November 5, 2010

My Most Despised Robots

Filed under: Main — admin @ 5:14 am

When you love robots as much as I do, nothing can wreck your day like seeing a sucky robot in a film. Here’s my list of disappointing robots:

The film Logan’s Run was something to behold in 1977. It’s cheesy miniatures were straight out of Disney’s Tomorrowland. The acting was stiff, but the story interesting enough to watch, especially for teenage boys who realized the visual appeal of 20-something actresses in skimpy outfits sans underwear.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing was that Logan’s Run was released by MGM. They were known for Big Musicals, not sci-fi. Though they did release Forbidden Planet in 1956. But I digress.

Logan’s Run featured a robot called Boxx. I think it had two Xs or maybe just one X. The robot was stupid by all means, which fit in well with the milieu of the entire film. I mean: It was a man in a shiny box. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Scary, but dumb.

Is that a man in a robot suit? No way!

I really wanted to like the film Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979).

Yes, it was a film before it turned into a mediocre Glen Larson TV series. (I would say “low budget” TV series, but the costs on the show were actually quite high; none of it showed up in the scripts, however.)

Twiki with Dr. Theopolis.

Buck Rogers was made instantly stupid by the presence of stiff-legged dwarf robot Twiki. His droning of bidi-bidi-bidi before he spoke was just grating.

Around Twiki’s easy-to-strangle neck hung a more sophisticated but less-anthropomorphic robot, Dr. Theopolis. He was more rational, until you realized that he was part of a techno-oligarchy that ruled all of mankind. Evil bastard.

The fact that Dr. Theopolis hung tenuously around Twiki’s neck made it tempting for me to want to be there when they walked by a pool of molten lead.

Which brings me to Star Wars.

While I found R2D2 interesting in the original films, I really couldn’t stand C3PO. As a character, he just got annoying as the series dragged on, especially in the prequels. C3PO was truly useless, underscored by one of the last spoken lines in the series, which indicated that his memory would be erased.

How convenient, Mr. Lucas.

R2D2 also descended into the absurd with the prequels. He gained almost magical powers: He could fly. He could weld, spit goo, and do all sorts of other amazing things immediately necessary to the plot.

Trying blowing up this son-of-a-bitch with one shot in a video game, just try.

Beyond the two robot pals, I despised the Imperial Probe Droid. Why build something that would blow up the instant you shot at it with a blaster? That’s further compounded by the obnoxious truth that the Imperial Probe Droids in all the Star Wars video games absolutely do not explode with one hit from a blaster.

I won’t even bother with the obnoxiousness of an entire Droid Army. An army of robots is a frightening thing, and should be for any organic life form. George Lucas turned it into a comedy with all the depth of a 1910’s slapstick silent movie.

7 Comments

  1. C3PO will still NEVER be as annoying and unnecessary as Jar Jar Binks.

    Comment by gamerguy473 — November 5, 2010 @ 10:58 am

  2. Jar Jar Binks is not a robot. 😛

    Comment by admin — November 5, 2010 @ 11:03 am

  3. R2D2- Cool
    C3PO – Annoying,

    R2D2 was designed for a purpose, C3PO no, Twiki no, Boxx??
    Robots I think always work better when there is a distinct purpose for them. The Droid army comedy? They could have been cool Terminator style robots but no.

    Comment by glennp — November 6, 2010 @ 4:21 am

  4. I’ve seen a few programs in the UK recently about new Robots from Japan, and they still look terrible, they have tried to put skin on them and they just look freaky. I don’t think Robots are the future as was thought in the past, until they make a decent robot that can do something useful I can’t see anything really taking off. I think one of the best representations of a robot would be out of Blade Runner or Aliens, artificial humans, not robotic.

    Comment by chiefnoobie — November 6, 2010 @ 5:16 am

  5. Robots eventually will have a purpose, and it might happen sooner than you think. The problem right now is that our culture doesn’t think in terms of personal robots, similar to the way we didn’t think of personal computers in the 1970s.

    Comment by admin — November 6, 2010 @ 8:16 am

  6. Yes I agree it is hard to imagine having a robot around the house like a servant, maybe they might become more useful in retail, for example most super markets are self service now, I suppose it won’t be long before they have some other kind of machine packing bags or as a security guard.

    Comment by chiefnoobie — November 6, 2010 @ 12:44 pm

  7. Robots, like computers, will find their place once they solve the “killer app” problem. The first killer app for the PC was probably the word processor. The biggest killer app was the Internet. Robot hardware and software is quite capable, but the apps just aren’t there yet.

    Comment by admin — November 6, 2010 @ 12:51 pm

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