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Movie Robots: Working Our Way Up
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Jack Bohn
Oct 15, 2022, 5:17:34 PM10/15/22
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This week has already been covered in a previous post, and looking at next week is not very inspiring, so I'm going to go through some movies not in the program this month. I'll be specifically looking to fill out my scale: 0=obviously a human to 1=pretty convincingly a robot, currently filled through 0.5 -- Robby and the "Lost in Space" Robot.
I'd like first to reveal my most robotic cinematic robot, if you don't mind my dipping into television. SID, the Space Intrusion Detector for SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization on the Gerry Anderson series "UFO" (institutional culture of SHADO has us pronouncing that title as YouFoe). Its "body" is a satellite, controlling various sensors, and directing the armed response to intrusion. The voice of Mel Oxley is calm, measured, and unvarying as SID. In addition, SID gets into no philosophical arguments about logic vs. emotion or such stuff. Strictly business, it as if the Speaking Clock were to call you up with the time, temperature, and distance attacking alien craft.
So, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Douglas Trumble admits to being inspired by Todd Browning's movie "Freaks" showing a legless man walking on his hands. He used this idea to put people in robot suits that weren't shaped like a human body. He used amputees, and small ones, too; three of the actors: Steven Brown, Cheryl Sparks, and Larry Whisenhunt are adolescents, needing school on set (which means onboard the USS Kitty Hawk!) and all, and the fourth the then-only 20 year old Mark Persons. The robot body he built has no head, and defies being read as a face, with asymmetry of the features on it.
There are some who say the movement of the drones is too organic, so we have a robot we can place a few milliislands above them: the Maintenance Operator, or MO on the Saturday morning cartoon "The Space Sentinels." The design is (they admit) inspired by the drones. In Saturday animation, even the organic beings don't move too organically, so MO does not walk, its legs and feet are mainly just fixed at its side as support, and possibly part of its hovering mechanism; its body is mostly kept parallel to the floor, that may be a bit of it as well. You might think cartoons would be a great source of robots that don't have to look like people in suits, but they span the spectrum. Androids indistinguishable from humans (or anthropomorphic animals) can be one-off copies of the main character (as in the saying that in animation the special effects cost the same as a shot of folks walking down the street; a doppelganger in live-action requires split screen or traveling mattes, or body doubles or whatever, on a cartoon it requires xeroxing the character drawing onto another cell), other human-looking robotic characters often reveal their robotness by opening panels and extending an improbably amount of equipment from inside. (I have almost no knowledge of Astroboy, are his rocketboots part of his body, or just clothing he wears over his rocketfeet?) I can't think of a good example of a person in a robot outfit; Bender's arms and legs are just a bit too thin for me to justify saying it could be one of "Futurama"-style human drawings in a robot outfit drawing. Rosie, maid to "The Jetsons," balances precariously on a wheeled base. "Rubber hose limbs" describes a loose type of animation where a character's hands or feet are positioned where they need to be for an action, and the arms or legs are just sort of sketched in to connect them to the body, without real consideration of the way they'd move, or the position of the elbow or knee. Applied to robots, I think of these as "gooseneck lamps." As seen on Bender, the lines of rubber hose limbs have lines drawn across them to make it look like they are segments. This also leads to the idea of a coil spring or telescoping rod, for stretching the limbs out. Another simple cartoon robot limb is just two thin metal rods bolted to each other loosely enough to hinge; no real indication of what moves them, and no need to fit a person's arm in to do it. Robots from cartoon shorts include the Mechanical Monsters from the Superman cartoon of the same name, a pest eliminator that chases Bugs Bunny around in a circle... the circle of a rotating sprinkler, and, in a house of the future Daffy is trying to sell Elmer Fudd, a series of robots specialized for specific tasks, each summoned by its own button (but "Not the wed one! Don't ever press the wed one!"). Adventure cartoons of the '60s through '70s would feature robot one-offs, like the daddy longlegs robot eye of "Jonny Quest." Japanese anime also has many, such Haro, a robot about the size and shape of a basketball; it is of limited utility and basically acts as a mascot to the pilots of the giant fighting robots in the Gundam series, and also as the corporate mascot for the animation studio Sunrise. The anime series "The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" features automobile-sized robots called tachikomas (slightly different from the fuchikomas of slightly different world of "Ghost in the Shell" manga series or movies: Japanese "rebooting" and "reimagining" technology was well in advance of ours) the series explores the human mind in cyborg bodies, having bionic senses, even in electronic communication with other minds or machines, the tachikomas reflect those themes with robots achieving sentience. A live-action "Ghost in the Shell" movie was made in the US, you may remember the furor over the disinclusion of any tachikoma.
(This seems the appropriate place to mention Robert the Robot from the Gerry Anderson puppet series "Fireball XL5." It appears it could be a puppet human in a buckethead and barrel, except it is made from a clear material, and you can see the gears inside!)
