Love, Death, & Robots: Pop Squad

One of my favorite short films from the Love, Death, & Robots series is “Pop Squad”. “Pop Squad” is set in an ultra-futuristic world where people have the option to live forever through a treatment called “rejoo”. In order to get this treatment, the only condition is that you can not have children. Because so many people are choosing to never die, overpopulation has become a serious problem. The director of this episode is Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Nelson based this futuristic episode off Paolo Bacigalupi’s story where rules and regulations are enforced by the elite who see no need for “breeders” (parents) to birth “unregistered offspring” (children). The main character in this short, Officer Briggs, is tasked with finding hidden families and killing the children, who he refers to as “it” and “thing”. However, the audience quickly learned that Briggs is facing a moral dilemma of whether his actions are for the greater good. 

The difference between the lifestyles of those who choose to take the rejoo treatment and live forever compared to those who do not is extreme. The immortal have technology such as flying cars, they live in the highest skyscrapers above the clouds, they boast expensive jewelry and clothing, and seem to not have a care in the world. In contrast, those who do not live forever and have children live at the bottom. Their world seems to be completely different from those above the clouds. It is constantly raining, dark, desolate, and unclean. 

Immediately before Brigg’s murders the discovered children, the boy holds up a green stuffed animal dinosaur. This dinosaur represents the innocence of the children who have done nothing but lived a life in hiding, and the innocence of the parents who simply want to have a family in a world where children and marriage is viewed as unorthodox. When Briggs ventures back above the clouds, his girlfriend is being honored for successfully performing a difficult musical solo. She is gifted a very similar green dinosaur and is said to have “conquered that ancient dinosaur”. While the film seems to dub the solo as something she conquered, this scene is a metaphor for this wealthy, elitist society slaying the innocence of the youth by being selfish and living forever instead of giving others the same opportunity for life. 

When Briggs finds another mother and her daughter, Melanie, in hiding, he does not kill them, but actually just wants to understand why people continue to have children. The mother responds by saying “Because I’m not so in love with myself that I want to live forever and ever”. She calls Officer Brigg’s eyes “dead” because he has been alive for too long and become corrupted by the society he is a part of. In one clip, Melanie’s bright, youthful eyes glimmer in the sun, symbolizing innocence. When Briggs decides to leave the mother and daughter unharmed, his partner finds him and realizes he betrayed his duty and spared them. Briggs shoots his partner, killing her, and she simultaneously shoots him. Before Brigg’s death, he looks up at the clouds from below. Although this scene shows Brigg’s death, it is quite serene. His eyes glow the same color as Melanie’s did because he is no longer tied to the social constraint of living forever. Now, he sees the value in other important life experiences such as having a family and enjoying every new day that comes knowing tomorrow is not always given. 

This short film shows the selfishness and lust for power upper-class societies have. In today’s society, people are born and people die. Although sad, it gives others a chance at life without overpopulation happening at even more exponential rates than they are now. However, in this film, people are choosing to live forever, and thus, are killing all of the new children that are born so there is still enough space and resources for them. The idea of family and marriage is completely obsolete and killing is a norm. Those who want connection and family are even dubbed “crazies”. Some of the many themes within this short concern social classes, family, human connection, and the concept of power. I really enjoyed watching this film because it offered a unique perspective on how dangerous power can become.