Robots in films

Star Wars

1977 starring Harrison Ford & Carrie Fisher. Rating 9/10.

One of the most famous sci-fi films of all times this blockbuster made a star or many of its actors, not least the famous autonomous robots R2D2 and C3PO. It’s a little difficult to add into a film chronology as allegedly the story is set around the sixteenth century presumably before our planet was as we know it today in an alternative history but not being a SW aficionado I will merely put it at the top of the list as it’s a great film. As you probably know each robot, much like humans, as a distinct personality and refreshingly is here to help us. I think I’m correct in saying they were both played by actors as this was way before robotics as an industry had taken off.

Day the Earth Stood Still

1951, Rating 8/10 and remade less effectively in 2008 despite featuring Keanu Reeves.

The original and absolute benchmark for “aliens as robots” attacking earth movies. An alien named Gort, lands in Washington, D.C. and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as our evil and unpredictable ways is increasingly seen as a danger to the other Planets – the robots from Mars are indestructible and can easily dissolve our metal armaments with little more than an icy stare. Perhaps a groundbreaking movie in many ways as the machines don’t mean harm but can be ordered to turn nasty, so we’d better get the programming right today!

The Stepford Wives

1975 Starring Katharine Ross. Rated 7/10

The Stepford Wives is a robot film with a difference – you don’t realise it. It’s set in a small suburb where the women happily go about their housework a la yesteryear – cleaning, doing laundry, and cooking gourmet meals – to please their husbands when they get home from work. Unfortunately, Bobbie and Joanna discover that the village’s wives have been replaced with Android robots, and the sparks start to fly.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

2005, Starring Martin Freeman & Sam Rockwell. Rating 7/10

Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by a Vogon alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and himself secretly an alien aware of the planets impending doom.

Once aboard stolen starship, Heart of Gold, adventures ensue, not least the need to interact from the now infamous Marvin the Paranoid Android, a super intelligent robotic prototype from the  Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s GPP (Genuine People Personalities) technology.

Marvin is afflicted with the human traits of severe depression and boredom, in part because he has a “brain the size of a planet” yet the crew ask him to carry out mundane jobs such as “opening the door”. The true horror of Marvin’s existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect as he is 50,000 times more intelligent than a human – so perhaps our real life robots have a way still to go.

Based on the Books of Douglas Adams and a radio show needless to say the film is number 42 in our list of favourites!

Transformers

2007 Starring Shia Lebouf & Megan Fox. Rated 7/10.

Apparently intended to be set around 1985, the ground-breaking toys and comics inevitably spurned an film series and the story unfolds as alien robots called Autoboots and Decepticons wage war on Earth. From a robot perspective it is perhaps most noteworthy in bringing home the point that robots can multi-task – and they can be good or bad for mankind!

Westworld

1975 Starring Yul Brynner, Rating 9/10. When Robots go wrong – badly.

Set around the same time as Transformers, technology has gone in an entirely different direction with Westworld, forget aliens, we are using robots to change our own world!

A hugely memorable film from my youth, which somewhat surprisingly (given we don’t have the technology to do all of this today) is supposedly set about a decade in the future – it’s the film that spawned the equally highly rated long running TV series of the same name. The original Westworld film, based on Michael Crichton’s book, is about a theme park holiday resort where you can live out your dreams – be that in Westworld (obviously wild-west), Roman world, Medieval world or simply on the high tech ride to the resort Delos, not to be confused with Davos for a different kind of party! So far so good you might be thinking until a robot malfunction creates havoc and terror for unsuspecting vacationers in all the adult themed zones. Probably best to give this movie a miss if you’ve just placed an order for your own humanoid servant at home – or at least just keep a close eye on them!

Weird Science

1985 Starring Bill Paxton and Kelly LeBrock. Rating 8/10.

Whats not to like in a sci-fi film written and directed by John Hughes and starring Kelly LeBrock?…ticks all my boxes aside from being a bit too daft. Lisa, aka Kelly, isn’t exactly an Android or alien so maybe this is an AI film?

