{"id":2219,"date":"2010-11-05T05:14:11","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T13:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=2219"},"modified":"2010-11-05T05:14:11","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T13:14:11","slug":"my-most-despised-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=2219","title":{"rendered":"My Most Despised Robots"},"content":{"rendered":"

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:
\n
\nThe film Logan’s Run<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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

Logan’s Run<\/em> featured a robot called Boxx<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Is that a man in a robot suit? No way!<\/p><\/div>\n

I really wanted to like the film Buck Rogers in the 25th Century<\/em> (1979).<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Twiki with Dr. Theopolis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Buck Rogers<\/em> was made instantly stupid by the presence of stiff-legged dwarf robot Twiki<\/strong>. His droning of bidi-bidi-bidi <\/em>before he spoke was just grating.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to Star Wars<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While I found R2D2<\/strong> interesting in the original films, I really couldn’t stand C3PO<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n

How convenient, Mr. Lucas.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Trying blowing up this son-of-a-bitch with one shot in a video game, just try.<\/p><\/div>\n

Beyond the two robot pals, I despised the Imperial Probe Droid<\/strong>. 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<\/em> explode with one hit from a blaster.<\/p>\n

I won’t even bother with the obnoxiousness of an entire Droid Army<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2219"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219\/revisions\/2399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}