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Favorite Movie Robots

Doctor Q

Doctor Q

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Sep 19, 2002
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CNET posted its Top 5 coolest movie robots. Anyone want to disagree with their choices? Which are your favorite movie robots and why?

I think their Top 5 choices weren't bad, but that they missed a lot of good movie robots, like the ones who starred in "I, Robot" and "Bicentennial Man". What else did they miss?

Two of my favorites:

Johnny-Cab, the cab driver in "Total Recall". What's cool is that he's relentlessly polite, no matter what happens to him.

Tik-Tok the machine man from "Return to Oz", which was based on Oz books by L. Frank Baum. What's cool about Tik-Tok is that you have to wind him up, and his speaking and his thinking and his movement may run out independently.

Movies with robots that "go bad" are always entertaining :) but almost any robot makes a cool movie character. I also like computers in movies, but to qualify as a robot I think a movie character has to have an anthropomorphic form, so HAL from 2001 wouldn't qualify. :( I know you'd like me to include you in this list, HAL, but I'm afraid I can't do that. ;)
 
The robot from Rocky IV!

I liked it because it was an example of the movie's relentless quest to be relevant to the mid-80s. It had the big, bad Soviets, a Lamborghini, and a home robot!

rocky4robot.JPG
 
Wall-E.

Johnny-5 (for his day that is..)

Robocop.

R2D2 is right at the bottom I think. he was just irritating.
 
I thought of two dogbots from movies:

* Preston the dog in Wallace and Gromit's "A Close Shave".

* The little dog-like robots that scamper around under Darth Vader's direction in Star Wars. What was their purpose, anyway?
 
My favourite movie robot is Maria from Metropolis, the original(ish) and best. Nice to see she actually made the list, I must admit to being a bit surprised at that.

Here's a question though – do we count HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey as a robot or as a 'mere' computer? I ask because he was well cool. :cool:

Doctor Q said:
The little dog-like robots that scamper around under Darth Vader's direction in Star Wars. What was their purpose, anyway?
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Easy – they were there to chase cats away from the Death Star. May the paws be with you.

Might I add the Doctor's faithful robotic pooch K-9 to the list, too?

300who_k9.jpg
 
Jaffa Cake said:
My favourite movie robot is Maria from Metropolis, the original(ish) and best. Nice to see she actually made the list, I must admit to being a bit surprised at that.
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I wasn't around to see Metropolis in a movie theater in 1927, but I did get to see it in a theater. It was playing at the Silent Movie Theater in West Hollywood a couple of years ago. I couldn't believe a movie like that could be made so long ago.

Here's a question though – do we count HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey as a robot or as a 'mere' computer? I ask because he was well cool. :cool:
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I addressed that very question in the first post in this thread. He didn't make the cut. I would also exclude robots that are only a cartoon. Sorry, Bender.
 
Here are a few more that I remember, and that weren't in the CNET list:

* The servants in "Sleeper". Woody Allen pretends to be one of them.

* The child named David in "A.I.", played by Haley Joel Osment. His adult pal Gigolo Joe is already in the CNET list.

* All of the transformers in "Transformers".

* The wives in "The Stepford Wives"!
 
Do the UFO robots from *batteries not included count, or do you think there's something biological behind (inside) them?
 
If we count androids then we can include Ash in "Alien". He was missing from the CNET list, although Bishop from "Aliens" is included.

The robots in "*batteries not included" are aliens, but they're mechanical, so we might as well include them.

I don't think we can include Simone from "S1m0ne" since the character is simulated, not a robot. I guess Ironman and Spiderman's Doctor Octopus don't really count as robots either. Humans augmented with gadgets aren't really machines, but it's hard to tell where to draw the line. Do we rule out Locutus of Borg and his pals from the Star Trek movies?
 
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