There's nothing new or usual about the idea of a robot revolt in a dystopian future,and "Chrome" doesn't bring very much new to the table in this regard.
But whatever complexity is lacking in the plot is more than compensated for by the visuals and sound design. Looking at any street scene in "Chrome" is like playing "Where's Waldo" - there are so many flying objects, miniatures, graphics, rotoscopes (I think), flashing neon screens, holograms, stuttering frame rates, and bizarre color palettes on display that sometimes my eyes just couldn't take it all in, or figure out what exactly was going on. I'm reasonably sure that's what the creator had in mind,of course, but more than once I wanted to yell something at the screen like
"OK!! YOU REALLY LIKED BLADE RUNNER! NOW CAN YOU DIAL IT BACK to "11" ??
Still, an excess of energy and creativity beats the other end of the spectrum, and I am sure that lots of fun can be had just freezing the screen at various points and looking at all the ideas on display.
This one episode (as of 2020) appears to be all there is, which is too bad. Pilot episodes are almost always a rough draft, where the creators don't always have the rough parts of the story figured out, and there was obviously a lot of moxie and energy poured into this (if not a lot of taste). Let's hope that this gets some interest and some support, so that the creator can show where he wants to go with it.
But whatever complexity is lacking in the plot is more than compensated for by the visuals and sound design. Looking at any street scene in "Chrome" is like playing "Where's Waldo" - there are so many flying objects, miniatures, graphics, rotoscopes (I think), flashing neon screens, holograms, stuttering frame rates, and bizarre color palettes on display that sometimes my eyes just couldn't take it all in, or figure out what exactly was going on. I'm reasonably sure that's what the creator had in mind,of course, but more than once I wanted to yell something at the screen like
"OK!! YOU REALLY LIKED BLADE RUNNER! NOW CAN YOU DIAL IT BACK to "11" ??
Still, an excess of energy and creativity beats the other end of the spectrum, and I am sure that lots of fun can be had just freezing the screen at various points and looking at all the ideas on display.
This one episode (as of 2020) appears to be all there is, which is too bad. Pilot episodes are almost always a rough draft, where the creators don't always have the rough parts of the story figured out, and there was obviously a lot of moxie and energy poured into this (if not a lot of taste). Let's hope that this gets some interest and some support, so that the creator can show where he wants to go with it.