(The film at times seems to be more about the threat of sexuality than about the threat of mechanization.) But in her embodiment of the potentially monstrous power of science, Maria - and, by extension, the film - presents a prescient cautionary tale about the forces that the 20th century would soon unlock.įrom its nearly wordless first half to its hilarious slapstick finale, from its heartrending portrait of an environmentally devastated Earth to its biting vision of humanity grown alarmingly pudgy from comfort and stasis, this is one of Pixar’s greatest films. There’s no science behind this robot, of course her powers are basically fantastical. Robot-Maria then proceeds to use her magical, nefarious powers to entrance the populace of this dystopian society.
But later, he turns this robot woman into a fake version of the film’s heroine, a charismatic revolutionary named Maria, to try to quell an uprising. In Fritz Lang’s crazy, visionary 1927 masterpiece, a mad scientist creates a female robot version of his late beloved.
Years later, with the sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron revolutionized the culture yet again: This time, he helped turn a politically ambitious Schwarzenegger into an almost cuddly, family-friendly figure, and he also used state-of-the-art CGI to give us the T-1000, whose “polymetal alloy” existence was closer to magic than to mechanics.
But when James Cameron cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as the killer robot from the future in the first Terminator film (which, to be fair, owed a lot to Westworld) he not only helped realize our deepest fears about robots (that they would be better, more powerful humans than even humans themselves) but he also found the perfect part for an Austrian behemoth with limited range and drone-like delivery. They were made of metal and gears and spinning doodads and spoke like machines.
ROBOTEK CARTOONS 80 FULL
(But The Matrix makes it in, because it’s actually full of robot creatures.) And, as always, only one film per franchise.įor many years the robots that threatened us in sci-fi movies looked like actual robots. We also avoided films that were specifically solely about computers - so, no 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, a note: We specifically focused on movies that are essentially about robots - not, in other words, movies that happen to have robots in them, like Alien(s) or Interstellar or Forbidden Planet. So, we thought it might be fun, in honor of Chappie (or as a corrective to it … you decide), to rank the best robot movies in film history. They symbolize so many of our neuroses - our queasiness about technology and the unknown, our wonder at what it means to be human, our fear that, ultimately, we might be replaceable. Ever since the early years of cinema - even before the term “robot” was coined, in fact - the movies have been obsessed with them. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen it yet.) But one thing seems sure: It will be yet another demonstration of the movies’ fascination with robots. So, Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie opens this week, and by the look of it, it appears to be a mix and match of Short Circuit, Robocop, E.T., A.I., District 9, and a Die Antwoord music video. Photo: Maya Robinson and Photos by Pixar, Warner Brothers, Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images, Yoshikazu TSUNO/Getty and Paramount Pictures
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