I'm sorry some of the reviewers can't appreciate any Sci-fi that doesn't include laser battles and far out explosions and such. this title goes back to the roots of Science Fiction. It uses another means and different modes to explore the Human Condition. Go back to the Golden Age of Sci-Fi with authors like Arthur C. Clarke and you will see. Sci-Fi simply provides the backdrop for the actual storytelling. The stories are good, albeit slower than we are used to in 2020, but good none the less- much like the original Science Fiction. It's nice to see for a change where the story comes first and everything else is second as opposed to the current crop of Sci-Fi where the action and effects are first and the story is third or fourth.
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saschmeling3 April 2020
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The retro-futuristic and immeasurably cozy paintings of Simon Stålenhag have been given life by Amazon Prime. Thanks to my dad, who obtained the Tales from the Loop artbook (org. title Ur Varselklotet) when it was brand new (he may even have donated to its crowdfunding campaign), I've had a good look into Stålenhag's dreamlike alternate past before.
My brother once referred to Stålenhag's peculiar art style as "Sweden punk", where we'll scan our eyeballs over familiar rural environments until, suddenly, some sort of technological behemoth appears. It may be a strange, defunct machine (that nevertheless looks as if Volvo or Stiga could realistically design it) next to a quaint Scandinavian meadow, or a vast spacecraft hovering over a dimly lit torp in the December twilight.
Amazon brings all of this to life with an anthology, each episode nonetheless set in the same continuity, directed by the likes of Andrew Stanton and Jodie Foster (a good choice after her work on Black Mirror) and scored in part by Philip Glass - his haunting, repetitive-but-beautiful tunes as distinctive as ever. The cast includes Jonathan Pryce and Rebecca Hall, who put it best when she said in an interview that the characters genuinely seem to inhabit a universe larger than themselves. The landscape around them clearly has history, even when it isn't expositorily stated.
On that note, the "retro" part of the retro-futurism is also in the characters, including young children who are often more astute than the adults - it shares this with Stranger Things, another nostalgic streaming-original, but I currently think Tales from the Loop is better, partly because of how farcical Things has gotten. Early on, Loretta (Abby Ryder Fortson) and Cole (Duncan Joiner) are curious of the mysteries surrounding The Loop, a scientific facility in their area that seems to dabble in the unnatural.
One of the problems I had with the series is that, possibly due to the episodic structure, certain big revelations seem to come quite early in the show's run. Let me elaborate: In the very first episode, we learn something shocking about two of the main characters, akin to one of the most existentially devastating twists in the Netflix masterpiece Dark, but since we don't yet know these people that well, it isn't as impactful as it could have been. Instead, the second episode moves on to a different (somewhat better-acted) story involving the effects of The Loop, starring a tertiary character from the prior story.
However, accepting the show and the format for what it is, 'tis certainly a charming expedition into the mind of Stålenhag. The book and the artwork are faithfully adapted (including the way the characters are cast, then costumed and groomed) by head writer and developer Nathaniel Halpern, but I gather Stålenhag himself was heavily involved (complete with an on-screen cameo). He even submitted a title card animation, pictured above, "as a suggestion" and they wound up using it.
It just warms my hollow ribcage when an artist gets to realize their vision in this manner, aided by people who demonstrably give a damn. Tales from the Loop, not unlike the Netflix series Love, Death + Robots, is one of those shows that truly prove what a safe space the streaming world is for auteurs, enabled to enrich us with something new instead of sticking to a marketable studio-imposed formula.
If shows like these become successful enough, ginormous studios may learn that providing something new and original is the way to go (people sometimes argue that recent Lucasfilm and Marvel movies do represent an artist's vision, hence their controversy compared to other "factory-made" sequels, but I remain skeptical that Disney would truly allow freedom, or deem controversy as anything other than useful PR). I will certainly do my part and tell you this much: please check out Tales from the Loop. It's a visually inventive and fun watch that touches on the "larger" life questions that sci-fi concepts ought to bring. The dialogue itself can be a bit obvious and some stories may be less intriguing than others, but no matter. -
purple-mug5 April 2020This, I'm sure, is the stuff of dreams to the "serious" sci-fi buff. The kind of thing they've been waiting their whole lives for. But be warned. The art house approach, the ponderous wringing of every drop of darkness from the tales, the dolorous minimalist soundtrack courtesy of Philip Glass, and the doom laden plots all contribute to weighty, even burdensome viewing at times. This is not the sort of thing you put on at the end of a riotous evening. Nor to be binge watched - it will spill your marbles and spark depressive spirals. And don't gift it to your significant other for a birthday or the like if you don't want weeks of angst as they try to work out what exactly you're trying to say. It's intelligent, meaningful and dark - maybe a little too so - well worth watching but make sure you're in the right mood, at the right time, and preferably in easy reach of your support structure!
