By Dave Jones: Columnist
2025 saw the release of Electric State, a Netflix movie with an unique aesthetic and an appealing concept. If you’ve a literary mind, some of the visuals might even look familiar. That’s because it was based on a graphic novel of the same name, though they have very different currents.
Electric State originally zapped to life as a creation by the talented Swedish author Simon Stålenhag, who envisioned a sombre dystopian world scattered with the debris of ruined animatronic-like machines. The Russo Brothers recently adapted it into a movie, but did they capture the same lightning in a bottle?
Let’s start with aesthetics, and more specifically, the book. Stålenhag paints a haunting vision of a world where advanced Sci-Fi technology is now nothing but scrap, combining the idea of surreal cartoony mascots with weirdly oppressive overtones in still, mysterious pictures.
There’s an uneasy quiet, almost a loneliness, that settles across the pages. The movie does share some of the same images – fans of the graphic novel will recognize some pictures as scenes in the movie – and the aesthetics for the robots are similar. But Stålenhag’s painterly scenes give way to CGI live-action, and the pacing is dramatically increased, replacing the mysterious stillness with action to keep viewers’ peepers on the screen.
As for the story, Stålenhag’s portrayal of a journey across America’s robot-strewn landscape stars an orphan called Michelle and her robot, Skip. The narrative is loose, and much of the story is told visually; play close attention to the background details and the world’s history unfolds slowly, with an emphasis on atmosphere and a splash of existential dread. Michelle’s story ends as ambiguously as the rest of the story, leaving readers wondering exactly what happened – or free to make up their own ending for her.
“In the beginning, God created the neuron, and when electricity flowed through the three-dimensional nerve cell matrix in the brain, there was consciousness”
The movie takes a different tack. The Russo Brothers’ Electric State is more structured, and takes place in a world recovering from a war between humans and robots that broke their programming. A young orphan – also called Michelle – finds herself on a quest with a robot (this time called Cosmo) to find the truth behind his sentience.
The original story is about steadily exploring the details of this exciting new world through visual cues and a mounting dread. In the movie though, the character backgrounds, story, and the world’s lore is all neatly spelled out for viewers. The characters are given more conclusive backstories and arcs, creating a clear separation between the two mediums. More characters are added too – Chris Pratt’s John D. Keats is an entirely new inclusion! The quiet contemplation of the book gives way to action-packed scenes of Hollywood bombast and conflict, and the movie’s ending is largely definitive with an air of bittersweet hopefulness.
As you can imagine, pacing and visual changes drastically change the messages and personal journeys of the characters, so the themes reflect this shift. Stålenhag’s original graphic novel portrays Michelle as a lonely girl looking for something she’s lost, a discovery the reader joins her on.
There’s an air of melancholy throughout, the once-promising technology of this weird world now defunct and discarded. There’s signs of a lost hopefulness scattered between the remnants here and there, to reflect Michelle’s search.
Despite the characters being basically similar – both Michelles are orphans travelling with a robot – they have very different characterizations. The graphic novel’s protagonist is quiet with an emotional disconnect to everything around her, almost as if she is a vessel for the reader, exploring with her. Skip the robot is also a silent, stalwart companion, always there so the reader doesn’t feel too alone, but it’s enough to understand Michelle’s struggle for connection.
The movie’s more characterized version of Michelle has more personality in order to carry the story – she’s resilient, hopeful and determined. As for Cosmo, he does talk in the movie, but his vocabulary is limited to sound bytes from the old TV show on which the character was based.
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The two approaches offer very different solutions to their own unique medium, and what works for one would undoubtedly fail in the other.
Like the rest of the movie, its themes are more direct than abstract. Society’s conflict with machines has given way to topics about the ethical treatment of sentient AI - how humans respond to the robots - and, in the case of the VR headsets that are leading to humanity’s downfall, the dangers of misusing technology. Michelle’s journey raises questions about control and freedom, as well as dealing with the subject of personal loss and the strength needed to let the past go.
Neither approach is wrong, of course, but it’s fascinating how the change of pace can completely alter the tone of a story and open - or close - a narrative.
This differentiation from the Stålenhag graphic novel has opened up many opinions from critics. While audiences have mostly electrocuted the movie (it stands at 15% on Rotten Tomatos at the time of writing) it wasn’t completely without its fans. John Nugent from Empire described it as “breezily watchable retrofuturistic jolly with “just enough juice.”
Whether you like the movie or not, everyone can agree on one thing: Stålenhag has created a world and characters that are so multifaceted and appealing that they can spark conversation and different interpretations that transcend one medium, and the uncanny aesthetics of both worlds are something that will stay with you for a long time.
