Nike's beautiful new animated short imagines a dystopian World Cup with robotic clones

Nike&#039;s beautiful new animated short imagines a dystopian World Cup with robotic clones — (Image credit: Nike)

Nike is selling soccer shoes in this new video, "The Last Game," but that's not why should you watch it. The animated short is also selling the World Cup, and its sharply divided, soccer-loving host country, Brazil. It's also well-made and tells a good short story, in the man vs. machine, human vs. corporation vein.

If you need another reason: For anyone who wants to get excited about the World Cup but doesn't know soccer's star players, here's a pretty good introduction: The Briton in the white jersey is England's Wayne Rooney; the Brazilian with the Sideshow Bob hair is David Luiz, and his teammate is Neymar Júnior; Andrés Iniesta of Spain is wearing the blue and red stripes of FC Barcelona; Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo is wearing red; and both France's Franck Ribéry and Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimović are wearing blue. Oh, and Americans, the man in green is Tim Howard, Team USA's ace goalkeeper. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.