Oats Studios (TV Mini Series 2017–2020) Poster

(2017–2020)

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5/10
Oats so simple.
southdavid17 February 2022
Usually, with a collection show like this, I'd review each one individually, but this odd collection, from Neill Blomkamp's independent studio is too esoteric and, in most cases, short to justify that sort of approach. So I'll review them as one.

"Oats Studio" as titled on Netflix is a series of short films, some live action, some high-level CGI creations. Though there is generally little in terms of through story in most of the episodes, general themes, such as post-apocalyptic worlds, robotic uprisings and science fiction horror settings.

Truth be told, you're not really meant to consume these shorts as you might a similar compendium such as "Love, Death and Robots". Those are a series of short stories, whereas the films featured here are generally much closer to tech demos or proof of concepts - that would be shown to gauge interest in further development. Some of the ideas are indeed reasonably interesting and I might be interested if they were developed further - through truth be told, most of them feel like ideas that have been explored before. The worst ones were, for me, the ones that attempted to be comedies. The "Bad President" and the "Cooking with Bill" episodes were a major waste of time for all involved. Two other largely live action ones, "Rakka" starring Sigourney Weaver and "Zygote" starring Dakota Fanning were much better - though, for me, it's the one series that produced two episodes, the CGI series "Adam" that held the most potential.

I mean, given that you can probably burn through the whole series is about an hour, and from that something is likely to peak your interest a bit, maybe you should give it a try - just don't expect much pay off from the good ones, or that any of it will live long in the memory.
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6/10
Ok, I don't want to be harsh, because it's independent, but...
javier_827 June 2022
First of all, almost all episodes are inconclusive, and that was the point, to raise funds to develop them, and that's ok. It has some good stuff in it, Firebase is really good, I wish I could see the ending of that. Same with Rakka. There are some good ideas. Zygote and Gdansk are interesting.

For me all the "funny" episodes failed completely, I guess that's not my kind of humor. AT ALL. It's too repetitive and sometimes naive/pointless. For instance, the cooking show, I saw the first two gizmos, and I think I skipped the last ones to the next episode, they were all too obvious and repetitive and not really funny, just parodying something won't make it automatically hilarious. Same with the president one, too far fetch (though extravagant presidents exist of course, like that crazy Thailand dude), Kapture and God, they made no sense and they were too obvious at the same time. And again, for me, they're not even funny to justify them.

There are some things that didn't make sense, like why are people in Kapture filming for VHS? I guess it's just for the "feeling" of a shaky cam/low quality video? Makes no sense when they're using drones, and mind control they don't have a decent camera? Also, if you want to make humor episodes, you need to hire a good comedy writer. There's a lot to learn from Love, Death & Robots about how to make comedy shorts.

Again, I don't want to be harsh, the "serious" chapters had something redeemable about them, but the funny ones are plain bad.
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7/10
Go into this like you're viewing trailers.
danielhaynes-444219 October 2022
I believe the point of all these "short films" were to pique interest and money for future productions - while the style and unfinished feel of these shorts may not suit everyone's tastes, many have incredibly unique and thought-provoking premise, effects, and storylines that could be developed into full features (particularly Rakka, Firebase, Zygote & ADAM).

If you go in expecting to find resolution and fully molded stories this may not be for you. On the other hand, if you want to be entertained and view some beautifully crafted worlds in various mind-stretching scenarios; give it a shot. Hopefully we'll be able to see a continuation of some of these episodes in either short sequels or full length stories in the future.
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6/10
Movie "shorts" in search of a big budget
ericfleming-282537 November 2023
I can't really give it a solid good score because it's a lot of short vignettes (roughly 20min) that are the kernels of a potential full length film. So none of the stories have a definitive beginning or ending. But rather just a taste of what could be. The exceptions being the "infomercials". The sci-fi material is solid, however the comedy doesn't really work for me. Pretty much falls flat on its face if I'm honest. Getting back to the sci-fi though. There were a few intriguing concepts that, in my opinion, warrant some looking into. Like Rakka, Firebase, Zygote and perhaps Adam. If you're a movie enthusiast, this might be right up your alley.
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6/10
Wow I see people who rated this show below 7 just being bored as he'll that's all.
REDLINE00076 January 2023
Nowadays when Avatar runs 3.5 hours people complain it's too long and story is boring and simple. Here you get shorter stories with 10/10 CGI and you are still unhappy. Like hello people do something with your lives maybe then you'll be able to go down to Earth and rate gems like this from a humble side (all of you lost like virginity at 15 y.o).

