Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt are engaging with our technological realities within the fantastical in The Electric State.
The stars of the new Netflix movie told Blavity/Shadow and Act Managing Editor Trey Mangum how the Russo Brothers brought them into the world of sentient robots and how that world reflects our current fears about technology.
Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt on ‘The Electric State’
“I think that the filmmakers did an incredible job of exploring some kind of scary themes around technology, around our dependence upon technology and our lack of connection with real humanity,” Pratt said. “We’re divorcing ourselves from reality in a way and being passively entertained to death, and I get that. But that’s not something you really like talking about. It feels a little lecture-y and a little preachy, and so to be able to wrap that message in sort of the beauty and the tasty candy hamburger of this film, I think, was a real feat to be able to pull off.”
Brown also shared how the film allows audiences to reflect on how technology influences their lives.
“The whole conversation about technology, A.I., has been boiling over the years. So this film—I feel like that conversation kind of comes to a head,” she said. “People can start to question: What does that relationship look like in the future with technology? I think there’s just a balance. I think technology can be really great, informative, and educate people. But I also think that it can take people out of reality. You know, have people disassociate with the reality of what life really is—connection, human connection, family—take you away from those really important moments. [The directors have] done [the film’s message] in such a tasteful way, where it’s not too, again, in your face and really pushing a strong message. But it’s kind of the underbelly of the film.”
What is ‘The Electric State’ about?
The Electric State stars Brown as a girl in an alternate version of the 1990s, in which sentient robots have been forced to live in exile as an outcast society. With the help of a friendly robot, Brown’s character embarks on a journey to find her long-lost brother.
The film also stars Colman Domingo, Giancarlo Esposito, Jason Alexander, Ke Huy Quan, Stanley Tucci, Woody Norman, and the voices of Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Alan Tudyk, and Hank Azaria.
Here’s more about The Electric State, per its official description:
The Electric State is a spectacular adventure from the directors of Avengers: Endgame set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s. Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things, Enola Holmes, Damsel) stars as Michelle, an orphaned teenager navigating life in a society where sentient robots resembling cartoons and mascots, who once served peacefully among humans, now live in exile following a failed uprising. Everything Michelle thinks she knows about the world is upended one night when she’s visited by Cosmo, a sweet, mysterious robot who appears to be controlled by Christopher, Michelle’s genius younger brother whom she thought was dead. Determined to find the beloved sibling she thought she had lost, Michelle sets out across the American southwest with Cosmo, and soon finds herself reluctantly joining forces with Keats (Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World), a low-rent smuggler, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie). As they venture into the Exclusion Zone, a walled-off corner in the desert where robots now exist on their own, Keats and Michelle find a strange, colorful group of new animatronic allies, and begin to learn that the forces behind Christopher’s disappearance are more sinister than they ever expected.
When is ‘The Electric State’ on Netflix?
The film comes to Netflix on March 14.
