Next Gen (film)

Next Gen
Film poster
Directed by	Kevin R. Adams Joe Ksander
Written by	Kevin R. Adams Joe Ksander
Story by	Wang Nima
Produced by	Jeff Bell Patricia Hicks Charlene Logan Kelly Yangbin Lu John Morch Ken Zorniak
Starring	John Krasinski Charlyne Yi Jason Sudeikis Michael Peña David Cross Constance Wu
Cinematography	Paul Kohut Paul Stodolny
Edited by	Matt Ahrens
Music by	Samuel Jones Alexis Marsh
Production companies	Baozou Manhua Alibaba Pictures Tangent Animation
Distributed by	Netflix (Worldwide except China) Alibaba Pictures (China) Wanda Group (China)
Release date	September 7, 2018 (2018-09-07) (United States)
Running time	105 minutes
Countries	United States Canada China
Languages	English Mandarin French German Spanish
Budget	$30 million
Box office	$2.4 million (China only)

Next Gen is a 2018 computer-animated science fiction action film that is based on the online Chinese comic 7723 by Wang Nima, and is directed by Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander. The film stars the voices of John Krasinski, Charlyne Yi, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Peña, David Cross and Constance Wu. It tells the story of Mai Su, a lonely rebellious teenage girl living in a world where sentient robot technology is commonplace, and 7723, a top-secret weaponized robot, who, through a chance encounter, meet each other and form an unlikely bond that they must use to stop a vicious threat. The film was released on Netflix on September 7, 2018.

Plot

In the futuristic city of Grainland where robots are ubiquitous, the father of a girl named Mai leaves for losing his job. Some time later, she and her mother Molly attend a product launch at IQ Robotics headquarters. Mai, annoyed at Molly's ignorance of her, wanders off and stumbles upon the secret lab of Dr. Tanner Rice, who's been working on an attack robot called 7723. Mai accidentally activates 7723, before being apprehended by security and returned to her mother. At the launch, Justin Pin, CEO of IQ Robotics, unveils the next generation of Q-Bots to the public with the promise to put "one in every home", however he has secretly designed the Q-Bots to explode. Meanwhile, 7723 leaves the lab to find Mai, but causes a high-speed pursuit on an elevated freeway. The situation escalates when he uses his weapon systems, making the police forces respond with deadly force. Falling into the lowest levels of the city, he awakens later to find the fall damaged his memory core, preventing him from keeping memories in the long term.

The next day at school, Mai is beaten up by an athletic group of bullies with Q-Bots. Mai comes home with a black eye much to Molly's shock, but the two's strained relationship prevents any meaningful discussion, and so Mai runs to her room. Later that night when Mai goes outside to check on her foulmouthed dog, Momo, she finds 7723 in her backyard. She initially tries to dismiss him, but impressed by his weapons system, she allows him to stay in the shed.

With 7723 at her side, Mai confronts the bullies, and they flee after 7723 destroys one of their Q-Bots. The two then embark on a montage of shenanigans throughout the city, but as 7723 accumulates more memories, he struggles to decide which to keep. When Mai confronts him about it, he reveals if he reaches full capacity, he will undergo a total system reset, losing all his memories in the process. Mai suggests deleting his core systems to make room, but he warns that he would lose functionality.

7723 becomes apprehensive about using his abilities despite Mai's orders, who has become power-crazy, and refuses to blast Mai's school bully leader when she orders her hurt, so Mai injures the bully using her bat. He subsequently deletes his weapon system to save his memories and prevent himself from hurting any more people, and promises Mai to never let her down again: but is unknowingly seen by Molly's Q-Bot, allowing Dr. Rice to find him, and he goes to Mai's home to format 7723's memory and take him away. While explaining he built 7723 to prevent an upcoming crisis, Pin and his bodyguard robot Ares arrive. When Pin reveals his plan of killing people, a fight erupts, but without his weapons, 7723 cannot stop Pin from kidnapping Molly and flees with Mai and Momo into the sewers. Mai snaps at 7723 for deleting his weapon systems and not saving her mother.