This show is AWESOME if you are humble human being that have heart for new and progressive products.

Watch it, enjoy it and pray we can see something like this in the future. Or, you'll be fed movies that you can tell the ending in first 10 minutes. You are bunch of IDIOCRACY morons.
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6/10
A good yet somewhat disappointing watch at times
cjhammondhammond11 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Some episodes hold real story, and I'm not one of those who worries about whether a story had an ending or not. I loved the first one and the second - they were visually compelling and had an intriguing story if not somewhat gory. The ones towards the end, mainly the antimated ones held promise but didn't seem to have a direction. Some were very reminiscent of the 'clorofyl' and 'too many cooks' videos on YouTube - odd, but seemed to have some idea of confusion that keeps you intrigued. Yet, overall lack of direction let's it down. It would be nice to see more in the future perhaps expanding!.
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3/10
Had a few good ideas, then they needed to finish a season
cjpalmer-538554 June 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I didn't see any reviews or recommendations for this show before stumbling upon it in my netflix browse. Upon the first two episodes I thought I had stumbled upon a hidden gem. The first two episodes are really great, good effects, average to decent acting, somewhat thought provoking, and which each episode being different they didn't need to deal with complex character growth.

Then I clicked on the third episode and it felt like a completely different series. Episodes 1 and 2 were gritty, and very well put together. Where episodes. 3,4,6,9 and 10. All felt like they were based off of one liner jokes you tell your coworkers. "wouldn't it be funny if the president was like a frat guy" (episode 6). "or what if god was really just some guy playing a board game and we were like little people he controlled like in sim city" (episode.4).

To think Oat Studios heard these one liner, not very funny or interesting and certainly not unique ideas and thought they could stretch them to full episodes is bizarre to me. They don't even achieve stretching to a full episode because each of these already short (less than 10 minutes including credits) episodes into multiple parts which breaks any hopes of immersion or interesting perspective they could've hoped to display.

"Adam Episode 2" while having OK animation in a cool scenario builds up to absolutely nothing, where you need to watch part 3 for it to start to have any kind of rematch value. Towards the end of the series i was genuinely thinking some of these episodes have got to be a parody or something as they reminded me of 2010 Smosh videos in an 2009 video game animation format.

The only episodes I thouroughly enjoyed were the longer ones , being episodes : 1,2,and 5. With "adam episode 3" being decent.
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8/10
Visually amazing, but showing it as a series on Netflix is confusing.
Junk_Head28 September 2022
All of these short films have amazing visuals, great directing and acting. Some of these story ideas are indeed likely to be similar to something you have already seen in other movies or series, but it still manages to take a new approach on a lot of these themes and subjects.

What people don't understand is that this isn't a series... These are experimental shortfilms independant from each other and that are meant (as often done in cinema, and as for example James Wan did with Saw) to gather feedback and eventually producers to make the most appreciated ones into full length movies. I can understand why people watching this on Netflix are angry about it, since they are expecting a show / series, and these informations should definitely be written in the description on Netflix in order to prevent confusing people who will not take the time to look up what this really is.

So yes, these aren't whole stories, but more glimpses, visuals and presentations of the different universes and characters that could be involved in these, if they were made in full length movies.

Now that you are advised, watch and enjoy or just pass on it if you don't care about this type of stuff and would rather watch a full length movie or series ;)
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7/10
Kill a Few Minutes
nick-4330231 January 2024
Love the small "what if" format to flex creative muscles without committing to a story or ending.

