Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Electric StateThe Electric Stateis the latest attempt from Netflix to craft a blockbuster, and to Netflix’s credit, the streamer went all out for its adaptation ofSimon Stålenhag’s groundbreaking book.AnthonyandJoe Russo, who produced Netflix’s popularExtractionand helmed some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest movies, directed and theirAvengers: EndgamecollaboratorsChristopher MarkusandStephen McFeelypenned the script. Furthering theEndgameconnections,Alan Silvestri scored the movie, and, if that wasn’t enough,The Electric Stateboasts one of the biggest budgets of a modern movie at awhopping $300+ million price tag. The story ofThe Electric Statehas the kind of scale you’d expect from a major Hollywood blockbuster: in an alternate version of 1990, robots were built to help mankind but ultimately rebelled,leading to a war between man and machine. The tide was turned when tech billionaire Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci) built the Neurocaster technology, allowing humanity to pilot remote drones with their mind and bringing the robot/human world to an end.
It’s this world that teenager Michelle Green (Millie Bobby Brown) is attempting to navigate. Having lost her parents and her brother Christopher (Woody Norman) in a car crash, Michelle is shocked by the arrival of Cosmo (Alan Tudyk), a robot that resembles the protagonist of Christopher’s favorite cartoon. Even more shocking is the fact that Cosmo is controlled by Christopher,who leads Michelle on a trek across the United States to rescue him. Along the way, she encounters a series of escalating revelations about what happened to the world to leave it in this state.
Michelle’s Brother Is Key to ‘The Electric State’s Plot in More Ways Than One
Michelle and Cosmo follow a series of clues that lead them to John Keats (Chris Pratt), a former soldier in the robot/human war who now makes a living smuggling rare artifacts with his robot friend Herman (Anthony Mackie). Keats takes Michelle and Cosmo to the “exclusion zone,” where most of the robots reside after the end of the war; they come face to face with the robots’ leader, Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson), who wants them to leave. Yes, this is a movie wherethe mascot from Planters' Peanuts has a major role. But Michelle soon learns that Mr. Peanut helped smuggle brilliant scientist Dr. Clark Amherst (Key He Quan) out of the exclusion zone. She wants to find Amherst, since he lied to her and told her Christopher was dead.
Michelle and Keats eventually do find Amherst, where they learn the dark truth about the Neurocaster system. Prior to the war, Christopher was fast-tracked into college due to his genius intellect, and this caught the eye of Ethan Skate.Skate faked Christopher’s death and used his consciousness as the basis for the Neurocaster system, and to elevate his megaconglomerate Sentre to the center of the world stage. Amherst, wracked with guilt, managed to find a loophole where Christopher could project his consciousness into Cosmo and alert Michelle to his whereabouts.
‘The Electric State’ Has an Action-Packed, Bittersweet Ending
ThroughoutThe Electric State, Michelle, Cosmo, and Keats are being hunted by Colonel Marshall Bradbury (Giancarlo Esposito), a veteran of the robot/human war who’s been hired by Skate to retrieve Cosmo. Without Christopher’s brainwaves, the Neurocaster network suffers multiple glitches. Sentre’s forces eventually recapture Cosmo, bringing him to Sentre HQ in Seattle. Prior to this, Skate commands one of his drones to kill Amherst, which leaves Bradbury disillusioned. Michelle decides to travel to Seattle to get Christopher back (flanked by Keats and Mr. Peanut, who leads a robot army against Sentre’s forces).
Before the MCU, the Russo Brothers Plotted a Heist in a Crime Comedy With Sam Rockwell & George Clooney
No Infinity Stones were harmed in the heist.
Eventually, she does find Christopher’s body, even slipping on a Neurocaster for the first time in her life…but he tells her that he wishes to be free of Sentre’s control once and for all,and asks her to turn off his life support. Reluctantly, Michelle agrees and cuts off Sentre’s virtual network. This was a rather shocking moment, but as Anthony Russo said in a post-film interview withEntertainment Weekly, it was the only wayThe Electric Statecould have ended:
“If you’re going to tell a big, epic story about a society that’s falling apart and children who were victimized in this sort of catastrophe, how do you emerge from that in a way that is both on one side hopeful, but also sort of honest to the cost of that journey? That’s just kind of how it all ended up balancing out for us in the story.”
The rest of the characters have a far less bitter ending:Mr. Peanut winds up sparing Skate, who is arrested after his actions are revealed to the world. Meanwhile, Herman takes a seemingly fatal hit and Keats seems to mourn him…before learning that his robot pal has an even smaller body he can use.The Electric Stateends with Michelle launching a broadcast to the world, urging them to truly reconnect with each other. But that isn’t quite the end of the story.
Does ‘The Electric State’ Set Up a Sequel?
The Electric Stateends with a shot of debris from the Seattle fight being deposited into a junkyard, with Cosmo’s body among the wreckage. Shortly after,Cosmo stands up and starts walking, hinting that Christopher’s consciousness may live within him. This leaves the door open for a potential sequel, though Joe Russo has said that Netflix hasn’t talked to him or his brother about any future films: “There is a game currently that’s being released with the movie, and we’re in discussions around a potential show idea that could work for it, but no sequel conversations as of yet.” The story ofThe Electric Stateis slated to continue in theKid Cosmomobile game from Netflix and the Russo Brothers.Kid Cosmois set before the events ofThe Electric State, and takes its name from the animated series that Christopher was a fan of. Meanwhile, the Russos are set to return to the MCU withAvengers: DoomsdayandAvengers: Secret Wars.
The Electric State
