As Stranger Things draws to a close, Millie Bobby Brown has joined Chris Pratt in a new Netflix project about “Disneyland animatronics” revolting against their creators.

Millie Bobby Brown’s Transition from Stranger Things

Millie Bobby Brown has garnered immense recognition for her role as Eleven in the critically acclaimed series Stranger Things. Portraying a young girl with psychokinetic abilities and a mysterious past, her character has become a cultural icon.

The series’ immense popularity has provided Brown with a platform to showcase her acting prowess and paved the way for her to pursue a wide array of projects.

Related: Jon Bon Jovi Saves Suicidal Woman While Filming Music Video

Brown recently finished filming season five of Stranger Things, which is expected to premiere in 2025. Since then, she’s been hard at work filming and promoting another Netflix project, The Electric State (2025), directed by the Russo brothers. The film is also scheduled to premiere in 2025.

The Electric State

The Electric State is set in an imagined version of 1994. The film’s plot centers around Michelle, played by Millie Bobby Brown, as she embarks on a journey to locate her lost brother, who she initially believed to be dead. Her brother sends signals through Kid Cosmo (Alan Tudyk), a robot that can only speak in catchphrases.

Brown told Vanity Fair that the Russo brothers encouraged her to lean into Michelle’s humanity.

“The note that I would always get is, she’s still human,” Brown said. “She’s rebellious and yes, she doesn’t want to follow the rules and she’s incredibly hurt because she’s dealing with a lot of grief. But she’s not invincible.”

Accompanying her on this quest is Keats, portrayed by Chris Pratt, a war veteran turned truck driver embroiled in a smuggling operation involving a former enemy, Herman, a construction machine. Herman is a “Russian nesting doll”-style robot able to hop into different-sized versions of himself.

Before the events of The Electric State, Walt Disney’s animatronic projects for Disneyland Resort grew surprisingly advanced, much faster than they did in the real world. They revolted just a few decades later.

By the film’s beginning, humanity has won the war against robots. Still, people struggle to find their way in the world–often escaping into Virtual Reality-style headsets.

The robots are struggling, too, desperate to be seen as conscious individuals who deserve rights. Led by Mr. Peanut (Woody Harrelson), the cartoon-like animatronic characters have deep inner lives and exercise free will. The filmmakers sought permission from Planters’ parent company, Hormel, to use the brand icon.

Pratt says the human-robot conflict reflects the psychology of war in the real world.

“There’s a level of humanity that’s lost in war,” he explained. “You almost have to look at your enemy as a robot, as some devious killing machine. It’s you or them…Once the war is over and the decision-makers have decided to sign a truce, I think it’s very easy to recognize yourself in the soldiers that you’re fighting against.”

The Russos decided to set the story in 1994 because “It could be an assaultive theme if the story were set in the present day. Sometimes we find that when you couch it in a fable, and you remove it from its immediacy, you can create space for people to process it differently.”

The robots have a cartoonish, lovable effect by design. The film teeters on speculative, terrifying sci-fi and a classic “buddy cop” comedy.

Related: Matthew Modine “Forced” into Filming ‘Stranger Things,’ Netflix Scandal Arises

“The intent was to create complex feelings for you, where it’s both funny and tragic at the same time,” Joe Russo told Vanity Fair.

Longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe screenwriter Christopher Markus sparked the Russo brothers’ interest in the 2018 book “The Electric State” by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag.

“The texture in the images was really powerful, and it felt like a story about broken families and broken people trying to find each other in a broken world,” Joe Russo said. “It also felt resonant to us, raising our kids in a technology-heavy world.”

“What Simon Stalenhag did that was so clever is that humans are using technology to dehumanize themselves, and he tells a story about technology that aspires to become human,” he continued. “At what point do they cross, and at what point does the technology become more human than the humans?”

Other famous faces (and voices!) join The Electric State: Jenny Slate as Penny Pal, Brian Cox as Popfly, Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst, Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate, and Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Bradbury.

The Electric State navigates the complexities of resilience, grief, and what it means to be human in a world where technology often reigns supreme. Netflix will release the film in March 2025.

Are you excited about The Electric State? Share your thoughts on the movie with Inside the Magic in the comments.