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spazchimp16 August 2020Not many times in my life I've felt compelled to binge watch a series but this got me. . . A combination of beautiful cinematography, great character study and clever story lines make for a truly wonderful and complete series. The fact that it's about the human interactions and relationships and not all about the weird and wonderful tech laying about just adds to it for me. So many series are in your face with the CGI and effects they forget about telling us anything. The subtleness only ads to the whole feel of this superb show. Take time to slow down a bit and enjoy something that makes you think.
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Happened across this today and ended up binging the entire series! As some reviewers have stated, the episodes run slowly, however, each episode looks at the story of indivudal characters in the ensemble cast. The twists are based on quirky SciFi elements and helps the viewer examine how the episode character comes to this point or to an unexpected situation, which may not have a typical resolution. The production, cinematography and acting are top notch and worth viewing from a visual and stylistic perspective. The stories leave you with a feeling of melancholy, that is strangely satisfying. Arthouse work in a TV series format. Worth a watch in my book. If you're looking for lasers and whiz-bang effects, this may not be the series for you.
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RoboGarrett15 April 2020I don't care that it's slow and depressing. Lots of truly great films are slow and/or depressing. The pacing and mood of a story doesn't matter so much, what matters is the destination and the trip along the way. WHAT do the filmmakers have to say and HOW do they say it?
The problem with "Tales from the Loop" is that they have absolutely nothing new to say AND they drag it out. The cinematography is great and the actors do a fine job but they have nothing to work with.
It is literally as if a production company's president said "Hey this Black Mirror show is killing it, we'd better churn out something like this!" and then his yes-man VP said "Sir, didn't your kid write some sci-fi short stories in creative writing class? Based off drawings of robots she saw on Reddit?" The show was then immediately green lit.
Every "twist" they utilize has been done before AND been done better AND takes them forever to get to.- Two kids find an abandoned magic chamber that let's them switch bodies. One boy convinces the other to trade bodies for the day by promising he will for sure trade bodies back. You'll never guess what happens!
- Inexplicably not put off by the strange vortexes he's seen opening in his field, a lonely man continues visiting that field and is - you guessed it - sucked through a vortex to another dimension. The version of him in that dimension has a super hot boyfriend. You'll never guess what happens!
- A teen girl who grows tired of her boyfriend wishes magical moments could last forever serendipitously finds a time freezing machine on the beach. She freezes time with her exciting new boyfriend, who promises to stay in that moment with her forever guaranteeing constant happiness. You'll never guess what happens!
Every episode has about ten minutes of poorly conceived story stretched out to an hour, with no real reason to do so other than to pad the screen time.
Characters behave completely irrationally, and questions are posed but never answered. I know unanswered questions can be great in and of themselves, but for this show they are a total crutch. This isn't Kubrickian, it's just people writing scripts who literally have nothing to say and no point to make.
Also, there are not many characters who an audience will find likable or even identify with. That's a serious problem considering how much time we spend with them... in scenes that linger on and on and on...
For all the strange goings-on in this town, nobody ever seeks help from each other. They rarely have logical reactions and never take actions or attempt solutions that any human being in their position would. The most glaring example would be The Loop organization itself. They apparently just leave robots, powerful devices and magical chambers just lying all over the place, no matter how dangerous, for anyone to find. The fuel rods that power this equipment are readily available and so not secure that children literally steal them.
Strange things keep happening, and not one person ever thinks to say "gee whiz, you know that Loop we're always mentioning where they do mysterious stuff underground? Why don't we go tell them about the problem? Or ask them for help?" The children and grandchildren of the man who RUNS the place don't even think to ask grandpa for information or help. This show isn't just tedious, it's infuriatingly stupid at many points.
This series is a whole lot of waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen, that you know is going to happen, then it finally happens, then you wait for something else to happen, then nothing happens. Roll credits.
Every episode is a cliche. For example: "Is the robot monster a monster, or is the real monster... MAN?"
Here's everything that happens in one entire hour long episode (MILD SPOILERS): A man thinks a guy broke into his home. Instead of paying for much needed repairs he buys a robot from a junkyard to protect his lawn. His neighbours are upset, apparently forgetting that these machines are all over the damn place. The police ask him to stop standing in his yard with a robot but he says no. He never catches the bad guy but almost punches his deaf daughter with the robot, so his wife gets mad and leaves. He sells the robot and fixes the house, so his wife comes back. The end.
