'Next Gen' Trailer: What If Netflix Remade 'WALL-E'?

Take a dash of WALL-E, a smidgen of Big Hero Six, and a pinch of The Iron Giant, and you get Next Gen. The new animated film from Netflix looks to be borrowing heavily from those titles, and more, but the audience it's marketed towards probably won't care, so that's fine. Watch the Next Gen trailer below.

Next Gen to other family friendly films about robots: "Hey, can I copy your homework?"

Those other films: "Yeah, just change it a bit so it doesn't look obvious."

Look, I don't want to be too harsh to Next Gen. It's clearly a film marketed for a younger audience, and almost every movie borrows something from films before it. Still – yikes. Watching this is like watching a mash-up of every cartoon about a robot ever made. But hey, if it works, it works. In Next Gen, a "friendship with a top-secret robot turns a lonely girl's life into a thrilling adventure as they take on bullies, evil bots, and a scheming madman."

I'll say this: Next Gen has assembled a pretty stellar voice cast. John Krasinski, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Pena, David Cross, Charlyne Yi, and Constance Wu all lend their vocal talents to the film. The project hails from writer/directors Kevin Adams and Joe Ksander, who previously made a live-action short film with a very similar premise – "The story of Mazzy, a troubled teenager who flees the city with the help of her only ally – a broken down construction robot named Three." It's called Gear, and I'll admit it's well-made. It's also intended for a more adult audience – someone says the F-word! When interviewed about Gear, the filmmakers said:

"The seed came from a more complex idea that Kevin had been working on for a while, partly inspired by his daughter. When we started working together, we pitched each other various projects, and Joe really responded to this idea of a dysfunctional friendship between a girl and her robot. We first developed it as a feature, and the short is sort of a slice from that treatment. But we wanted to make sure that the story stood on its own, with the larger world as a backdrop that hopefully makes you want to see more."

It seems as if the duo took their Gear feature idea and reworked it into a more family-friendly package. You can watch it below.

As for Next Gen, it will probably turn out okay. There's nothing terrible in this trailer, and I have to admit the final gag with the robot fence made me laugh. And hey, maybe watching Next Gen will inspire audiences to seek out those other, likely better films that inspired it.

Next Gen hits Netflix on September 7, 2018.

NEXT GEN is an animated action-adventure film about the bittersweet power of memories. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a rebellious girl and a runaway combat robot, as they unite to stop a madman's plan for technological world domination.