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Let's get one thing straight here- this particular column has nothing to do with computers or cyborgs or virtual reality simulations. HAL and Robocop and that guy from Lawnmower Man are not welcome. I'm talking about robots- bits of metal and plastic put together in the shape of, more or less, a man, and then sent out into the world to almost undoubtedly rebel against their human masters and fuck up the neighbourhood. And while I'd love to include such notables as Evil Bill and Ted, the Fembots and Tick Tock, there just isn't enough room to give all of them the column space that they so richly deserve. So I'll stick to the big names. Oh, and I haven't seen Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, and for some reason my local video store doesn't carry early twentieth century robot operas.
The thing about robots is that they, in their reflection, show us a deeper understanding of human values. Sometimes it takes what we're not to show us what we are, even if it's just by contrast. Sometimes we need to look at something inhuman to determine what it means, by opposition, to be human. Also, robots are awesome, and it's a real shame that TRANSFORMERS has yet to be released at the time of writing, because giant robots beating seven shades of hell out of each other is, as far as I am concerned, where it's at.
The stand-out in the genre is, and probably always will be, BLADE RUNNER. A dark urban cyberpunk fantasy, BLADE RUNNER was notable for an almost endless list of reasons, not the least of which was Harrison Ford using his role in the film to break out of typecasting. As Deckard, the Blade Runner of the title, Ford pursued a posse of Replicants, a race of artificial humans sentenced to a lifetime of backbreaking work and with an internal clock set to four years, no more, no less, through a grim and corroded metropolis, dealing death at every step. Set up as an opposite to Deckard was Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty, the leader of the group of Replicants, determined to find a way to extend his lifespan.
The big theme of BLADE RUNNER is what it is to be human. Beloved of film theorists and high school discussions, it raises the question of whether Deckard himself is actually human or a Replicant programmed to believe that he is human in order to complete a job that no human could- a question unanswered in the film itself. Director Ridley Scott came out in 2000 and said that yes, Deckard is indeed a Replicant, earning him the universal response of ‘Way to go and fuck up a perfectly good eternal question, Ridley.' The true and terrible beauty of the film comes through in the scenes of the final confrontation between Batty and Deckard on a grim rooftop, as the life that is so precious to both of them starts to slip and fade away.
The number one killer robot, however, is now and forever Arnie as THE TERMINATOR. The original film spawned two sequels (TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY being the herald of the new age of computer animation) and sent ripples through the pop-culture ocean that still last to this day. Quotes like ‘Asta la vista, baby,' and ‘Have you seen this boy?' have their own special place in the pantheon of 
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well-known movie lines. The movies combine philosophy with action- one second John Connor is questioning the possibility of humanity's survival, at the next robots are riding motorcycles through window panes.
The films set up a conflict between man and machine- in JUDGMENT DAY and TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES when Arnie is fighting to protect humanity he gradually becomes more and more humanised- especially in JUDGMENT DAY as John Connor teaches him new ways of interacting with the world. By contrast, Robert Patrick's T-1000 and Kristanna Loken's T-X are every bit as cold and mechanical as Schwarzenegger himself was in the first movie of the series.
The message brought home in each movie is that we bring destruction upon ourselves. Also, that robots fighting robots is awesome. With that taken as a given, JUDGMENT DAY went the furthest in the franchise in combining high-brow ponderings with explosive action, questioning the ethics of artificial intelligence and the value of human life, and whether humanity as a whole would learn its lesson before it's too late. As an interesting side note, Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen are the only two actors to have been killed by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator.
Kubrick and Spielberg ditched the action in favour of out-and-out philosophy with A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Notable for being the last hurrah of Haley Joel Osment before puberty kicked in with the force of a pile driver, the film showed humanity at its best and worst through the eyes of Osment's David, an android child brought into a family as a replacement for a cryogenically frozen son. Osment and Jude Law (Law's role as a robotic male prostitute must have called for some real method acting) are the heroes of the piece, robots that have been created by humans only to be shunned and hated by the human race. Cast aside (Osment's family recovers their son, and Law is framed for murder) they search for meaning and freedom in a world where they are treated as pieces of mobile furniture.
