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 Netflix
Distributed by	Netflix
Release date	September 7, 2018 (2018-09-07) (United States)
Running time	104 minutes
Countries	The United States Canada China
Languages	English Mandarin

Next Gen is a 2018 computer-animated science fiction action comedy drama film written and directed by Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander. The film was released by Netflix on September 7, 2018.

Plot

The movie begins in the future, with a world where robots named Q-Bots developed by IQ Robotics and humans co-exist. We begin with a young girl named Mai. She was a happy kid until her parents; Molly and Matthew, got into an argument resulting in Mai's father leaving the house. After the argument, Mai's mother, Molly decides to get the family a Q-Bot. To which Molly finds interesting, avoiding spending time with Mai. Some time later, it is revealed that Mai's father has died. Meanwhile at school, she has been bullied by her peers and their Q-Bots.

Years later, Mai is now a rebellious teenager, who has grown a strong hate for robots. She and Molly head out to the launch for the Gen 6 Q-Bots. Mai, being disinterested in the whole ordeal, decides to leave the escalater. After being cornered by security Q-Bots, she decides to escape to a nearby shute for the smaller robots, entering in Dr. Tanner Rice's secret lab where he has developed a robot of his own: Project 7723. After being annoyed by his assisatant Q-Bot Alfredo, Dr. Rice leaves the lab in which Mai decides to investigate Project 7723. While she was inspecting 7723, she accidentally activates him. Mai eventually gets caught by a security Q-bot and brought back to the launch, leaving her backpack behind.

During the launch, IQ Robotics CEO Justin Pin, Introduces the newest model of Q-Bots named "Gen 6." Offering free Gen 6 models to everyone that showed up presentation. Justin and his security bot, Ares head down to the manufacturing factory and meets with Dr. Rice, who shows reluctance to releasing the Gen 6 Q-Bots. Alfredo then reveals that 7723 has left the secret lab.

7723 then heads out to reach to Mai and return her backpack to her. A security bot tries to stop him, until he slices the bot in half. Now on the highway, 7723 is confronted by various security bots trying to stop him. The security bots then fire missiles at the bridge, causing the bridge to break and send 7723 falling. Later that evening, 7723 discovers that he has broken his core memory function, resulting in him losing all of his memories in 3 days unless he receives a factory reset.

Back in school, Mai is playing soccer by herself until she hits another girl named Ani, who happened to be sitting nearby. They are then confronted by Greenwood, a bully who insults Mai about her dead father. Upset, Mai kicks her soccer ball right into Greenwood's face. Greenwood then orders her and her friends Q-Bot's to gold Mai down to get a beat down from Greenwood. Mai returns from school, feeling upset. Her mother, Molly attempts to cheer her up, but she fails to do so. Mai then storms up to her room while Molly is also feeling upset.

7723 then finally arrives to Mai's house, he returns the backpack, but Mai is still irritated with him. After being attacked by her robotic toothbrush, 7723 fires a laser at the toothbrush. Fascinated by 7723's laser gun, Mai allows 7723 to stay in her garage. It is then revealed that in order to prolong 7723 from losing his memories and shutting down, he must delete his memories to create space.

Back at IQ, Justin confronts Dr. Rice about 7723. He tells him to worry about fixing an error with the Gen 6 that has them explode when close to a human.

Mai then returns to the soccer field with 7723 to get revenge against Greenwood for the following day. Greenwood tries to send one of the robots to attack Mai, but 7723 managed to destroy it within a moments' notice. Mai, extremely interested in 7723's abilities, takes him along for misadventures which mostly involve destroying robots. All of which 7723 has the struggle of choosing which memories to keep and forget.

During the Wang Nima show, Justin is addressed with 7223's actions on the highway. He is then shown new events which involve Mai and 7723's misadventures and destruction of Q-Bots. To which he claims that the robot is not his.

After another day of mischief, Mai and 7223 return home in which 7223's program reveals that his memories will be erased within 18 hours. He also reveals that he can't have 100% of memory storage or else he shuts down.

Dr. Rice is then threatened by Justin after the incidents with 7723. He is then tasked with finding him. Who reveals that he can see what's happening through the bots' eyes. 7723 then tells Mai he wants to play baseball instead of their usual routine. To which Mai explains they do it to stop injustice. Dr. Rice then proceeds to look through the footage, which reveals that 7723 does not enjoy the mischief that Mai is making him to do.

The next day at school, Greenwood continues to bully Ani, in which Mai takes 7723 again to once again get her revenge. 7723 is now reluctant to commit mischief. After trapping Greenwood, Mai orders 7723 to hurt Greenwood to which he refuses. Just as Mai was ready to hit Greenwood in the head with the bat, Greenwood starts crying and runs away. Later into the night, when choosing which memories to delete, 7723 decides to delete his weapon control system until system reset.

7723 finds out that Mai has ran away from home. He eventually finds her by a hill, and has made a colorful light to project on the night sky. The two forgive each other and continue to watch.

Mai then returns home, to find Dr. Rice in her home, inspecting 7723, about to fix his memory unit, restarting his memories. Before he can do that, Justin then comes by to take Dr. Rice away, until he decides to appeal to the early days. Justin then reveals his plans to kill the entire human race. He then orders Ares to attack. 7723 then proceeds to fight without his memories while Mai tries to attack Justin but to no effect, while trying to escape, Mai's mother is then kidnapped by Justin. The duo then escape to the sewers, which Mai is enraged by 7723 deleting his weapons function and allowing her mother to be kidnapped. Mai then leaves 7723, crying.

At IQ headquarters, Mai has infiltrated the building, determined to save her mother. She is then reunited with 7723, still angry about previous events. They then proceed to fight security bots side by side, the two reconcile and head onto Dr. Rice's lab, who is then killed by Justin who reveals he is the robot Ares, who killed the real Justin Pin and stole his body. 7723 and Ares then fall out of the building and onto the soccer game.

Mai successfully reconciles with her mother, and Ares unknowingly confesses everything. Mai manages to tell the public the Q-bots are bombs and knock out Ares' eye, to which he openly confesses everything. He attempts to kill Mai until her mother beats him up. Back on the field, 7723 tries to stop him, but to no avail. Mai and Ares fall off the building in which 7723 resets himself to get his weapons back, at the cost of his memories. As he's fighting, he's slowing losing all the memories he shared with Mai. He then shuts down after his final attack, in which Ares is revealed to be alive and attempts to kill 7723 until Mai shuts him down for good. 7723 then reawakens to have no recollection of Mai or anything that's happened.

Some time later, Mai is shown to be hanging out with Greenwood, Ani, and her friends, along with 7723. The movie ends with all of them creating new memories and playing soccer together.

Voice cast

• John Krasinski as 7723
• Charlyne Yi as Mai Su, Molly's daughter
• Jason Sudeikis as Justin Pin / Ares
• Michael Peña as Momo
• David Cross as Dr. Tanner Rice / Q-Bots
• Constance Wu as Molly Su, Mai's mom
• Anna Akana as Ani
• Kitana Turnbull as RJ
• Jet Jurgensmeyer as Junior
• Betsy Sodaro as Gate

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 Pena, David Cross, Kitana Turnbull and Constance Wu would lead the voice cast.

Speaking of 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 as 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.”

Release

The film was released by Netflix on September 7, 2018.

External links

• Next Gen at IMDb