There are a few truly intriguing pieces and several I forgot 5 seconds after finishing.

The first half of Gdansk is a feature length movie I personally wish to see.

The live action "comedy" pieces are the least satisfying. It's all been seen before, and some leans politically into opinion pieces on a recent US president. Compared to the shirts around this, it seems a bit juvenile and absent creativity.

Maybe a combined hour to sit through. It won't leave you wanting more, but there are a few nuggets worth sitting through the grit to find.
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1/10
When you order "Love, Death & Robots" on Wish
kaeseapfel24 June 2022
Honestly, it feels like a very cheap knock-off. If it at least had the charm or the very well executed animation/CGI going on...

But this is just 20-ish minutes long boringness on a tight budget.

Everything it got going for itself is that always present gore/blood/splatter/bodyhorror in which most of the budget apparently went.

Overall, it most of the time feels like a project some students would do in film-course at college. A little bit shameful to put something like this on Netflix, and I really don't want to know how much this must have cost to produce - in any way, it was too much $.
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8/10
Compendium
lairobell15 December 2021
Nice selection of sci-fi and fantasy shorts. Would love to see some of them expanded upon. I especially like the God episodes, very amusing, the Vietnam episode and the very short Gdansk.
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6/10
Not as good as LDR but some decent sci fi stories
totalork16 December 2023
I'm sorry to compare this to Love Death Robots but thats the best thing I can think of, and it dosnt quite live up to that show but still has some enjoyable storylines. The episodes are pretty short and they dont always hit for me is my only complaint, but I love seeing these shows that allow for a diverse cast, plotlines and animation styles. Some of the episodes are connected but honestly I feel like it dosnt do that well, in a post apocalyptical world where humanity is in different factions and robots can have human conscience? It was honestly quite intrigueing and I loved the first episode with Sigourny Weaver, but again the show is weird and has too short of episodes for a higher rating than 6.
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4/10
The first two
gabycs1118 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Those two first episodes are good even great. The rest is only bad acting, very bad storytelling and horrible sound effects.

I rather watch a real infomercial as it certainly is much more fun.
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1/10
No point
kerryjohnreynolds20 January 2022
If you like movies that end with no conclusion, you might like these experimental shorts that end with no plot or conclusion. Double the value!

I watched these on Netflix. It wasn't clear the goal of these is to test which might be worth making properly in the future. So you get to sample a bit of what someone thought might be good, maybe, and what might be made if they get enough positive feedback.

Which they won't.
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9/10
Absolute great
danielpiil11 January 2022
Excellent. Horror and sf from the curly mind of Blomkamp. You must be prepared for a few twisted scenes, but also a lot of good fun. I particularly like the episodes God, Firebase and Zygote. Recommended.
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5/10
Where were they going with this?
jabandrade16 January 2022
I rated 5.0 for the show and 7,0 just for the first episode, which would even deserve a particular material. The rest is hard to watch. Just with a lot of good will. All very confusing, inconsistent, irregular and without clear objectives .

At a certain point they use CGI. It looks like a kind of laboratory for kid filmmakers and teen video game programmers.

What did they intend?
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9/10
Originality
Evrnyldrm18 February 2022
He needs to make new sci-fi movies with better budgets like D9 and Chappie. This series alone demonstrates his capacity for originality and intensity which are rare qualities for a sci-fi movie these days.
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2/10
If the intention is being bad at story telling...
nillbass17 February 2022
... they were successful.

The first episode is very good, it could be developed well, I think it was the only one they sat down to write the script, other than that, it looks like it was written by someone really under the influence of bad drugs, and that has an iq of a fly.

Cooking with Bill must be the worst of all, without a doubt because that's when I gave up on. LOL.
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2/10
Mainly mindless, shallow and lazy body horror
ajbeardow4 February 2022
Here's what happens when you spend all your budget on special effects and props, and realise you have nothing left for scriptwriting. It's quite blatant body horror, somewhat well done, thinly veiled as something deeper. What's worse, is some of the stellar acting performances for such poor writing.

