hit (except maybe for “I’m not dying to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch!”), and a total misunderstanding of its source material. I think if you gave The Electric State to Gints Zilbalodis in ten years, the fans of the book will get the feature film treatment that they deserved.