A runaway teen and her robot are on a mission in the American West, a landscape littered with gigantic battle drones and the discarded trash of a high-tech society addicted to virtual reality. The year is 1997 and, as they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window unravels at a breakneck speed as if, beyond the horizon, the empty core of civilization has caved in.
The Electric State: The region of Pacifica in 1997
The Electric State
Welcome to The Electric State, illustrator and author Simon Stålenhag’s rich graphic novel and the focus of a sci-fi movie directed by the Russo brothers, the duo who delivered 2022’s spy thriller The Gray Manand superhero blockbuster Avengers: Endgame. Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown stars as Michelle, the protagonist.
"The fact that they wanted me only made me want them even more," Millie told Collider. "It's just been a really good collaborative effort...Their team is incredible, the directors are amazing, obviously, and I've got an amazing cast to be alongside.”
The illustrated science fiction story involves a haunting nightmare of a dying society stirred with pop-culture nostalgia. The US has been invaded by drone technology and is struggling to survive the repercussions.
The ducks, riddle with large-caliber rounds, were initially part of a shooting range
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A runaway teen and her robot are on a mission in the American West, a landscape littered with gigantic battle drones and the discarded trash of a high-tech society addicted to virtual reality. The year is 1997 and, as they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window unravels at a breakneck speed as if, beyond the horizon, the empty core of civilization has caved in.
The Electric State: The region of Pacifica in 1997
The Electric State
Welcome to The Electric State, illustrator and author Simon Stålenhag’s rich graphic novel and the focus of a sci-fi movie directed by the Russo brothers, the duo who delivered 2022’s spy thriller The Gray Manand superhero blockbuster Avengers: Endgame. Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown stars as Michelle, the protagonist.
"The fact that they wanted me only made me want them even more," Millie told Collider. "It's just been a really good collaborative effort...Their team is incredible, the directors are amazing, obviously, and I've got an amazing cast to be alongside.”
The illustrated science fiction story involves a haunting nightmare of a dying society stirred with pop-culture nostalgia. The US has been invaded by drone technology and is struggling to survive the repercussions.
The ducks, riddle with large-caliber rounds, were initially part of a shooting range
Author Simon Stålenhag’s initial inspiration was Kurt Cobain. “It started with Nirvana,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I wanted to do a science fiction thing where Nirvana makes sense."
"I think the first idea I had was, what if Kurt Cobain went on a road trip," he added. The author saw the protagonist as Negative Creep, a song from Nirvana's debut album, Bleach, then changed the character’s name to Michelle.
Stålenhag, who is also an electronic musician, made a corresponding soundtrack album for The Electric State and took a road trip through northern California to photograph the terrain. The desert reminded him of another inspiration for the book: The X-Files.
Drone debris and desert conditions form the brutal backdrop
The Electric State is set amid dust bowls and drone debris
The settling is one of decay. War and technology intersect. Mysterious industrial complexes and fallen spacecraft act as landmarks. The drone litter is the result of a seven-year war, a strategy game fought and won in control rooms with collateral damage - civilians caught in the crossfire as well as the children of the pilots.
A drought that has edged West for years swallows entire towns in the Western US, leaving behind only a few vagrants. The Mojave desert, in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains, has one of the few refueling stations available. Even there, the shelves in the supermarket are mostly barren.
The Electric State’s neurocaster
Neurocasters
The survivors of the drone war wear addictive neurocasters, an Internet of sorts that directly transmits ideas and feelings. When there are enough people linked to ‘the electric state’, they create a hive mind. After the big update of 1996, things got weird.
Millie Bobby Brown stars as Michelle in The Electric State
Michelle: Millie Bobby Brown’s role
Millie plays Michelle, an orphaned teen searching for her younger brother with the help of a robot named Skip (Jason Alexander) and a drifter. Michelle is an artist - of sorts. When she was 14, Michelle planned to use her camera for a series of photos of roadkill, exploring her morbid obsession with destruction. Michelle is inspired by Stålenhag's older brother, a Nirvana fan, and his sister, who listened to REM. The book is, Stålenhag said, about the kind of love he had for his siblings.
"The emotional apocalypse has already happened to her [Michelle], so when it actually starts happening around her, she's already adapted," Stålenhag said. "She's a very good survivor."
Millie is thrilled with her role as Michelle and the team behind the epic movie. “It’s so funny, now I’ve worked with two sets of brothers,” Brown said of the Russo brothers behind The Electric State and Duffer brothers behind Stranger Things. “They’re actually quite similar,” Brown explains. Much like parents, “one says yes to everything, and one’s a bit stricter. It’s a really good balance."
Michelle and Skip on the cover from Simon Stålenhag’s The Electric State
Tales From the Loop
The Electric State novel, released in late 2018, triggered interest in Stålenhag’s other work. In addition to the Russo brothers’ movie, Amazon ordered one season of Tales From the Loop, a graphic project based on Stålenhag's early sci-fi art that blends Norman Rockwell and science fiction.
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