"Immortal Machine" | Dystopian Animated Short Film (2021)

I find it so interesting that the Goddess has slowly turned to look more human, while the Mayor has slowly turned to have the features of what the Goddess looked like when she was wilting. No real eyes, no mouth and withering away.

He wanted so badly for the exceptional girl to condemn him, to find a better way, to fix his creation. Instead, he got an immortal assistant with a crush.

I like to think the reason the Mayor pauses mid-sentence is because he’s dying, but the electric charges are somehow bringing him back every few seconds.

I'm a bit late with this, but I just had a sad, twisted realization. The world outside had healed and it's no longer the hellscape the mayor thinks it to be. In "Friendly Shadow", at the end, the girl leaves Autodale with the freak and, like, she doesn't die. Meaning the sole reason Autodale keeps running the way it does is because of pure paranoia of an apocalypse that has long since passed.

The mayor is the embodiment of the quote “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain”. In a way, he isn’t a villain, he’s just frustrated that he can’t find a better solution and is stuck with this really messed up system

It's fucking terrifying that the only “color” in these animations is R E D

I LOVE the subversion where you realise that the menacing perpetual thunderstorm is actually what's keeping everyone in autodale alive

What I love the most about the Mayor’s voice is actually the pauses in his speech pattern. You can feel the conflict and contemplation within him as he decides which words to use next, as well as the fact he clearly hasn’t interacted with many other people in a long time and natural speech no longer comes easy too him. It’s a brilliant way of conveying so much information through silence.

man, when you said that autodale was a machine, you weren’t kidding. we forgot that machines need fuel.

"Autodale is hardly automatic. You and your families are the gears that keep our engines turning and turning."

I actually feel so bad for the mayor. He hates what he's created, but considers it the best option that they have.

I love how The Mayor’s form has come to reflect how The Matriarch used to look. And how she now looks nearly human.

This short clears up so many things that bothered me in other shorts. Like, how and why the main character in Don’t Feed The Freaks saw himself as human. It’s because the Freaks probably ARE human, affected by the sickness that caused them to mutate. Or why Hive let Shadow save the little girl, in Friendly Shadow. Because she knew that she would die either way, whether to feed the goddess, or from the sickness outside.

"This is kindness" holy fuck i have chills Edit: why the fuck do I have so many likes. They mayor’s eyes are so kind yes lifeless. The sounds he makes when he walks are disgusting.

Something tells me that the Goddess is actually glad that she can help and she is grateful for keeping her alive. When the Mayor touches her nose and talks, she has a faint smile on her lips

I think the food hurts the goddess because she was never meant to consume human matter. She is benevolent to humans and their only hope of survival; however, her previous source of sustenance disappeared, causing her to get to the sorry state she was at in pre-Autodale times. Hopefully y'all get what I mean. Just a thought, though.

She can run with high heels on, she is a soldier.

The mayor is a sad, sad character. He seemed so hopeful when he found the exceptional girl, probably hoped that someone who could see through the lies could help him find another path, figure out some other way to keep the goddess alive. It seemed like he was hoping the horrors that fuel autodale would be repulsive to the exceptional girl, that she’d try to push for another way to live... but she accepted it as the truth, as the only way to survive, and the mayor was... disappointed. He probably feels that there is no other way to live, and the exceptional girl just helped confirm his deepest fears. That he’d have to be the monster in the shadows as long as the immortal machine lived. Forever killing just so that it’s heart may continue to beat.

I think the fact that the goddess was able to cure the little girl with that spark is really interesting. Back in “Don’t feed the freaks”, we see the fallen matriarchs who all look like they’re in some type of pain. What if, with their dying energy, they released some form of that same spark that would ensure the survival of life around it? Except, instead of a singular spark, it was some wave of energy that simultaneously granted immunity to the withering whilst also physically mutating humans in the vicinity. That could explain why “freaks” are able to reproduce and also have children who are immune. It could also possibly explain why the freaks aren’t that prominent of an issue until later in the years (presumably, as matriarchs began falling). Biological ecosystems are seen to be thriving in some areas- the wave of energy might have provided plants immunity too and allowed them to spread their seeds into the wider landscape. In this sense, perhaps the mayor’s actions were not in vain. His invention meant the survival of the next few generations of humans- one of which would bear witness to a new age of survival.

I just realized why there are so many fallen cities with dead monarchs. Autodale was the first; the Mayor was the only one who was able to find a way to both use its power to keep the city alive, while also keeping it alive. All the other cities tried to replicate it, but they failed. Maybe they didn't make the necessary sacrifices, maybe they didn't have the technology to do so. Who knows. But Autodale was the first, and probably the last.