Lisa was created by computer program when two high-school nerds set out to relieve their boredom by literally creating their perfect woman, who promptly turns their lives upside-down.

I can’t recollect any mention in the movie of Lisa being described by anyone as either an Android or a robot but like all good humanoid disasters this features nuclear weapons in the plot!

Austin Powers International Man of Mystery

1997 starring Mike Myers & Elizabeth Hurley. Rating 7/10.

Another of my favourites and supposedly set 30 years in the future at around the time of the New Millennium (when it was actually filmed).  Austin Powers is a world-class playboy and part-time secret agent from the 1960s who emerges after thirty years in a cryogenic state to battle with his nemesis Dr. Evil and his dangerous Fembot assistants. These unusual hench-women come complete with machine-guns hidden in bras, a development we are yet to realise in real life robotics beyond the movies!

Lost in Space

1965 TV Series, created by Irwin Allen. Rated 7/10.  the Robinson family

A much loved TV series from my youth with a great robot. Suffering from massive overpopulation on Earth, Professor John Robinson, his wife Maureen, their children (Judy, Penny and Will) and Major Don West are selected to go to the third planet in the Alpha Centauri star system to establish a colony so that other Earth people can settle there. However, Doctor Zachary Smith, an agent for an enemy government, is sent to sabotage the mission. He is successful in reprogramming the ship’s robot but becomes trapped on the ship and because of his excess weight the ship goes off course and all onboard must fight for survival as the crew tries to find their way back home.

Ex Machina

2014 Starring Domhnall Gleeson & Alicia Vikander, Rated 9/10.

One of my favourite sci-fi movies of recent years and cleverly set, according to the Director, theoretically just ten minutes in the future, all this could probably happen today if you have a big enough budget. A young programmer is selected by his slightly deranged entrepreneur boss, the CEO of the world’s largest tech company, (sound familiar), to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I. called Eva.

The humanoid robots in this superb movie don’t turn out as you might expect, little wonder we have all the fuss about robot ethics today and problems creating a legal framework of standards etc!

Chappie

2015 Starring Hugh Jackman & Dev Patel Rated 7/10.

In the near future in Johannesburg, crime is patrolled by a mechanized police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen after having been implanted with an exploratory AI by a disgruntled employee, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself albeit he needs to learn behaviours first just like a human. A nicely engaging story that’s worth a look if you’ve not seen it. The movie shares a look and feel with many elements of Elysium and District 9 by the same Director.

Kingsman, The Golden Circle

2017 Staring Colin Firth and Taron Egerton as good guys. Rated 8/10.

Julianne Moore is a great Bond type villain called Poppy with a secret lair and two wonderfully evil cyber dog killers, called Bennie and Jet for the simple reason that Poppy is a big Elton John fan and he’s in the movie too as a houseguest prisoner. Interestingly one of the villains, an ex-Kingsman cyborg dropout called Charlie is what might be termed into co-robotics having body enhancements in the form of a super strength mechanical manipulator arm.

Even if you’re not that into real 007 type movies or spoofs, this is worth watching for some super stunts and the mechanical dogs are very believable – enough to put anyone off putting a robotic pet into a nursing home anytime soon.

Robot & Frank

2012 starring Frank Langella & Liv Tyler. Rated 7/10.

In the near future, an ex-jewel thief receives a gift from his son, a robot butler programmed to help look after him. But when Frank discovers he can teach robot tricks from his own illustrious past, like lock-picking, soon the two companions try their luck as a heist team. A touching movie with the robot based on Japanese care home robots being developed at the time – it is easy to spot the similarities with modern robots like Pepper and Nao, you may therefore be surprised to learn that Robot, who remains unnamed, was in fact a suit containing an actor!

A touching aspect of this movie is that Robot reminds Frank he is there to help him and not to worry if he needs his memory erasing to stop Franks latest crimes being revealed – but will Frank erase part of his new friend when his own memory is failing through dementia. Touching stuff.

