The Russo Brothers, those money-making MCU maestros and their mega-budgeted sci-fi adventure, “The Electric State,” are receiving much unkind criticism from fans and pundits, some of it possibly deserved and some unfairly served up in a complicated miasma of vitriolic opinion. Ah, such is the state of modern Hollywood these days as it seems there’s always misdirected anger afoot aimed at most popular entertainment.
Whatever your opinion is of Netflix’s loose $320 million adaptation of visionary Swedish artist and author Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 illustrated novel of a war-torn America in an alternative 1990s where robots and automatons of all stripes have revolted in a battle for Earthly freedom, its striking visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic do make for a uniquely fascinating watch.
Sure, there are obvious nods back to Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” from 2001 and 2018’s “Ready Player One,” but we’re here to focus our lens on a different film comparison and one that feels more relatable. How about reflecting on the unloved project’s subtle connections to L. Frank Baum’s 1897 children’s classic book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and primary director Victor Fleming’s timeless 1939 technicolor feature starring Judy Garland, “The Wizard of Oz?”
Warning: Potential spoilers ahead!
At the time, “The Wizard of Oz” was the most expensive movie ever made by Hollywood’s hallmark studio MGM at the cost of $2.8 million, much like the astonishing third of a billion-dollar price tag for Netflix’s disappointing sci-fi saga that we’re being reminded of by nearly every headline across the internet. While “Oz” was eclipsed that year by the $3.8 million budget of “Gone With The Wind,” it was still a stunning sum for a risky family film set in a dark fantasy landscape, similar to “The Electric State” and its somber source material courtesy of Stålenhag.
With the twirling tornado vaulting poor Dorothy (and Toto too!) away from the comforting domesticity of her family’s dull Kansas farm into the colorful Land of Oz and all its strange and nightmarish oddities, so too does the chaotic aftermath of the robo-revolution in “The Electric State” push Millie Bobby Brown’s character Michelle out of her toxic foster nest to search for her lost genius brother.
Each instance acts as a traditional “Hero’s Journey” in the best Joseph Campbell sense of the word as the obstinate orphan adds to her misfit menagerie, both human and artificial, like Dorothy’s fantastical odyssey to find her way back home.
Dorothy’s entourage accompanying her through Oz includes the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow, much like Michelle’s trek gathers the Kid Cosmo robot, Keats, and the quirky size-swapping ‘bot called Herman. Michelle’s dysfunctional familial unit is in direct opposition to Dorothy Gale’s old-fashioned loving family, allowing for a darker mirror universe approach as presented by the two distinguished superhero filmmakers operating in familiar waters.
For toy collectors, another comparison brings to mind the disturbing collection of “Twisted Land of Oz” figures produced by Image Comics co-founder and comic book legend Todd McFarlane, with its outlandish iterations of “Oz” characters that were in many ways more aligned with John R. Neill’s and W.W. Denslow’s original illustrations in Baum’s 14 “Oz” releases. These monstrous amusements bear an uncanny kinship with “The Electric State’s” mutant machines discovered along the way.
Both “The Electric State” and “The Wizard of Oz” latch onto the themes of family, home, tolerance, identity and the interconnectedness of the individuals we share our lives with as we drift from cradle to grave.
Chris Pratt’s ex-soldier/smuggler, Keats, looking very much like a shaggy Cowardly Lion with his blonde mop of hair and bushy mustache, regains his honor by reluctantly joining the mission to accompany Michelle and Cosmo with his sidekick utility ‘bot. Michelle has her personal “Tin Man,” a cartoon ‘bot controlled remotely by her lost brother held somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. It also doubles as a type of Toto, an innocent leading the way into the ravaged landscape.
“The Electric State” trades in “The Wizard of Oz’s” sanitized Yellow Brick Road to the vaunted Emerald City for a dirty, dystopian road trip across America towards a segregated Exclusion Zone for displaced machines like a “clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk.” Instead of Oz’s angry apple trees tossing fruit, we’ve got rioting robots hurling barbecues and kitchen appliances at our heroes.
Stanley Tucci’s egotistical Ethan Skate character acts as a nefarious replacement for “Oz’s” deceptive-but-benign Wizard, playing God and keeping his Neurocast subjects stuck in perpetual zombie states while plugged into Sentre’s virtual network established around the globe. Even the climactic battle’s helicopter-like drone warriors recalls nefarious winged monkeys deployed from the Wicked Witch’s austere stone castle.
And finally, it’s perhaps not a coincidence that this pair of movies share a climactic third act in the Emerald City, as Michelle is finally reunited with her kidnapped, wired-up brother Christopher at Sentre’s headquarters in Seattle, a metropolis that just happens to be known by that same moniker, the Emerald City, due to its abundant rain-drenched greenery.
Michelle’s and Dorothy’s journey of self-discovery do share a remarkable verisimilitude if studied at a relative distance. While it’s not a perfectly direct reflection of “The Wizard of Oz,” there are enough shadows and echoes of that pioneering marvel released into theaters in 1939 to provide a stimulating, conversation-starting debate by which “The Electric State” can be interpreted in a far more constructive light. And that’s a restorative tonic everyone can confidently pull back the curtain on.
The Russo Brothers’ “The Electric State” streams exclusively on Netflix.