I am incredibly disappointed by this series because a lot of good work was put into it. There aren't a ton of effects (given the source material I expected a hell of a lot more robots than just a couple scenes hiding behind trees in the woods), but the effects they did use are very well done. The actors aren't stupendous but a lot of that could be due to the huge deficiencies they were dealing with script-wise, and possibly poor direction as well.
This series is pretentious and a huge, huge opportunity wasted. It could have been a truly great anthology series if they simply had capable writers who had an actual story to tell. -
A really thought provoking show. I didn't know what to think, by the end of episode three I was thinking is this show a bit sad but continued to watch and I'm glad I did.
Yes, it was a bit sad but also thought provoking. It made me consider how I'd feel if I could see my life, my daughters, my mom's at different stages and what I'd/we'd do differently. I think we all like to consider what we'd do differently if we could live our lives again. Every episode made me realise that there'd always be a negative consequence if I / we, did do things differently which I suppose brings peace to the things we consider mistakes.
I didn't expect Cole to become the lead role in the show nor did I expect how fond I became of his character. This show isn't really edge of your seat action but it's very good for your sole. There's some really beautiful music throughout the show too. -
big.jay30 April 2020I really enjoyed this series. It's slow paced, yes, but it's tremendous solid too. And in an artistic way also very gripping and thrilling. And I loved the actors.
I salute the makers because they could have went the obvious road and give the audience the usual SciFi stuff they'd conditioned to expect from a show like this. But instead they choose to take us on a journey of some kind of meditation about what really matters in life. And this journey is not only beautiful shot, but offers some great ideas and unexpected turns too. Sometimes as a kind of side note and not as she focus of the show - but that is the whole point: don't get distracted by the things you might think life is worth living for, let the stars in the sky be the stars, don't miss in your life what is yet full of awe. And the show never preaches. It's always showing instead of pointing with the finger or shouting at us. You have to think about it to get it. But it isn't a far fetched deep secret either. Just go on the journey and let it sink in.
I guess if they had done it a bit more on the nose, the chance for a second season were better. But I'm glad they didn't - a show like this is nothing you get get to see often. But I sure hope they do another one anyway. -
A_Different_Drummer5 September 2020There is an extraordinary gentleness to this series that has no antecedent. There is no attempt to shock or horrify or amaze. Only engage. Quality is not even but some of the episodes are absolutely hypnotic, you cannot look away.
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If you have ever read the anthology Winesburg Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson, the play Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, or Thr Gift ofThe Magi by O'Henry, or even the clasdic anime Naruto, you will instantly recognize the small town human drama motif. Each story is a small tragedy. Each episode highlights the use of a single magical sci-fi element in the hands of one foolish but very relatable if somewhat stereotypical character, to tell the tale of the power and the cost of poor human judgment magnified by that magical tech. This isn't really science fiction at all so much as a popular theme from fantasy fiction : the philosopher's stone. The slow pace and cinematography, as well as the exceptional acting help make up for an extremely lean and somewhat predictable anthology that by science fiction standards is extremely weak. The questions the story introduces as you meet the characters, place, time and tech are never answered. No one is ever redeemed. But everyone suffers. The tragedy is often created by simple poor communication. Just like the poorest of story writing. Characters don't listen to tech other or believe each other. Generally adults never believe their kids in any story. When a simple explanation would suffice from a character, they choose to remain silent, or simply aren't there, making the inevitable tragedy to come predictable. Each story follows this identical pattern, reliably. The one consistent element is that the charaters are well fleshed out and relatable. You will finish watching each episode highly impressed with the acting, direction and cinematography, but saddened and disappointed by the superficiality of the main characters and the tragedy resulting from their human failings. In some ways it is the same story elements repeated over and over. Unlike Winesburg Ohio, Our Town or The Martian Chronicles, there are no moments of hope or triumph to offset and deepen the tragedy. While the characters are nicely drawn, the script writing of their interactions is terribly thin. In these interactions the characters become two dimensional. It's actually hard to watch. This reflects the limitations of the script. Good characters weak dynamics. This belies the work of a technically brilliant writer who has yet to fully understand and experience the range of humanity.