Humans

2016 Staring Katherine Parkinson & Gemma Chan. Rated 8/10.      

Some great acting in an understated series where in a parallel present time the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a Synth, a highly-developed robotic servant eerily similar to its live counterpart. In the hope of transforming the way they live, one strained suburban family purchases a refurbished synth and discovers that sharing life with a machine has chilling, far-reaching consequences.

Blade Runner

1982 starring Harrison Ford. Rating 8/10.

Based on Philip K Dicks groundbreaking novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, and set in a future Los Angeles around 2020,  so pretty much as they envisaged life today would be like, a Blade Runner (special policeman) must pursue and terminate four artificially created humans called Replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator. The movie ponders the extent to which Androids can become human and deserve to be treated as such with their own set of rights  Must add this to my watch list.

Real Steel

2011 Starring Hugh Jackman. Rating 7/10.

In the near future, aka 2020, robot boxing is a top sport. A struggling ex-boxer feels he’s found a champion in a discarded robot called Atom who is supposedly no use for anything but miraculously is good at boxing.

I haven’t seen or heard of this movie so will be adding it to my watch list – the robots are controlled by a human, presumably wirelessly, so could be an interesting mix of semi-autonomous and humanoid robotics unless it’s literally all controlled by the operator like robot wars or a drone.

Pacific Rim

2013 Starring Charlie Hunnam & Idris Elba. Rated 7/10.

As a war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures called Kaiju wages on, a former pilot and a trainee are paired up, literally, through a telepathic neural bridge to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon called Jaegars (old massive robots of course) in a desperate effort to save the world from the apocalypse. I haven’t seen this movie yet so quite why the robots are obsolete just ten years into the future remains a mystery but it’s always nice to see a bit of recycling being encouraged.

Short Circuit

1986 Starring Steve Guttenburg. Rating 6/10

A number of robots developed by the military are being put through their paces only for model number five, subsequently given the name Johnny 5, to be unexpectedly hit by lightning and electrocuted. The shock does many things, not least making the robot intelligent enough to escape and go on the run, and capable of developing a sentience that puts value to life.

The moral of the story is probably just like your PC at home, always remember to fit an anti-surge device!

Metropolis

1927 Famously Directed by Fritz Lang and costing an estimated £5m then.  Rated 8/10

100 years into the future, this is the renowned futuristic  German silent movie. It features a female robot called  Maria, called a Maschinenmensch, which  is a model of the workers of the future who would be mechanical slaves, she is also highly sexualised and can seduce, corrupt and destroy so not so different from Austin Powers Fembots conceived almost 75 years later!

Like many an old movie, this can be heavy going not least as its silent, but worth the effort.

Terminator

1984 Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger & Linda Hamilton. Rating 8/10.

Certainly one of the most impactful movies of the decade and Arnie rising star never waned after this super movie. He of course is sent back from the future to protect Sarah Connor, the future mother of societies saviour who leads the fight back against the machines. Arnie goes to great lengths to protect her from the seemingly unstoppable cybernetic assassin. It’s probably partly or even mainly due to this movie and the unstoppable power of a T800 robot that these days we fear they may one day take over, hence the need for carefully thought out legislation now. We’ve been warned!

Uncanny Valley

Rating 6/10

Masahiro Mori was a roboticist who wrote “The Uncanny Valley”, a short essay explaining a strange phenomenon whereby there is a tipping-point at which a robot can be so lifelike as to evoke a sense of eeriness. It happens when they are neither a complete reproduction of either a human or a robot, hence they are unfamiliar. In 2018 an short movie of similar thinking was released starring Cate Blanchett – After an experiment with Artificial Intelligence doesn’t go according to plan, Lee (Cate Blanchett) realises that what they’ve created to save mankind could be the very thing that ends up destroying it.

