Murder Drones

The field of independent animation is currently in a renaissance, and it’s truly beautiful to witness. A variety of people have longed to express their creativity on a large scale, and the expansion of digital platforms have made that possible, but the medium has evolved beyond just creating small personal animatics or skits, now having the potential to produce full-fledged animated cartoons, with heightened budgets, established plotlines and characters, and high-profile talent and studio involvement. Two of the finest examples of this are the 2D-animated dark comedy/musical shows, Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel, both created by American YouTuber, Vivienne Medrano, which saw such amazing traction that they were picked up by Prime Video and A24, an absolutely remarkable feat that was once seen as impossible, and has inspired other hopeful content creators to take their own swing. One of the other early examples that earned a lot of acclaim and attention on YouTube was the sci-fi web series, Murder Drones, created by the Australian animation studio, Glitch Productions, founded by Kevin and Luke Lerdwichagul, and it’s not hard to see why.

In the far future where humanity has relocated to an Earth-analog planet and created autonomous robots named Worker Drones to serve and harvest the planet for its resources, all life is wiped out when the planet suffers a cataclysmic core collapse, leaving only the drones behind who decide to start their own colony on the now frozen planet. Their peace doesn’t last long however when three violent killing machines sent by the remnants of humanity named ‘’Disassembly Drones’’ (or Murder Drones as they’re nicknamed) land on the planet and start eradicating the worker drones, forcing them into a secluded bunker underground. While most are willing to live their lives in solitude, an angsty teen drone named Uzi (voiced by Elsie Lovelock) decides to venture out and try and kill these murder drones, only to end up interacting with N (voiced by Michael Kovach), the nicest of the group who starts to call out the heinous crimes he and his two superiors; V and J (voiced by Nola Klop and Shara Kirby) have committed in the name of humanity (who seemingly don’t want them back either). Deciding to fight alongside Uzi, this pairing will send them down a conspiracy hole that ties them both to a reboot program known as the Absolute Solver, a malfunctioning ‘zombie’ drone named Cyn (voiced by Allanah Fitzgerald) and a set of events that could lead to another cataclysmic collapse.

Released between 2021 and 2024 before being made available on Prime Video, Murder Drones was a popular internet sensation and even won a few awards at the Webby Awards during the last three years of its run, demonstrating the appreciation and respect people had for this little web series that was attempting something grand. When looked at against later contenders, Murder Drones does fall behind in terms of story structure, character establishment and even basic coherency, but the likeable characters, solid voice cast, eye-catching visual style, glorious fight sequences and music, and a steady evolution between each episode, makes it worthy of its success.

Created by Liam Vickers who had previously rose to prominence in the online space for his 2D animated series Cliffside and Internecion Cube (both of which are still unfinished, but showcase his style of animation and comedy quite nicely), he pitched Murder Drones to Glitch Productions, who at the time had already created web series like Meta Runner and Sunset Paradise, but this would be one of their first outside investments. This partnership proved incredibly successful as while both prior projects were well received, Murder Drones blew up on YouTube, with each episodes garnering millions of views and cemented Glitch Productions as a studio that weren’t just responsible for intriguing personal projects but could take someone else’s idea and propel it to extraordinary heights. Seen as a departure from their old style, Murder Drones presents the essence of Glitch’s and Vickers style but manages to still feel distinct thanks to how they’ve been combined, which brings the best out of a pretty fun concept. While the idea of robots outliving humanity isn’t anything new, the directions this story goes down is pretty intriguing, with a ton of elaborate backstory, character reveals and conflicting motivations bringing a sense of weight to an environment that’s grizzly and graphic but also doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s also wonderful seeing things improve with each passing episode, going from a pilot that was impressive for its status but looked cheap and slightly stiff, to a finale that looks, feels and sounds absolutely incredible, it’s a real testament to these creatives and what can be done when they’re given the resources. With that said, it’s hard to fully get behind this series as a whole considering it’s often hard to tell what’s even happening.

With eight episodes to work with (all written and directed by Vickers), things feel quicker than they would in a properly funded animated show, but the problems stem from more than just pacing, as the fundamental delivery is a bit messy, and it can distract from good ideas and plot points. While the setup is comprehensive (even if it just throws you without warning), and the nuggets that are focused on are intriguing, it’s often difficult pinning down what the driving force of the plot is, what relation all the character have to the main MacGuffin, or even what is happening between each episode. Since Vickers hadn’t really handle a series before (with each of his former projects only being a pilot), it explains why the flow isn’t very seamless, and the onslaught of information and content means that some things can be lost in the crossfire. The dialogue isn’t really that funny, most of the character/story building feels forced, the storyline often changes depending on the episode, the visual language is ineffective and fails to convey necessary information, and even if the climax is an incredible spectacle, most audiences probably wouldn’t be able to confidently say what anyone is fighting over.

