Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. Episode 8, Autofac.

Directed by Peter Horton.

Written by Travis Beacham. 

Starring Juno Temple as Emily, Janelle Monae as Alice, David Lyons as Conrad Mission and Nick Eversman as Avishai.  

Production and Design. 

Another episode of Electric Dreams, and The attention to detail in this story is perfect and some of the scenes are spectacular. However, this shouldn’t surprise me, as this series hasn’t disappointed me yet. I did notice a few visual Easter eggs in there. A scene when Alice arrives at the camp is very reminiscent of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and when Alice takes the group inside the factory, that scene is most definitely taken from Blade Runner. I thought the killer robot inside the factory was beautifully designed, and I was left wanting to see more of it. It was very reminiscent of The Predator but more terrifying. The flashback scenes worked very well, and showing the inside of the Wired Magazine offices at the end was a great idea, and gave the story some reality. Everything that involved the AUTOFAC looked perfect. However, I wasn’t that impressed with the group camp, and I thought it looked way too scenic. I would imagine a camp like that would look far more brutal and a lot darker in reality. There are already locations in England that look worse than this, and this area would be an ideal escape from such places. However, given the reveal at the end of the story, maybe the scenery works. I don’t like to complain, but it took me out of the story sometimes. Apart from that tiny gripe, It still looked astounding, and it served the story well.

Story.

Emily is travelling to work and all seems good in the World as she admires an AUTOFAC billboard by the side of the road. That is until the radio announces a rise in hostility between America and Russia, and that missile above is heading straight into the city skyline. After the war, the land was decimated. All lay in waste. Except the great factories that kept working, churning out goods for the slaughtered consumers. Emily is now living with a group of survivors, living in a ravaged wasteland, and heading to complete a mission. That mission involves shooting down a delivery drone from the AUTOFAC, but why? Emily plans to hack into the server from the drone to make contact with the factory, and her only way in is through customer support. After she successfully programs the drone, AUTOFAC responds and they will send a representative out to help them resolve their issue. 

The group holds a meeting to discuss their plans about trying to persuade the factory to shut itself down, but others strongly disagree and want them to get rid of the server so that they can simply survive. Conrad explains that man made the AUTOFAC and man must unmake it. Plus, the factory is poisoning and polluting the environment around them, and their Eden will be dead soon anyway. Emily meets up with her boyfriend Avishai, who has a great collection of books that will help rebuild the World. Emily has also been collecting artefacts from a World that once was which includes a copy of Wired Magazine. Avishai tells Emily that he loves her, and she fails to respond. Moving on quickly, and the Complaints Department has arrived. Conrad explains to help bot, that the factory deliveries are redundant and that it must close the factories down. Alice responds by saying that AUTOFAC will not terminate and the factory exists to serve the humans. Emily is left with no other choice but to shut down Alice, access her server and try to reprogram her. In another flashback, Emily now has a razor blade and is seen cutting into her skull.

Alice seems more human now and explains that she knows the group have been hacking drones and that AUTOFAC will come looking for her. Emily fails to reprogram Alice because her matrix is far more complicated than she thought. Instead, she threatens her with a complete mind-wipe unless she gets her and her friends into the factory. Judging by the fear in Alice’s face, they are in. The original plan to shut down the factory isn’t going to work anymore but the group has something else in mind. It is time to blow the place up with some nuclear warheads. Sounds safe right? Alice leads the group inside the factory and each member will plant their bomb and meet topside before detonation. Sounds simple enough, but Conrad and another member are killed in action. Emily is still with Alice, and they enter a chamber filled with help bots. She smashes open one of the capsules, and one of them looks just like Emily. Emily accuses the AUTOFAC of trying to replace the humans as well. Alice tells her that she is wrong and that they already have. Emily finds herself lying on an examination table with cables running from her matrix and into the factory system. Alice explains that the humans were all killed after the war and the factory had to create new consumers, which most are doing, apart from their little group of individuals. Not to worry though, as her friends will be destroyed soon. Alice has spoken too soon as something starts to go wrong with the system. It turns out Emily knew she was a bot all along, and she has managed to access the filters of her skull and hide a virus in her memory. As the factory computer begins to malfunction, Emily tells Alice she has been dreaming about someone else’s memories, and asks her who she was modelled after. In the final flashback, Emily looks at the Wired Magazine she has saved. On the front cover is Emily Zabriskie. Alice says she was modelled after a brilliant woman who created the AUTOFAC and Emily tells her, and now she has unmade it. Emily looks up as the factory turns to darkness. Emily returns home to find it has survived, along with her boyfriend, who is waiting for her.

Conclusion.

I have Autofac by Philip K. Dick on my Kindle, but I have decided that I am only going to read these stories once I have finished reviewing this series. Only because I want to enjoy them on their own without comparing them. However, when I first started the series, I didn’t think about the changes that would be made to the original material, but I’m guessing there could be a lot. The technology used in this episode could be around very soon. Okay, maybe the robots are way off, but the delivery systems are coming, and I am not sure where it will end. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure but it’s happening anyway. Great story, and it leaves you with a sense of your impending doom. I do like how Philip K. Dick can easily flip a story on its head, and everything you hoped for is already gone. However, I hope the new leaders of our World do a better job than us. I am still enjoying Electric Dreams, and I’m a little worried that I am now coming close to the end. Alternatively, I can begin discussing Philip K. Dick’s short stories, which I cannot wait to get started.

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