Reviews

Heaven’s Design Team: God’s Blessing On This Wonderful Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.  Then he outsourced the animal stuff.

That’s the Pratchett-esque premise of Heaven’s Design Team, an anime series based on a popular manga.   The story centers around Shimoda, a young angel assigned to relay God’s instructions to the titular Design Team.  Playing Metatron to a group of creative personalities ensnares our bean-bun loving protagonist in both office hijinks and hard-science explorations of how animals work.

It’s also a show that worldbuilders and writers should at least check out.

Creation Is A Double-Edged Comedy

The series episodes have a mostly familiar arc, but one that is varied enough to stay fresh.  Shimoda comes to the team with a vague request from God.  This request is relayed to a colorful group of beings named after the planets, each with their own specialties, obsessions, and neuroses.

The result is a fun, broad office comedy with some real-world teeth.  If you’ve ever worked on a complex creative project it will be more than familiar.  Prototypes fail, creative bickering ensure, and bright ideas burn out fast in the light of reality.  The likeable cast of characters is enjoyable, and the humor is refreshingly free from jokes about genders, sexual preferences, etc.

This office comedy part fuses seamlessly with hard biology.  The Design Team has to temper their enthusiasm as ideas run into real science issues and the advice of their engineering expert, Mars.  Brilliant ideas wither in the harsh light of reality, and when that reality is designing a surviving being, mistakes become painfully obvious.

This is where the show becomes something more than just a wacky comedy – and something for worldbuilders.

Weird Science, Weird People

Heaven’s Design Team’s first season is packed with many bits of great ideas falling apart due to biological truths, but the most illustrative is the team’s attempt to make a unicorn.  “Horse that fights with a horn” sounds good, but the various metabolic, psychological, and physical tradeoffs produce problems.  The final result is an aggressive idiotic beast with navigation problems – though it is salvaged to create the Narwhal, so cuddly-animal loving Neptune is thrilled.

The show is thus a spiritual cousin to Cells At Work, being both educational, funny, and using a given genre to explore science.  The continual theme of “how animals work” and “why some ideas are good and some not” takes it to another level – and it’s why any worldbuilder needs to give it a look.

Heaven’s Design Team covers many kinds of animals and animal traits, and manages to keep it fresh and interesting.  One episode explores reproductive habits, another is about dolphins, and a third sees goth queen of grossness Pluto creating a surprising animal from her requirements.  Though the show has a pattern it usually hews to, it’s an educational one that often surprises.

If you’re a worldbuilder, you’ll quickly get ideas of what to think about what to do, and what not to do.  Because the show is about trial, error, and prototypes, it’ll help you think about animal biology.  It’s not hard to imagine how the Design Team might respond to you playing God – and how your requests might go awry.

The Whole (Earth) Package

I can heap praise upon Heaven’s Design Team, but the end result is “if you like worldbuilding and office comedy, you’ll probably like this.”

Can I say it’s “good?”  To that, I would say “yes” for two reasons.

First, the show knows exactly what it wants to be – an office comedy about biology with a bit of supernatural humor.  The show reaches the goal it sets for itself.  One might say it’s “well designed.”

Secondly, the show has a sweet, genial nature, much like the angelic protagonist.  Characters may argue and snipe, characters have flaws and quirks, but there’s no bullying or cruelty.  Even when bird-loving Venus and snake-creating Mercury square off for obvious reasons, it’s rivalry not meanness.  It’s a pleasant watch.

If you like worldbuilding (or indeed just science, but I know my audience) check it out on Crunchyroll.  It might be a creation you appreciate.

Steven Savage

Dogs In Space: Dogs With Something To Say

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

A good piece of fiction is alive.  It has a personality, a sense of being, and like any living creature, it surprises you.  Those living fictions are the ones that reach us and make an impression, often one that surprises us.

This is why I’m reviewing Dogs in Space.  Not the 1980’s slice-of-life band move.  I’m reviewing the Y7 Netflix series literally about dogs traveling in space to find a new planet for humans.  Truth in advertising indeed.

In Dogs in Space, humanity sends genetically uplifted dogs into space to find a replacement for our used-up Earth.  The story focuses on excitable be-thumbed Corgi named Garbage, captain to an equally eccentric crew of explorers.  Many episodes parody or refer to classic SF tropes, ranging from mildly amusing to laugh-out-loud funny and clever.  The pinnacle of these call-outs sees most of the cast turned into puppies and the adorable chaos that genetically enhanced puppies can get into.

Entertaining enough, but these shenanigans take place in a continuing plot and established world.  Our canine heroes are just a few of the crew of the giant mothership M-BARK, which boasts an entire city of evolved dogs.  Discoveries reveal a larger universe, from powerful aliens aware of Earth to Garbage and company finding another uplifted dog sent on an earlier mission.  There’s a living world inside the colorful and cute cartoon tale – one that could easily spawn a game or spinoffs.