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

1991 starring Keanu Reeves. Rating 7/10

 A tyrant from the future creates evil Android doubles of time travelling duo Bill and Ted and sends the robots back to eliminate the originals, thereby changing the future. Autonomous humanoid robots are therefore perceived to be a danger to humanity, an issue we grapple with today thinking about future legislation needed. On a reassuring note I seem to recall even the robots couldn’t perform well in a rock-band!

I-Robot

2004 Starring Will Smith. Rated 7/10

Del Spooner, a techno-phobic homicide detective in a future Chicago Police Department reluctantly leads the investigation of the apparent suicide of leading robotics scientist, Dr. Alfred Lanning. Unconvinced of the motive, Spooner’s investigation into Lanning’s death reveals a trail of secrets and agendas within the USR (United States Robotics) corporation and suspicions of murder perpetrated by the robot Sonny who is supposedly programmed never to harm a human. Little does he know that his investigation would lead to uncovering a larger threat to humanity. A movie with some great set pieces.

RoboCop

1987 Staring Peter Weller. Rating 8/10.

The movie that spawned many sequels, in a violent, near-apocalyptic Detroit set 50+ years in the future, so just 20 years from now, evil corporation Omni Consumer Products wins a contract from the city government to privatize the police force. To test their crime-eradicating cyborgs, the company leads street cop Alex Murphy into an armed confrontation with a  crime lord so they can use his damaged body to experiment on their untested RoboCop prototype. But when RoboCop learns of the company’s nefarious plans, he turns on his masters like all good part robot part humans surely would.

The movie also features some futuristic alternative autonomous fighting robots that have probably been instrumental in helping support the real life funding of such machines in recent years – these being the very developments that helped kick start much of the robotics industry.

2050 AI Artificial intelligence

2001 starring Jude Law. Rating 7/10.

Set in the future AI explores the difficulty of creating technology that can truly mimic human emotions, with all the backage that comes with it.

Set in a dystopian future where the ice caps have melted and robots are a regular part of everyday society but have yet to fully evolve emotionally, David is a highly advanced robotic boy who longs to become “real” so that he can regain the love of his human mother owner whose attention has been stolen back by the recovery of her previously terminally ill real-life son. Have a hanky near to hand.

2054 – Minority Report

2002 A Spielberg & Tom Cruise Collaboration, Rating 6/10.

In a movie based on yet another Philip K Dick book, society has developed the technology (using human guinea pigs) to tap into psychic powers to discover crimes before they even happen – so they can then convict future criminals even before the crime is committed – i.e. Precrime.

A report is produced detailing upcoming intended crimes and a Precrime team of police go off and try and find the location using visual clues. Everything is progressing smoothly until the top hunter, Cruise, is identified as a future criminal. He goes on the run and has cosmetic surgery to mask his identity, but the Precrime team have intelligent autonomous clone like robotic spiders searching for him – they then scan retinas if check results!

Its scary stuff. Image credit YouTube/Movieclips/Amazon

Surrogates

2009 Starring Bruce Willis & Rosamund Pike. Rating 6/10.

Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots sent out to live their life for them, a cop is forced to leave his safe sanctity at home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others’ surrogates.

It’s not a movie I’ve ever seen or heard talked about and the score could be better but must be worth checking out if you like the idea of living in virtual worlds on social media via avatars.

Total Recall

1990 Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (yet again) and Sharon Stone as his over loving wife. Rating 7/10

In a world where we have been forced to colonize other planets like Mars with mutants and everything on earth and beyond is run by big business (sound familiar), humans can travel virtually by mind implants anywhere their heart desires. Arnie has flashbacks of a future life that hasn’t been correctly erased and travels to Mars to check things out for real, here he meets Benny the Robot Cab Driver who is more than keen to please and great fun throughout.

Passengers

2016 Starring Jennifer Lawrence. Rated 7/10.

Starship Avalon is in its 120-year voyage (with 5000+ passengers asleep in pods) to a distant colony planet known as the “Homestead Colony”. A malfunction results in one hibernation pod opening prematurely to awaken one resident 90 years short from his destination. So he’ll be dead by the time they arrive, his only comfort being the company and repartee of wise half humanoid robot bartender Arthur, played by Michael Sheen. It’s worth watching if only for him – it just goes to show the future may indeed need social robots.