The base ideas behind many episodes are interesting, but so poorly written and full of tropes that it makes for a very difficult watch. It's extremely shallow, and feels like they had a vision of how everything would look, and worked backwards from there.

It's difficult to summarise everything wrong with just the first two episodes alone, which are notably two of the longer episodes. They're both full of mindless patriotism, which unfortunately doesn't seem self-aware. The second episode literally demonises the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war, spins the US as a victim, and then just when you expect a deeper meaning to appear about the true horrors and atrocities committed by the US military, pulls the chair away and turns a soldier into the Doom Slayer. The first episode isn't much better, but fortunately only strokes the ego, rather than glorifying horrible moments of human history.

Fortunately, the following episodes are slightly more watchable, but still ultimately would feel at home on Shudder.

If you're into body horror and gore centred special effects, there's a few episodes here which might be worth the runtime. While this series of "short films" falls short in writing, the effects, cinematography and audio are often brilliant, backed up by some good acting in places.

I'd strongly advise anybody curious avoids the first two episodes, as they really are awful and a waste of your time. I'll try to save you some time with the below key theme summaries:

Episode 1 - Rakka - Aliens, military, revolution, technology body horror, gore, patriotism

Episode 2 - Firebase - Vietnam, war, military, supernatural, body horror

Episode 3 - Cooking with Bill - Analogue horror, infomercials, body horror, food horror (has Don't Hug Me I'm Scared vibes)

Episode 4 - God - Religion, comedy, parody

Episode 5 - Zygote - Space horror, body horror, lone survivor, isolation (takes inspiration from The Thing)

Episode 6 - Bad President - Government, politics, incompetent president, parody (0/10 felt completely out of place and missed the mark)

Episode 7/8 - Adam - Robots, spiritualism, exile, technology

Episode 9 - Gdansk - Middle Ages, gore, giants, space, technology (feels like a tech demo)

Episode 10 - Kapture - Science, firearms & weaponry, experiments & testing, technology, gore

Maybe worth a watch: 3,4,5 Avoid: 1,2,6,9,10.
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8/10
Fresh, makes one think
risingZ12 August 2022
It is an experimental show to find out which genre the public likes more in order for the makers to create a feature film. The show is a collection of short movies carrying different, fun ideas. Definitely worth a watch.
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1/10
One of my biggest pet peeves as a show
scottydonges4 May 2023
This is like one of my biggest pet peeves in show form. It's like watching TV with someone who let's you watch just enough of a show for you to get interested in it, and then changes the channel. I know they are only short stories, but they are not stories in of themselves. They're basically the first 20 minutes of what should be a much longer story. They give the background and lead up into a story, and just cut off. There is no progression of the story, which is what differs from most short story shows. This should be shown to a creative writing class to get them started on writing the actual story. Not recommended at all.
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9/10
Small pearl
gianmarcoronconi22 January 2022
Small pearl of its kind, this series offers really beautiful and inspired episodes and some a little more poor but still watchable. The series looks very good also thanks to the gigantic variety of themes between one episode and another.
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5/10
Black Mirror With A Dash Of Love, Death & Robots
Swooping_Owl21 August 2022
For being an independent studio the quality of CGI/animation is actually decent. It didn't make me cringe looking at it. The acting was good. It had a few famous people, but for the most part unknown actors. Some stories were moronic and tried to hard, others were solid story telling with inconclusive endings. All in all, this felt like a wannabe Black Mirror and Love, Death & Robots mash up.
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2/10
Absolute garbage
grad12431 December 2021
Nonsense. I don't even know why I bothered to watch it but about five episodes in I had to start skipping through entire scenes. This has to be 150 characters.
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9/10
Interesting try-outs
superrudike22 January 2022
I found these try-outs to be very interesting. Some of them were actually quite good, some of them (cooking, president) were not so great. But is that not the purpose of trying things out? Better to do it this way than to make a complete season that sucks.
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