How you spend your time when you can't build a rocket

January 3, 2017 1:28 PM

Scavengers is a brief animation about explorers stranded on a remote planet that was recently featured on Short of the Week.

Creator #1 Joseph Bennett was also behind the revenge fantasy animation Odin’s Afterbirth and the ghost story The Jump.
The Jump was part of the Ghost Stories animation compilation put out by Creator #2 Charles Huettner’s Late Night Work Club animation collective. Previously
Late Night Work Club has just released a new animation compilation, Strangers. Previously

posted by Going To Maine (14 comments total)

That was cool.
posted by dazed_one at 1:38 PM on January 3, 2017

That was a little like watching a Primitive Technology video.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:56 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

This really makes me think of drugs-

First: Grow the poppy plant. Then, when the unripe seed bulb is at it's most unripeness (but watch out for rain, wind, or dew, and don't cut too deep!), score it with a blade to let the opiate gum ooze out. Scrape that gum - scrape it good. Now, dry that gum. And then pulverize it into a powder.
Annnnnnd: smoke that shit!

or

First: Grow the coffeea plant. Now, harvest the berries. Strip the flesh from the berry and ferment to remove the mucilage. Now, wash them. And now, dry them. And then, roast them. And then, grind them. And then, pour boiling water over them. And then, strain that ground bean juice water.
Annnnnnnd: drink that cup!
posted by jammy at 2:07 PM on January 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

First: Grow a starchy plant. Now, harvest the starch bearing components. Soak them in warm (but not too warm) water to get them to germinate, but then dry them really fast to stop it. Now, soak them in warmer (but not too warm) water to extract the sugars. Throw away the solids. Now, boil the sugar water. Cool it all down and add some single-celled fungi. Wait until the fungi have eaten enough sugar and emitted sufficient alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Annnnd: then you have two options: 1.) Drink it. 2.) Boil it, directing certain portions of the steam into a device that will cool the vapors and change them back to liquid. Consider putting the resulting liquid into a cellulosic vessel for a while. Drink what doesn't evaporate.
posted by sparklemotion at 2:26 PM on January 3, 2017 [6 favorites]

Thank you I love all of this. I just watched X-Story https://vimeo.com/190513423 which has a similar adventurous vibe to it. It really reminded me of The Reward which is another fave: https://vimeo.com/58179094
posted by macrael at 2:58 PM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

It was lovely, but the ending was a little too ambiguous for me, can someone help?
[spoiler space follows]













Were they going through all that effort just to transport themselves back to Earth for a moment? I mean, was this a plan to return home, or just to experience home, however briefly?

Or, was this a kind of mental time travel, in a "this was a future Earth all along!" type of twist?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:29 PM on January 3, 2017

I read it as them experiencing home for just a moment. Her head inside the orb had a bunch of neuro-looking vines connect to her and then she was experiencing this moment in time from earth. Not clear to me what happened when he body was passed through at the very end, maybe it broke the connection permanently or maybe just bounced her out for a moment.
posted by macrael at 3:33 PM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

My assumption is that they are indeed just tripping out for a moment. The object at the center of the blue space is the same fruit that the man threw to wake the quadruped back at the start, so this is a routine, cyclic activity for them.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:41 PM on January 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

I love this stuff. Takes me back to my childhood in the 70s reading 60s head SF where bold explorers basically visit new worlds, discover new lifeforms, and trip their tits off as they merge/grok/get completely symbiotic with the alien fauna and flora. I didn't get the psychedelic undertones then - well, I did but I didn't know what it was that I was recognising.

(Reader, I found that out later.)

These days, it's like 'but alien ecosystens wouldn't be like that and we'd be so grossly incompatible on every level' and other such doubtless clod-brained adult thoughts, rather than just jpyful jaunts in the Jungian jungle.

It's good to get back to the garden, now and again.
posted by Devonian at 3:54 PM on January 3, 2017 [3 favorites]

It was like the unauthorized cartoon sequel to Avatar.
posted by Bringer Tom at 4:24 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

It reminded me a lot of Fantastic Planet, though I only ever saw part of it and that was quite some time ago.

Similar audio, weird theremin-like sounds, and no speech. Weird creatures and so on.
posted by nonspecialist at 4:39 PM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is how I feel all the time.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:36 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

USE prawnasaur goop ON catbird
posted by lucidium at 11:31 AM on January 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

I don't know the word "goop".
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:26 PM on January 4, 2017