Extinction

2018 Starring Michael Pena, Rated 7/10.

Perhaps more of an alien movie than one about robotics, at least at first sight, but this is certainly a future movie with a very big twist which I won’t spoil for you. Let’s just say it’s a great forum to see how robotics and technology can be used as a force for good and bad. A very thought provoking and surprising movie, what it loses on the CGI front it more than makes up for on plot. 

Dr. Who & The Daleks

1965 Staring Peter Cushing & Roy Castle. Rated 7/10.

One of the first films I can recollect seeing at the cinema on holiday, and whilst it shows its age today, it’s great to see the arch enemy the Daleks in full glory for 80 minutes! Set some time around 2150 (as that’s when the Daleks invaded Earth in a subsequent film) here an eccentric inventor and his companions travel in his TARDIS to the Planet Skaro and battle the evil menace of the Daleks. Whilst technically not a robot (as the Daleks are mechanised bodies to support the encased alien being) I decided to include them for the fun of it. They face many of the same challenges as robots such as having difficulty with slopes and stairs and of course have an infamous manipulator arm!

Elysium

2013 Starring Matt Damon & Jodie Foster, Rating 6/10.

This  is yet another example of robots used as enforcers and technologies to help enhance human skills through part robot body suits. Set around 140 years in the future the very wealthy live on a man-made space station having exit the earth in a hurry some years previously, and as you might expect, they enforce control on everyone via high-tech Android Police while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth managed by even fiercer Androids. Matt Damon is of course the hero taking on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds. I only got around to watching this recently, some good special effects off earth but could be better.

SLEEPER

1973 starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton. Rating 7/10. 

Miles Monroe, the 1970s owner of the Happy Carrot health-food store, goes into hospital for a routine operation only to wake up 200 years later after dying and being defrosted by a subversive rebel organisation amidst a Police State. Sounds like fun.

The portrayal of a robot, complete with colander hat and pepper-pot mouth is nothing short of hilarious and eerily spooky at the same time. His goal is to help overthrow the tyrannical government and its dictator, clearly signposting the belief in the 1970’s that robotics could be a force for social change and good, which makes a refreshing change from all the baddies out there from the same period.

Forbidden Planet

1956 Starring Walter Pidgeon. Rating 8/10.

A starship crew in the 23rd century goes to investigate the silence of a distant planet’s colony, only to find just two survivors, a powerful yet harmless robot, Robby, and the deadly secret of a lost civilization. Groundbreaking at the time, in today’s money the studio spent circa $15m creating Robby the robot and he’s been famous ever since – quite where that money went is anybody’s guess as I always thought it was a man or women in a robot costume!

This is the film that probably spawned the hugely popular Lost In Space TV series with a spookily similar benign robot always somewhere stealing the scene.

Wall-e 2008

Looking every bit like something from Boston Dynamics or the US military today rather than Pixar. Rated  8/10

Much like Wallace & Gromit on the Moon years before them, Wall-E is an autonomous cleaning robot put onto a planet, in this case the Earth, to clear up debris left behind. It’s a pretty sad existence as he’s a solitary robot left on his own – he gets visited to check on progress by a robot probe called Eve who he falls in love with. Ahh.

Flash Gordon

1980 Starring Sam J Jones Rated 6/10.

A thousand or so years in the future a football player and his friends travel to the planet Mongo and find themselves fighting the tyranny of Ming the Merciless and his robots, the very aptly named Ming’s Metal Men, to save Earth. It even has a few floating droids too, so many years before the real thing hit the streets on Police forces or as an idea for parcel delivery by Amazon or drug delivery into prisons!

I’ve not actually seen this film myself but do recall in my youth being persuaded to go and see the spoof Flesh Gordon, that probably featured robots too but not the sort I’m going to be able or want to describe here!