Storming off to IQ Robotics to rescue her, she is quickly apprehended, but 7723 arrives and the two make up in the heat of the battle. They find Dr. Rice, who warns them of Ares, but before he can say much more, Pin appears and vaporizes him, but Mai has noticed that Pin's mannerisms are mimicking Ares', and the resulting battle is taken to a nearby sports stadium, where the truth is eventually and publicly revealed: Ares had killed Pin and has been using a bionic skeleton in his body. When Pin created Ares, he told him to make the world "perfect", which Ares believes will only happen through humanity's extinction. With his plans exposed, Ares arms the Q-Bots and merges with a powerful assault armor to overpower 7723, while Mai rescues Molly and evacuates the stadium, but is captured by Ares' Pin body. Unable to fend off Ares, 7723 makes the decision to reboot himself, restoring his weapons and beginning the process of wiping his memories. Saving Mai, he shares one last goodbye with her before battling Ares on equal footing. After an arduous battle, his system reboot completes before he can neutralize an immobilized Ares, becoming inert. Ares attempts to use his now-weakened Pin body to destroy the vulnerable 7723, but Mai stops him by swiping Ares' head off. 7723 re-activates but fails to recognize Mai.

As everything finally returns to normal, Mai begins making new memories with 7723, and even regain pieces of his old ones, and both are accepted by the community.

Voice cast

• John Krasinski as 7723 (credited as "Project 77")
• Charlyne Yi as Mai Su, Molly's daughter
• Jason Sudeikis as Justin Pin / Ares
• Michael Peña as Momo, Mai's foulmouthed dog, which 7723 uses a translator to understand him
• David Cross as Dr. Tanner Rice / Q-Bots
• Constance Wu as Molly Su, Mai's mom
• Kiana Ledé as Greenwood
• Anna Akana as Ani, Mai's friend
• Kitana Turnbull as RJ
• Jet Jurgensmeyer as Junior
• Issac Ryan Brown as Ric
• Betsy Sodaro as Gate
• Fred Tatasciore as Police Robots / Robot Podium / Announcer

Production

Next Gen is a Canadian-American-Chinese co-production.

In May 2018, it was announced that Netflix had purchased worldwide rights to Next Gen, an animated film directed by Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander, for $30 million. The deal excluded China. Charlyne Yi, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Peña, David Cross, Kitana Turnbull and Constance Wu would lead the voice cast.

Regarding the project being acquired by Netflix, Ksander stated:

Buying the film for the price they [Netflix] did was great for everybody involved, but more importantly, they've been a partner who's been really supportive of what we were trying to do.

R. Adams added that:

Studios weren't sure how it [Next Gen] fit an animated children's film with Marvel-like action. Netflix was the most generous and they're in a place where they can take a risk.

Next Gen was fully created in Blender.

Release

The film was released worldwide except in China by Netflix on September 7, 2018. The film was released theatrically in China on July 19, 2019 by Alibaba Group and Wanda Group.

Reception

Next Gen has received mixed to positive reviews. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 80% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 5.67/10.

In Richard Roeper's review for the Chicago Sun Times, he criticized the film's indecisiveness in what audience it was aiming for and said "It's a chore just to keep up with all the shifts in tone, and by the time Next Gen reaches the finish line, we're more exhausted than exhilarated."

However, Joel Keller of Decider found no major problems to prevent enjoyment of the film, writing, "Our Call: STREAM IT. Great voice performances, some funny moments, and a central relationship that will immediately suck you in make NextGen a fun watch for the entire family."

Accolades

Award	Date of Ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref
Annie Awards	February 2, 2019	Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects in an Animated Feature Production	So Ishigaki, Graham Wiebe	Nomination
Annie Awards	February 2, 2019	Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Feature Production	Marceline Tanguay	Nomination
Annie Awards	February 2, 2019	Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production	Charlyne Yi	Nomination
Golden Reel Awards	February 16, 2019	Award for Non-Theatrical Animated Feature Film	Next Gen	Win
Kidscreen Awards	February 13, 2019	Best One-Off, Special or TV Movie	Baozou, Tangent Animation, Netflix	Nomination
Kidscreen Awards	February 13, 2019	Creative Award - Best Animation	Next Gen	Win
Kidscreen Awards	February 13, 2019	Creative Award - Best Design	Next Gen	Win

External links

• Next Gen on Netflix
• Next Gen at IMDb