The biggest differences between the Netflix movie and the book

Spoil so that “the electric state” follows.

There are excellent film adaptations, such as the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy by Peter Jackson, and there are bad film adaptations, such as “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory” by Tim Burton. Then there are 50 feet of garbage (as Brad Pitt puts it in “Moneyball”), And then there is “the electric state.” Russo Brothers Russo Brothers Netflix’s show is a complete disaster from beginning to end, full of unnecessary cameos, shameful writing of scripts and establishes pieces that raise the question: What happened to all that money?

In normal circumstances, a film like this would simply happen as a simple failure failure, and that would be all. But it is even more annoying because the book on which it is based, “The Electric State” by Simon Stålenhag, is incredible. It is also quite a niche even though Stålenhag’s work has become a little more conventional in recent years. That means that for many, the Netflix film will become he De facto version of this story, and I just can’t let that stand. It would be as if people just knew M. Night Shyamalan “The Last Airbender” or “Dragonball evolution.”

If you are not familiar with Stålenhag, she is a Swedish digital artist whose books contain a mixture of full color art and narrative text impressions that cover the page and the accompanying narrative text. His stories generally focus on science fiction worlds based on alternative or futures stories, which creates piece by piece with his disturbing digital paintings. The isolation, the company in Declive and the collision of advanced technology with rural landscapes are common call cards in the work of Stålenhag, which began with “such from the loop” of 2015. With “The Electric State”, however, the Russos and their team were completely lost the point of the book. We are going to immerse ourselves in all differences and why you should really read the original Stålenhag work.

If I saw “The Electric State” and then read only five pages of the book, I would immediately understand how very different the two are both in tone and focus. The book is a gloomy portrait of America in collapse, which falls apart from the effects of a mechanized civil war and the cultural influence without control of the MEGACORP Sentre virtual reality. The closest conventional comparison in which it occurs is “The Last of Us”, since both stories follow pairs of characters traveling through a dried American landscape, dodging zombie -style creatures (the mobs of people addicted to the neurocaster, in the case of Stålenhag’s book) and trying to reach a theoretical safe area where the special son in history can be safe.

Netflix’s version is … Decided that. The war in the film was not a civil war (more about that in a second), there is nothing postpocalyptic in the world, and there is no lonely and spooky energy that permeates the art and writing of the book.

Adaptations, of course, are allowed to take freedoms and change things as necessary for the new medium. In this case, however, basically each change made by the production team only makes the story less interesting and more generic. The “electric state” of the Russos is also very confused about its target audience. Occasionally it is involved with the largest science fiction ideas in the original book, but mostly avoid them in favor of what I can only describe as vibrations of “spy children.” If I had to choose a number, I would say that this film is intended for eight -year -old children, who is simply wild when considering the budget and source material that the Russos are adapting here.

“The Electric State” by Netflix adopts a Hollywood tradition unfortunately long: create a hard -hand racism metaphor in a film for children that is so inert and disconnected from the real world that loses any real meaning or purpose. In the movie, you see, humans create robots like Mr. Peanut (yes, that Mr. Peanut). Then, robots obtain sensitivity through means that are never really explained, and demand equal rights. The war occurs before completing in a treaty, resulting in a predominant air of preschool intolerance and in its mouth monology on how we are all people inside.

I cannot emphasize enough how different this is what happens in the material of origin (in a bad way). In Stålenhag’s original book, the United States is decimated by a Second Civil War that fights two factions of humans who use mass controlled mass drones. These weapons can be piloted by neurocaster headphones created by Sentre, but the war is completely human-vs-human.

I understand that these days, some filmmakers can find more comfortable to make a peculiar science fiction adventure for children to interact with the depressing political ramifications of the real world of a Second American Civil War. But when the book you are adapting is expressly On the damage caused by capitalism in the late stage, the overwhelming influence of the non-controlled technological corporations, the environmental collapse and the military-industrial complex, is frankly cowardly launching all of that in the garbage for Mr. Peanut.

War is not the only part of the “electric state” that is different in the Netflix film of the Russos. The film also completely alters the story that involves Michelle and Skip, played by Millie Bobby Brown and Woody Norman. In this version, children are in a horrible car accident that leaves their dead parents. Christopher, also known as Skip, is also declared dead, but remains a secret alive and connected to the Mainframe centine.

Because? Apparently, your brain is the only thing that makes the Sentre neurocaster network work. Somehow. Why is it, really intelligent? Or something. Yes, in reality, I have nothing in this, it makes zero sense, but Stanley Tucci wants to live in a virtual reality in which his bad mother is pleasant and it Italian bakes, so he has to connect the child to the matrix … or something like that.

In the book, Skip’s mother and Michelle dies from medical negligence on behalf of the State, the lack of medical care, so it implies that they are the physiological effects of the heavy use of neurocaster. Actually, there are numerous references to neurocaster users who die after disconnecting the network, but that’s not all. It is implied that Skip itself was conceived by the shared intelligence of the virtual conglomerate of the neurocaster. In other words, the shared conscience of all users creates a kind of independent and sensitive force, which may or may not digitally impregnate Skip’s mother’s mother. Michelle, therefore, travels throughout the country to find his brother’s true body because a cult of cybernetic extremes believes that the Messiah could be, and she has to get him out of the continent. It is wild, yes, but it is also deeply based on the central themes of the book: digital dependence, religious extremism and an audience completely abandoned by federal and corporate lords.

“The Electric State” was ready for an adaptation on the screen, and does not have to look much to see how it could have been if it had been handled better. In 2020, Prime Video launched a series of live action transmission with eight episodes that adapts Stålenhag’s first book, “Tales from the loop”. That show is a quiet, beautiful and visually striking interpretation of its source material that keeps the issues and energy intact.

While “The Electric State” is of greater concept and would have required a larger budget, it is easy to imagine a film version that works. There is much in the book in what, ultimately, is a fairly small amount of text: meditations on rarity (yes, Michelle is gay in the book), conversion therapy (the Russians never), religion (what would America think?) And the material devastation of a capitalist landscape in decline. The representation of the neurocaster addiction of the small city also reflects the opioid epidemic, with a similar focus pointing to the evils of corporate greed. It is a brilliant and disturbing Odyssey Cyberpunk, and it could have been a deeply resonant film for our current political moment.

Instead, we obtained “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 2D” with Star-Lord (yes, now we are only mentioning the participation of Chris Pratt) in a bad wig. This may not be the worst or less faithful adaptation ever performed, but when it considers the strength and potential of the source material, it must be close to the top. And Brian Cox, I really need to know how much they paid you to express that baseball robot.

“The Electric State” is now transmitting in Netflix, but, in case it has not been clear, I totally recommend it reviewing the original book instead.