Such a detailed world raises troubling questions, and the show is happy to follow these troublesome threads.  Each uplifted dog has an owner they pine to return to – but are humans manipulating them?  Are humans really worth saving, considering what we did to Earth?  Like any good fiction, Dogs in Space will surprise you and make you think – and throws in some surprises.

Dogs in Space holds a funhouse mirror up to SF, but sometimes it holds a mirror up to you and me – while keeping it’s Y7 rating.

This is why it deserved a review because it’s a fun little show that is well done.  I’m sure that many of us would enjoy a Y7 show (if only with our kids or young siblings) that had dogs making fun of SF tropes.  Instead, the show goes all the way to creating something alive, something good that makes an impression.

I can’t say it’s as good as the Netflix CGI He-Man.  The former is a masterclass in redoing a property and good, concise writing and pacing.  Dogs in Space is more a good example of bringing an idea to life, even with a few clunky or breezed-over bits.

Plus Dogs in Space has adorable dogs doing everything from piloting robots to pulling heists on alien space stations.  It’s just much more than that, its a piece of fiction that comes alive, and that warrants a review.

Steven Savage

Dune 2021: Incomparable By Choice

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Having seen the 2021 Dune movie by Denis Villeneuve, I’m not going to compare it to other takes or other films. Let’s talk about it on its own first.

Dune 2021 quickly introduces us to the world of the far future through the viewpoint of an initially nameless inhabitant of the titular planet (Chani, played by Zendaya). Through her angry eyes, we learn of Dune’s exploitation as its sands hold the drug known as Spice. Under the oppressive hand of the noble-in-title-only family of the Harkonnens, the natives watch their world exploited. When the Harkonnens suddenly leave, the natives assume they will have only a change of oppressors.

Suddenly, our view switches to the planet of Caladan, home of house Artredes, appointed to rule Dune by sudden and suspicious Imperial Decree. Our viewpoint is now that of Paul (Timothée Chalamet), an understandably moody young noble. Paul is caught up in political machinations, his need for an identity, and his mother’s involvement in a mysterious, mystical sisterhood, the Bene Gesserit. Despite wealth and power (possibly precognitive power) Paul is a pawn in many other games.

Chalamet’s Paul was where I truly began to appreciate the human-centric approach to Dune. We’ve all known Pauls, talented and well-meaning people enmeshed in obligations and demands that threatened to strangle their own identities. Less poetically, Paul is that slightly moody and awkward teenager whose moodiness is entirely understandable.

The film slowly and gradually moves onto the larger plots of intrigues and backstabbing, of visions and manufactured messiahs. For those somehow unfamiliar with the story, it would spoil the tale. For those familiar with the story, it is useless to summarize them. I would rather spend space describing how the film is done.

Theatrical is the word I finally used to describe the Dune of 2021. As grand as the world and the effects may be, the film stays focused on the characters. It is a tale of intimacy among sweeping planetscapes and galactic machinations. There is grandeur and impressive effects a-plenty, but these are backdrops to the characters because it is their story.

The moments I remember the most are the personal ones over special effects. Paul yelling in frustration over what people have tried to make him. The enduring bravery of Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) as he faces danger. The stoic yet fracturing expressions of Jessica Artredes (Rebecca Ferguson) as she navigates political and emotional minefields. Even battles with nameless troops have an impact because of well-chosen effects and shots that make the deaths and pain seem real.

The cast is universally excellent and embraces their roles appropriately but also with dignity. It would take little effort for me to praise each actor, but I prefer you experience the film for itself. I easily imagined this cast could have been filmed in front of paintings and still done a fine job.

Now, with a review comparing Dune 2021 to nothing else, let me now compare it to things.

First, I refuse to compare it to Lynch’s Dune or the Syfy television series. Each was made under different conditions, at different times, with different goals.  Dune is a challenging property to make anyway, and I feel all have their virtues and visions. This film is a vision as well.

It is also a vision that breaks every Holywood rule of the last few decades to deliver that vision. It hasn’t been cut or refined to fit assumptions and marketing calculations. There is no “save the cat” here to fit convenient audience expectations. No one holds your hand as a guide on the byzantine backstory; one has to pay attention. Finally, it’s two and a half hours long, and it’s only part one.

I’d put Dune 2021 up there with such things as Kwaidan and Silent Running. To see it is to experience a vision of what was wanted, a consistent, personal take on the story. It may not be an easy experience, but like Paul, you get farther when you seek a vision and follow it through pain and fire to something greater.

Did I enjoy Dune 2021? No, I experienced it, and that is a need all too rarely satisfied.

Steven Savage