World of Tomorrow Episode Three takes the open-ended series of stick-man animated science fiction to even greater heights than the previous two episodes. Whilst the first two episodes felt largely expositional, Episode Three has a throbbing dramatic pulse. Multiple timelines and clones are involved in a race to stop an assassination across hundreds of years! The humour is well-judged, largely the result of a spaghetti-like plot deliberately designed to be nigh on impossible to keep up with in the cinema. Hertzfeldt plays with us.
World of Tomorrow Episode Three blurs the line between science fiction and horror, highlighting the shared ability of both genres to tell stories without boundaries. Science fiction has the potential to produce the greatest horror, because everything can be put in peril. Suddenly, a timeline can be disrupted and we never existed, or human suffering can dramatically increase (referred to in contemporary ethical literature as an "S risk"). Though David exploits his clones, we still sympathise with him as he's subjected to these horrors and torture from the future, which may either be sadistic revenge or an utterly miscalibrated intervention. It's darkly funny and horrific.
The film introduces intriguing concepts about the future through invasive advertising, making us question the nature of human achievement and experience. What value is there in achieving concert pianist skills instantly, via a cash transaction? Is a perfect moment you lived through inherently more meaningful than one you merely downloaded? Hertzfeldt continues to probe these philosophico-neurological questions with his characteristic acerbic wit. He also plays with complex sci-fi ideas, such as the possibility that time might be quantised, existing in discrete bits rather than as a continuous stream.
The film's title, The Absent Destinations of David Prime, ties back to an incident in Episode Two, where a man - revealed to be David Tertius, the third of his line - transports himself to a state of nullity. It's hinted that this event may have created multiple timelines or even a multiverse filled with grinding suffering, an S risk coming to dark fruition, though we're left in uncertainty.
The final scene of star-cross'd lovers Emily and David brims with suspense, leaving viewers on the edge of their seats and eager for what's next, will they shoot at one another or embrace? One can only hope a fourth episode is on its way from this masterful filmmaker.
