Profound & Beautiful
Zima Blue is one of those episodes that really stands out as a beautiful piece of art. The idea of finding purpose in life is explored through the medium of art, with a surprisingly profound plot twist that works perfectly here.
The story begins with a reporter zooming across the blue expanse of a distant planet in a hovership. Unable to make out the difference between the invitation she holds in her hand and the blue expanse of the sea and sky, she recounts the tale of an infamous artist and his pursuit of perfection. This culminates in a profound revelation with his art work; a strange blue dot in the middle of every painting.
Once she arrives in the presence of this cool, metallic man, Zima Blue changes the perspective, and narrative voice, over to Zima himself who tells her his side of the story. He recounts a tale of a simple cleaning robot that evolved over time to become an AI capable of dreaming and thinking. That AI being Zima himself. As the reporter looks on in startled realization, Zima invites the press and public to his final triumphant art piece.
In a beautiful display of purpose, Zima dives into a swimming pool and sheds his artificial skin to reveal his original cleaning robot form. Content with the simple mundanity of his newfound life, the episode ends with the public watching on in stunned silence as the robot begins cleaning the pool.
When it comes to strong themes, Zima Blue is one of the stand outs of the anthology. This beautiful episode uses the colour blue to really illustrate its point, along with the idea itself. It’s an interesting episode, one that makes for real thought-provoking contemplation when the final credits roll.
The art is pretty unique too, using bold colours and lines to really accentuate the colours used throughout the episode. No other art style would really have done this one justice really and thankfully Zima Blue nails every component of its aesthetic. Artistic, beautiful and really well paced, Zima Blue is another fantastic episode and easily one of the best on offer in Love, Death & Robots.
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Episode Rating
(5)
Cam, I think you misunderstood the “pool cleaner bot” thing.
In the past, when he was just a pool cleaner bot, his owner was giving him upgrades, and this progressive upgrades made him aware. He didn’t just go from a pool cleaner bot to a humanoid conscious robot.
But if you’re talking about the last scene, when his insides is shown to be a proper cleaning bot without any connection to his developed body, I didn’t like that too, think some of his parts could like connecting and mending itself to a simple ‘bot like’ like a decepticon(k), but for him to make that in advance for a more raw showcase, its totally doable.
Annnnd, if the sheer outrageousness is centered on him being a cleaner bot, it was the most meaningful thing for the plot to me, you know, simple, ordinary, little… insignificant.
Cam, it actually is poetic. Considering we know Zima pulls his artwork from things he’s experienced, and colors he finds throughout his experiences, but the journalist doesn’t, she can’t decide if it’s closer to the sky or the ocean. A limit of human vision. Zima, however, would have a much more refined visual palate. We learn the true nature of the color at the end. It wasn’t anything based on his travels to all these other planets. It was a simple pool tile. Further, I think the journalist’s flirtatiousness contributed to the fact that all these humans idolized Zima for his work, meanwhile he didn’t find any pleasure in it, no matter how big and beautiful his designs were.
I do agree this episode has a lot of beautiful themes and nuances but I’d give it a 3.5-4/5 personally. For one, the sheer outrageousness of him being a pool cleaning bot had me cracking up. I couldn’t take it seriously. However I do see why most people can get past that and still appreciate the artfulness of the implications hospital true identify and reverting back to it has. So I don’t really take anything away from it based on that.
The journalist was one of my last favorite characters in the series. She was unnecessarily sultry and flirtatious. “I couldn’t decide if the card was closer to the sky or the ocean” yea real fucking poetic