Spoiler alert In one episode a young boy and girl experience a month together and then break up. In the midst of their romance the boy tells the girl he loves her, and she responds weakly with the same, in Chinese, "Wo Ai Nee". At the end after they break up the boy tries to forgive the girl and indirectly all for forgiveness. He says again "Wo Ai Nee" but as she can't forgive him she turns and walks away. And the story ends. But a moe mature author might have wrapped this up with a little more dialog, bringing closure and understanding, placing the tragedy into the simplicity and immaturity of youth....
Boy "Wo Ai Nee!" Girl, angrily, "I don't know what that means!" and turns and walks away. Boy quietly to himself, "I know." End.
These are missing elements of human dynamics that leave the viewer with a sense of thin storytelling, but masterful technique. -
imdb-37825 April 2020Tales from the Loop is art. From the perfectly timeless visuals to the enduring relationships between the towns' characters and the sublime music -- this series should be in an art gallery.
It is slow, it is melancholy, it is dark, as it should be. It is also sensitive, moving and so very well done. The last episode had me in tears.
Such an antidote to today's formulaic films. Thank you! -
Scotslad_00711 April 2020First episode is a good start, which begins the weaving between each episode. The attention to detail in the sets, the acting are all excellent. The SciFi little twist and turns are also very good. But it starts to loose momentum with the pacing, its very slow in revealing any new relevant information. Characters are built well but then it is dragged out with very long pauses of just watching them! It felt like this was done to get each episode to 1 hour, 30 minutes would have solved this.
The other aspect is there more the dark side of humanity rather than the light, with so many kids as key players there is a lot of painful moments with more dark twists than up lifting .
I did like the weaving of characters between each episode and believe it has huge potential, but the pacing will turn a lot away from getting to the end of the series. -
Beneath a small town exists The Loop, a scientific research facility. The townspeople end up experiencing an altered version of reality, where impossible things become possible.
This series had potential, a sci fi series with passing similarities to Stranger Things, Dark, Black Mirror and the original (1959-64) Twilight Zone series, all of which are excellent series. However, it ends up nowhere near as interesting or engaging.
The main problem is that the plots (each episode has a separate one) develop at a snail's pace. That wouldn't be so bad if the characters were worth following, but they're not. Not that they're dislikeable, they're just bland.
So you have 1-hour stories that develop very slowly, due to the script being massively padded, with characters that you don't care about. Makes for very unengaging, dull viewing. Time seemed to slow down while I was watching, like everything was happening in slow motion.
Some of the concepts are interesting but by the time you reach the punchline you've already lost interest (and the will to live). It's like an episode of The Twilight Zone, except the characters are less engaging, the twist is less profound or unexpected and the whole thing takes 60 minutes instead of 24 minutes! -
istokpavlovic5 April 2020I almost gave up on the idea of watching the show, due to all the negative reviews here. Luckily, I decided to give it a chance nevertheless.
WOW! If Stranger Things and Black Mirror had a baby, this would be it. The beautiful reminiscence of Swedish rural countryside from the early 90s, squared Volvo cars blended with rusty imaginary machinery, all wrapped in cinematic dusk lighting, truly reflecting the mood of Simon Stålenhag's artworks.
I think some people were expecting epic battles between humans and Stålenhag's dystopian machines. I understand that by looking at his artwork one can imagine such scenes, so these people are surely disappointed and they're now writing negative reviews.
But instead, the storytelling of this show brings us back to a true, classic SciFi narrative, where the plotline is more focused on psychology of various "what if" scenarios, such as the ones we saw in "Black Mirror". The Stålenhag's art direction is still visible, but it's not the central subject of the show.
Every episode can be watched as an individual movie, although the characters are interconnected. If you are a true SciFi fan, just ignore all the negative reviews and watch this show. -
It's not typical TV series. The ideas inside, the change of action and surprises caused my brain to constantly processing. As a engineer myself, I enjoyed the tech and alternative world. I really hope there will be more season. What a masterpiece!
If you like inception, you will like this one too. -
TxMike19 April 2020Edit, one month later. After 3 episodes we quit watching, it just didn't interest us enough to watch more. Not that it is a bad show, but we couldn't see an interesting story unfold and there are lots of other shows to watch.
Original impressions, one month earlier: My wife and I have started watching this on Amazon streaming, two of the eight episodes down so far. My initial impression - it is interesting but hardly anything is explained. Very unusual things happen, presumably related to something going on below ground in "The Loop" where locals work. Is this set in the future, or in some parallel universe? This sort of approach worked fine in shows like "Twilight Zone" back in the 1960s but today's audiences, I think, require some connection, some explanation.
