One of the most intriguing sub-genres in the horror and sci-fi realm has been kaiju stories. Fans lapped it up in movies such as Underwater, as well as Legendary’s MonsterVerse with Godzilla and Kong. There’s also the Pacific Rim series, which evolved from live-action movies to a bombastic anime on Netflix. Now, in the streaming service’s highly-popular anthology Love, Death + Robots, another brutal kaiju adventure has been charted come Season 3. Whilst it seemed like the massacre that unfolded might have created a sadistic tyrant, it actually turned a sinister warrior into a sentimental hero.
This season, once more under the watch of Tim Miller, was quite eclectic, focusing on mind-bending stories on alien planets and another look at Earth’s robot apocalypse. This chapter, “Bad Traveling,” from acclaimed director David Fincher, was the second of nine episodes, focusing on Torrin, a sailor in a pirate world where alien kaiju roamed the seas. His ship’s luck was terrible, unfortunately, with a giant crab-like monster called the Thanapod coming aboard, devouring crew members and then hiding out below deck.
Torrin was offered up as a sacrifice, meant to see what was going on, only to end up communicating with the beast. It wanted to go to Phaiden Island, where it’d feast on humans, so Torrin brokered a deal to facilitate it. He arranged a mutiny and took over, holding a secret ballot over whether or they should drop the Thanapod on Phaiden or drop it off somewhere else as part of a ruse, thus prolonging their time with the creature. He then killed off anyone who got in his way or opposed the vote, with the body count growing steadily.
However, as he began killing off the others, it seemed like he went mad and was indeed feeding them to the Thanapod, so he could prolong his life by not angering the creature. It felt like Torrin was also going to drop it off to kill innocent men, women and children, made even worse by the fact it multiplied down below.
This set up a nasty genocide, with Torrin as broken as ever over how cruel life had been to him. However, Torrin actually hadn’t lost faith in humanity — he was murdering his crew because they all actually voted to drop the beast on Phaiden for a feeding session.
It turns out, Torrin killed them in the name of justice, scheming and waiting for the right time to strike at the monster. He ended up leaking shark oil into the hold, igniting it to blow the crab and its babies up. He barely escaped on a row boat, but risking his life was worth it.
He had a conscience after all, and he used his evil comrades as pawns to take care of the beast, while also serving as karma for their choic to doom innocents. It summed up how morally gray life was on the ocean, and reaffirmed that despite all the pillaging and double-crossing, Torrin at least had some sense of good within, even if he did play judge, jury and executioner.
Catch Volume 3 of Love, Death + Robots streaming now on Netflix.
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