Considering the amount of fanart this show generated, the art style and character designs clearly resonated with a lot of people, particularly awkward geeky people who grew up during the early 2000s as that atmosphere and energy is presented in a lot of the edgier looks, fashion choices, and ‘cringey’ dialogue. Even with this nostalgic view, the show still keeps focus on its futuristic environment, morally ambiguous characters and confused narrative, and despite the cringe factor, it doesn’t stop some of these characters from being pretty likeable. The simple robotic designs matched with their distinctly coloured eyes, clothing choices and hair styles helps define each of them, and the very characterful voice acting highlights a lot of charm and enjoyability, with this being the truest for the Murder Drones. N is a very endearing cinnamon roll who manages to retain his deadly efficiency whilst still feeling very emotional and supportive, and V portrays the ‘’sardonic figure with antagonist spirit housing a subtle soft side’’ pretty well, with both Michael Kovach and Nola Klopp doing so much to push those traits forward. J is a pretty effective secondary antagonist, Cyn (despite being weakened by the scrambled plot) is pretty intimidating in all the forms she takes (her final form is specifically creepy), and some secondary characters like a Russian-speaking vengeful Worker Drone named Doll (voiced by Emma Breezy), or Uzi’s long-lost mother, Nori (voiced by Darcy Maguire) make for some memorable support.

Sadly, not all the characters are equally good, and despite being the characters the show starts on, the worker drones are just not very interesting. They have very little identity, their comedy is frequently ineffective, those that are more involved in the plot can feel annoyingly singular, mainly Uzi’s father, Khan (voiced by David J. Dixon), and even though most get sidelined as it progresses, it’s a little hard to ignore when the main character also suffers from this problem. Uzi is better than the other worker drones and has more of a defined personality, but her writing can be a little basic, her involvement in the story is a bit confused and hard to follow (she adopts a power set that isn’t explained very well) and with her leaning the heaviest into this ‘cringe’ type of humor and vocabulary, it’s pretty easy for most of her lines to fall flat when it comes to the already messy comedy. She’s not bad by any means and her connection with N and V is very sweet (Uzi and N were shipped like crazy, and it’s understandable since they’re adorable together), but she’s not on the level of her murderous deuteragonist.

Criticizing the animation on a web series should come with a few cavoites, as to see anything of high quality without big studio backing should be praised for the attempt alone, but it’s important to analysis cleanly and fairly in order for things to improve, which is seemingly what Glitch would do after this project. Murder Drones has a very distinct style that combines this futuristic, science fiction environment, with a heavily saturated art style that feels reminiscent of online OCs and other personal creations (which explains why it was swarmed with fanart), and given the status of how Glitch started out, that identity feels very fitting and it leads to some great imagery. As previously stated, the first episode is a little iffy, with sluggish character movements, bland shot layouts, and a heavier focus on large scale clutter rather than small scale detail, but this would be fixed almost immediately, with each future episode featuring stronger lighting, more cinematic shot composition, better textured characters, and very fluid and expressive movements (the finale is such a stark contrast, it’s almost uncanny).

Sometimes the tone and genre-specific styling of the environment can further complicate the show’s poor visual storytelling, with its strong horror aesthetic resulting in a lot of grimy locations, harsh shadows and claustrophobic situations limiting what can be shown, but the very prominent colors that do pop up are wonderfully rich and atmospheric, so it really just depends on the moment. The music by AJ DiSpirito is also a major standout, combing a heavy rock styling with a grand angelic symphony to produce something that feels elegant and hardcore all at the same time.

Murder Drones got the ball rolling for a lot of other online-based animated shows to step into the big leagues and get recognized beyond YouTube, so even if it doesn’t live up to stuff like Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel or The Amazing Digital Circus (the next big Glitch series that has blown up on YouTube and subsequently got put on Netflix), it can stand amongst them for what it’s contributed. It doesn’t deliver its interesting premise in a very clear fashion, doesn’t explore its characters very well despite how likeable they are, and can sacrifice in-depth visual storytelling for bombastic visual eye-candy, but its stronger qualities are meaningful and help define Glitch Production as a studio that could prop up indie animation to a global audience. It’ll be exciting to see what new project Glitch and other independent animators release in the future, but until then, this starter isn’t a bad one to take a bite out of.