This is the type of series that requires great viewer trust, that is trust that by the time all episodes are watched some sort of overall story, an interesting story, has emerged. If not, if these just turn out to be interesting but shallow episodes then I will be very upset with the producers of the show. Upset for betraying my trust. Eight hours is a long time to spend just watching interesting things without some rhyme and reason to tie it all together. -
Overall I enjoyed Season 1. A bit slow in parts and some strong Episodes and a couple of weak ones. But this is some good sci-fi. Akin To Twilight Zone which is still imo the #1 Sci Fi show ever made. The OG Twilight Zone, not any of the remake ones or new ones. Haha
I'm looking forward to Season 2!!!!
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w-d-groot25 November 2022Having read Simon Stålenhag's books you can clearly see how meticiously all the elements that you can see there have found their way into the serie. For "global appreciation" I can live with the fact that it now takes place in the US in stead of the original country of Sweden.
Finally a retro/sci-fi series that does not need fast paced action and spectacular CGI but focusses on what people feel in relation to the things that happen with and around them.
Also hats off on how the different characters are linked between the different episodes.
The wonderful melancholic music of Philip and Paul Leonard Morgan also adds to the total picture. -
I'm through 6 episodes and its is very slow. The drama out weighs the scifi but I do find myself wrapped up in the characters and story. It's almost an anthology but the stories intertwine too much to call it an anthology. If you enjoy some slow but consistent character development mixed with interesting scifi that results in a good drama then this is your show. I'm a straight up scifi nut but this was/is still entertaining through the 6th episode. There are some VERY slow episodes, about 1/3 so far but the endings were satisfying enough.
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soulfly-9848227 June 2020Not a show for the kind of people who need action, fighting, shooting and stupid smart-ass dialog to keep them interested. this is a piece of art that most will find is beyond them. much is left for the viewer to come to their own conclusions about why/how things happen.There are hints albeit subtle ones. i know for the people that need everything explained to them because they lack imagination ,this is a show killer. the complaints of being "slow" just shows immaturity. i love the pace the stories are told, many times without words. its an alternate reality where strange things happen to ordinary people and they just kind of go with it, never seeming to overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. i hope for another season, we need more of this type of show.
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MiloSuperSpesh26 August 2023I've been trying to make a cohesive thought to review this show and have come to the conclusion it's not possible.
This is a mess of a show, it's like a predcessor to stranger things / the gryphon/ paper girls/ black mirror/ trying to push boundries and social commentary of the worlds events but it comes across as cliche, tropey and ridden with plot holes.
It's well directed / music is well chosen, acting is ok, some stand out stars in the making !
Some episodes are better than others, for the stand outs are ep 1, ep 4, 5, 7 and 8.
The other episodes i wasn't a fan of are dumb kids and dumb people doing dumb things and then being shocked at the dumb prizes they earn from it and with mostly no consquences to those responsible.
I would be cautious in watching this (i hadn't read or heard of the originals and just happened to hear about the new movie the electric state ), 3 years later it still holds up in most area's other than the writing. So i hope this adaptation was just slightly mishandled considering the love i see for the originals. -
anthonyjlangford28 December 2020This is show is incredibly stylish. Beautifully made. A real work of art. Its really great to see a show of this caliber being produced today, in the age of the short attention span. Granted, you have to be in a certain mood. I watched it over a extended period. If you're patient, it will certainly reward you.
Some episodes are better than others. I tend to agree with the individual rating on each. It's not overly complex. Each episodes has its own simple story line, strong in concept. Perhaps not each story is entirely unique in the realms of science fiction, but in this particular setting, it does feel new. It doesn't rely on effects either, so it's strong concepts may give it a long life.
A breath of fresh air and an absolute pleasure to watch. Sadly I think the TikTok generation won't be watching in droves so we may not see a second season. At least there is this. A real achievement. -
This is old school sci fi/thriller/evocative story and its good,,,,and bad. The stories themselves are obviously conjoined within "The Loop", but far enough apart so you can jump in at any episode and not be out of sync. However, the endless melancholy makes me feel as depressed as listening to a Leonard Cohen funeral dirge. Much like that other classic "Lost", i'm sure it'll make sense in the end, but i'm sorry i wont be able to make it till season 7. The idea of finding out, its just some psycho's wet dream is too predictable to wait for.
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craigstuckless-069708 May 2020I wanted to like this show. I tried so hard. And after the first five minutes I found myself fast-forwarding 10 seconds at a time looking for anything that would catch my attention. There's no action. It's people walking from place to place; its people thinking really hard; its people sitting and staring off into space. It's boring.