The new Netflix movie The Electric State depicts a world full of robots but not robots as we know them.Directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (who previously helmed two Avengers blockbusters, Infinity War and Endgame) for a reported budget of $320 million, The Electric State takes place in an alternate version of the 1990s, one where sentient robots have existed for decades. Thats long enough for them to have rebelled against their human masters, lost the war, and found themselves exiled to an area of the Southwest an area that the films heroes (played by Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt) must sneak into.Crucially for visual effects supervisor Matthew E. Butler, design-wise, these robots are deliberately the antithesis of the robots that exist today.Most of us have seen modern-day robots and are used to these designs, Butler told me. If you look at Boston Dynamics robots, youll notice that they concentrate the mass of the robot at the center of the robot, and then as you go out to the extremities, they get less and less massive, because thats just a defensible design.In contrast, the movies robot Cosmo has a giant head on a tiny neck, which Butler described as the worst design for a robot.Like the movie itself, that design is based on Simon Stlenhags illustrated novel of the same name. But Butler explained that theres an in-movie explanation for Cosmo and the other quirky robots that are often drawn from real and imagined pop culture: They were created to be unthreatening, which is why they all look kind of cutesy and goofy and fun.Image Credits:NetflixAll of that meant Butlers team had to start with a design that was innately impractical but eventually create something that felt physically believable and real. He said that to do that, they decided to honor Cosmos design in silhouette fashion.If you squint and you put him a distance away from [the] camera, he looks like Cosmo, the way he is in the book, Butler said. But if you go up close and you scrutinize a shoulder, youll see that there are push rods in there, and you can see the motors, you can see the circuitry, same with the ankles and the feet.The goal is to convince audiences that the thing can really work. Once theyre convinced, theyll accept Cosmos design, and the design of the other robots, without seeing all the details.And yes, there are plenty of other robots. Butler said his team had to bring hundreds and hundreds of unique robots to life unique not because every robot in this alternate world is one-of-a-kind, but because in the movie, we typically just showcase individuals.And unfortunately, there were no shortcuts.We scratched our heads so many times like, How the hell do we do this? he said. If youve got 100 different robots and theyre all moving, theyve got to be able to move, which means youve got to be able to rig them, so someone has to design them, someone has to paint them, someone has to animate them.To bring those robots to life, Butler said the team used a combination of traditional optical motion capture and a newer system using accelerometer-based suits. That allowed a troupe of seven motion capture performers to work with the live action actors on location and on set, with their performance then providing the basis for the animated robots whether theyre human-sized, gigantic, or fit into the palm of a characters hand.Image Credits:NetflixButler emphasized that the process was far more complicated than simply transposing an actors movements onto a robot body.Take little Herman as an example, he said. Youve got the [motion capture] performer, and hes adding his flair, his performance, and its someone that Chris Pratt can now act with. Then you say, Well, OK, but the actual robot cant do a lot of the things that this guy can do. So now you need to change it based on the limitations of the design of the robot itself.And its not over yet: And then you talk to the directors, and theres a particular change of characteristics, which you now need to honor, so then you change that, and then youve got your fabulous voice actors who add so much, and now its like, Well, if the character [sounds like] that then the cadence needs to change.Butler said the robots we ultimately see on screen were created by the work of all those artists and performers coming together: And thats why we really just rolled up our sleeves and got on with it.