Surprisingly dark in both content and tone, AI didn't really make humans look very good. Sure, there were some moments where people's better sides shone through, but on the whole, we're depicted as kind of a bunch of asses. The characters of David's mother and some frat boys show us as a species in a more positive light, but, on the whole, an uglier side of human nature is at the fore, a side that is more than happy to exploit and condemn without understanding. That latter-day slave trade that is the development of robots in AI is a cruel one, and the climax of the film redeems only David, and not us.
Then again, there are works like ROBOTS. Setting out to be nothing more than a simple morality tale and some good-natured humour, ROBOTS was an exploration of what you can do with some cutting edge graphics and a world of possibilities up your sleeve. Set in a world inhabited only by robots, ROBOTS hits all the high points of computer animated films- believing in oneself, following your own path, and learning that it's OK to be different, as well as some old fashioned good versus evil action. The film is, 
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from beginning to end, about entertainment. With a who's who of Hollywood providing the voices (Ewen McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Greg Kinnear) ROBOTS took the idea that if you're going to have a city full of robots, you might as well have some fun with it and show off how good your animation team is.
ROBOTS had its tongue lodged firmly in its cheek for most of its running time- perhaps not as much as the SHREK series which has joked aimed squarely at both adults and children, but enough to show that, as far as seventy-five million dollar movies go, it wasn't necessarily taking itself too seriously. Robin Williams, in particular, allows his always-hyperactive persona off the leash as Fender, the manic sidekick of Ewen McGregor's hero, Rodney Copperbottom. In this case, robots are just about having some fun and saving the day rather than heavier questions of morality, ethics, and time travel. Which is no bad thing.
The father of robot fiction, Isaac Asimov, had his ideas brought to life in the Will Smith feature I, ROBOT. Sure, it outraged a number of Asimov purists, and product placement reached new saturation levels in the first five minutes. And, admittedly, my relentless man-crush on Will Smith prevents me from saying anything bad about him. Ever. But at the same time, I, ROBOT, did the same thing that TERMINATOR 2 did, blending action with deeper questions so subtly that it was hard to notice while watching the film. I, ROBOT, brings up questions of utilitarianism (check Wikipedia, if you must) and human reliance on technology on one level while, on another, cybernetic killers leap from a truck onto Will Smith's future-car. Genius.
I, ROBOT took the LORD OF THE RINGS route of combining CGI on both a massive and a personal scale with live-action, bringing out both the performances of the human actors and the spectacle of giant conflicts. The rebellious androids of I, ROBOT are a superhuman force that sweeps through the city, overwhelming almost all in their path. The action scenes are given an extra edge by the exact similarity between each one- an endless army of robots, each one the same as the last, swarms through the streets, stronger and faster than their human opponents. And it's up to a robot and Will Smith to save the day and protect the species from its own creation.
There are a million robot movies out there, from the B-flicks of the days of the drive-in movie to the straight-to-video low budget sci-fi thrillers that lurk in the back of the video store. There are high-budget high-profile flicks in the works as the success of movies like THE MATRIX trilogy proves to the studio executives that the public will pay to see entertaining science fiction. The beauty of robot movies is that having a robot as hero or villain allows you to have characters that go above and beyond human limits, but therein lie the questions- how do we define those limits? Can humanity be taught, or learned? And if so, can it be forgotten?
And also, if they are going to make TERMINATOR 4, is Arnie going to be in it?
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| Simon Smithson |
Simon was crushed when he found out that 'Ghostbuster' was not an actual vocation, and so went with the next best thing - writing columns for Internet movie sites. He's working on a proton pack of his own, but it's going to take some time.
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