Monday, July 30, 2007

The 50 best movie robots

From Timesonline via Cory Doctorow's Boing Boing I have Times Entertainment list of the 50 best SF movie robots. This is how they rated them in the article -

Plausibility (meaning how likely it would be that, with advances on currently existing technology, such a device could be built)

Coolness (just how well designed, shiny or generally well-appointed the robot appeared to be)

Dangerousness (scoring not only on built-in weaponry, but the robot's eagerness to use it)

Comedy Value (how effective the robot is at providing light relief in the film in which it appears)

Here is some of the more interesting items I pulled from reading the article

Andrew Martin (Bicentennial Man) Andrew's model number is NDR-114. This is thought to be a tribute to Stanley Kubrick, who used the lucky number in several of his films for example A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove.

Preston (A Close Shave) The evil robotic dog is named for director Nick Park's home town

C3-PO (Star Wars ) gets his name from the map grid reference of George Lucas' local Post Office.

Ash (Alien) Ash's 'blood' is mixed water and food colouring. Milk could not used in large quantities as it would have soured under the hot studio lights, although a small amount is used for close-ups of his inner workings - together with a mixture of pasta and marbles.

Robbie the Robot (Forbidden Planet) Robbie had a long career beyond Forbidden Planet, appearing in many popular US TV series such as "The Thin Man", "Lost in Space", "The Twilight Zone", "The Addams Family", "The Love Boat", "Columbo", "Mork and Mindy", and, most recently, "Clueless".

Gort (The Day The Earth Stood Still) The actor inside the seamless suit was Lock Martin, the doorman from Grauman's Chinese Theatre, chosen for his great height., Unfortunately he was not a particularly strong man and had to rely on hidden wires camera dollies, and lightweight dummies to help him in scenes where Gort was called upon to carry a human being.

Swarms of robot spiders (Lost In Space) the robot in the original series did have a (rarely-mentioned) name: in the third-season of the ... TV show it was shown in its packing crate, and the crate was labelled "ONE General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental ROBOT" with the G, U, N, T, E, and all letters in "ROBOT" in red capital letters, while all the other letters were black; suggesting the acronym "GUNTER"

Terminator Series 800/Model 101 (The Terminator) O.J. Simpson was considered for the role of the Terminator, but the producers thought he might be "too nice" to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer.

Runaway with Gene Simmons was supposed to be the blockbuster for that year but it got slammed but low budget robot movie.....the Terminator

The word Transformer is only used once in the movie...

No comments: