Yahoo Lifestyle Breaking Down The Bittersweet Ending Of ‘The Electric State’
In The Electric State, the new (mostly) family friendly movie on Netflix with Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, robots and humans roam the Earth in the aftermath of a major war. Let's break down the victories and heartbreak at the end.
The film takes place in an alternative 1990s after a fictional war between robots and humans has taken place. The humans won, but have they really? Most humans live disconnected lives inside of virtual reality headsets called "neurocasters" where they can chill on permanent vacation. Meanwhile, an avatar of their personality in a drone does all of their errands and work, thanks to an evil company called Sentre run by Stanley Tucci's character Ethan Skate. They used this technology to win the war, but now it controls their lives.
Not Michelle, MBB's character, though. She lost her parents and her brother and prefers to stay in the real, analog world. She won't even put on a neurocaster to complete school assignments. But when a robot named Cosmo shows up claiming to be her dead brother Christopher, she goes to look for him. She teams up with a classic 90s dirtbag, Pratt's character Keats and his robot companion Herman—who is voiced by Anthony Mackie. They team up with a group of rebel robots (their leader looks like Mr. Peanut for some reason) who, because they lost the war, are forced to be on the run.
Does Michelle save her brother?
At the end of the movie, Cosmo gets kidnapped. But Michelle knows where he is now, and makes a plan to break into Sentre. Skate is using Christopher's brain and his body to run the system that controls the drones. Michelle wants to unplug him. The robots warns her that every Sentre drone will shut down if she does that, but that basically kills two birds with one stone in her mind. That's what they're trying to do anyway: bring down Sentre for what they've done to her brother and the whole world.
When she gets there, however, Christopher's body is comatose and clearly frail. The only way to speak to him is via neurocaster; so Michelle finally plugs in to the Sentre network. At first it seems like the digital illusion is going to tempt her to abandon her objective and live in some kind of Matrix-y, Ready Player One-y virtual reality forever. The computer rebuilds her childhood home during Christmas time. Everything is warm, welcoming, and nostalgic in an authentic way instead of a cheap pop culture reference way.
She sees Christopher on the couch watching cartoons just as she remembers him. But instead of asking her to stay, he asks her to let him go. He tells her that not only will he die when she unplugs him from the machines, but that it's what he wants her to do. He doesn't want his brain or his body to be used anymore. So Michelle does the hard thing and unplugs him.
Watch 'The Electric State' on Netflix
What happens when Sentre shuts down?
First, the drones attacking Keats, Herman, and Mr. Peanut's scrappy army of rebels drops dead and deactivated. Everyone in their homes is freed from the VR headsets where they've been hiding and are forced to literally unplug for the first time in who knows how long.
At the end of the movie, Michelle films a video message about the importance of human contact and not letting technology that may provide a temporary comfort control your life. (It's almost like she knew that we live in a world that's becoming increasingly reliant on things like Zoom and ChatGPT, huh?)
Do the friendly robots survive the day?
They sure do! Herman's larger form gets totaled in battle but a miniature version wakes up and reunites with Keats. And Mr. Peanut finds Ethan Skate in his office and demands that he renegotiate the treaty so that robots can have rights.
For reasons not totally explained, Cosmo gets tossed into a landfill. But he's not totally dead! He stands up in the movie's final, final moment! Does that mean Christopher, or at least some version of him, is still alive in there? They're just leaving the door open a teeny tiny crack in case we get The Electric State 2.
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