Back to actors in tin suits, the farthest they've taken it is probably R2-D2, a fireplug of a robot with Kenny Baker there to waddle it out of tight corners and give its activity a personality when radio controlled motors can't. Looking at the other robots from "Star Wars," we start a good one: a pair of camera eyes held on a pole on a treaded platform (indeed, the fan/official name is Treadwell); its star moment -it is with Luke when he sees the starship fight over Tatooine- got cut, but we do see another one for sale by the Jawas, and it has a spider's nest of robot arms arrayed around the central pole. There is a rounded box wandering around on a pair of feet. A "mouse" droid on the Deathstar gets officious but skitters away from the Wookiee's growl. There are a few devices we can hope are not complex enough to have developed personality: Ben's training remote (I had thought it was Han's equipment pressed into impromptu service), the X-Wing targeting computer, and especially Vader's interrogation assistant. "The Empire Strikes Back" with the Probe droid on antigravs with a number of arms dangling beneath; we don't see it at its best on the wastes of Hoth, imagine it searching through the woods or picking up clues from the remains of a rebel base that had been abandoned for some time. A pair of medical droids: one with a face that seems to give consultations, while a more cylindrical one does all the work. (?!?) Two of the bounty hunters are droids: 4-LOM (effects crew says it stands for "Lots Of Money"): a 3P0 body with a head modeled on its humanoid alien companion, and IG-88. From "The Return of the Jedi" I only remember the droids in Jabba's palace; like the aliens there, they were mostly just designed to look weird. The Remastered versions introduced new droids, including flying cambots and a humanoid robot that is a bit rude to one of them; the humanoid robot has a large hollow through its torso, so we can see there is not a person inside playing it. This is carried into the prequels, with the battledroids being the framework of a humanoid, but no covering on the machinery. Podracing pit droids follow a similar pattern, but at about 1/3 the height. New battledroids were designed to be more intimidating... theoretically; the bulge of weapons emplacements along the forearms and the plating around the head reminds me of Alice the Goon from Popeye comic strips (the original battledroid head being her nose). The other droids I remember as more decorative in a more elegant time: the motive force for a Tatooine rickshaw, waitress in a Coruscant diner, even robotic nursemaids. The sequels give us BB-8 and the mystery of how they did it if it isn't a computer graphic.
One drawback of R2 is that it can have any tool it needs hidden behind any of its panels, which makes me think it is cheating on being a real robot. That's why I rate slightly higher V.I.N.Cent from "The Black Hole." Its gripping arms and lasers (it needs two?!) are stored along its sides, but it is limited to them. Its too-cuteness, like K-9 from "Doctor Who" looking like a dog are not strikes against them in my eyes. They are made things, and the in-universe designers, like the production designers, chose to design them that way. (Disney owns Star Wars, does R2-D2 plus V.I.N.Cent equal BB-8?)
Maximillian, the evil robot from "The Black Hole," was, I've read, a fight between the robot designer, who wanted to design a forceful shape, but nonhuman, and the other makers of the film, who felt terror came in the shape of a man. I say the head is acceptable, but not the legs, which they try to pass off as control vanes for flight. The designer insisted on its hovering it to keep them from putting a man in the suit. (He'd wanted the security robots to run on a tripod set of wheels or treads, but had to settle for metal-clad legs.) Here is the point where I mention that hovering or antigravity on robots is a good cheat to avoid needing an actor's legs or fighting to get treads or wheels to work on all surfaces. Forcefields or tractor beams for manipulators is something I have less patience with.
An early design of robot as machine is in the East German movie "Der schweeigende Stern" ("The Silent Star": American title "First Spaceship on Venus.") Omega is a robot scout with a roundish head holding two camera "eyes" (and a row of lights or buttons only coincidently where a mouth would be) that is mounted on a tractor tread chassis. The whole robot is only knee-high, and, in emergency, can be mounted as transportation. (The First Spaceship has auxiliary craft labeled Alpha through Gamma, given the Communist planning on display, there were probably twenty other pieces of equipment aboard but unused.)
A more recent movie, "Moon," featured throwbacks to 1970s design, its robot, GERTIE, is a very geometric shape, instead of walking, wheeling, or hovering, is supported from a track on the ceiling of the moonbase, to which its activities are confined.
"Interstellar" is a movie I'll have to see again, or find out if there is "making of" documentation. Its boxy robot seems to be outside the box thinking on design. It appears to be a be three thinner boxes making one larger case, at one point the outer two hinge at the top of the middle one to give it a tripod gate of a person on crutches, at another time they hinge in the middle of the length to paddlewheel in water... it never gets enough screentime, I am afraid it is more a clever trick than a workable tool. I see references to either TARS or CASE, so there were two? Currently I rate it above BB-8, which I can picture rolling towards and away from a piece of equipment several times while trying to line up the port on its body where the tool is with the spot it has to work on.
Rate them: Putting them in the order I like them, then assigning numerical values:
0.08 Westworld robots
0.11 THX robot police
0.15 Astroboy
0.2 GONK droid
0.30 Maria, Robocop
0.31 C-3P0
0.38 Gort, Twiki
0.39 Bender
0.5 Robby, the Robot
0.6 Huey, Dewey, and Louie
0.61 MO
0.7 R2-D2
0.75 VINCent
0.76 Haro
0.8 Omega
(This seems to be the realm of pure machines, machines going down to simple levers or pulleys.)
0.81 Treadwell
BB-8
TARS, CASE
Tachikoma
0.9 ED 209
0.95 Gertie
1.0 SID
I know I'm missing alot, any you all want to see rated?
--
-Jack
I'd like first to reveal my most robotic cinematic robot, if you don't mind my dipping into television. SID, the Space Intrusion Detector for SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization on the Gerry Anderson series "UFO" (institutional culture of SHADO has us pronouncing that title as YouFoe). Its "body" is a satellite, controlling various sensors, and directing the armed response to intrusion. The voice of Mel Oxley is calm, measured, and unvarying as SID. In addition, SID gets into no philosophical arguments about logic vs. emotion or such stuff. Strictly business, it as if the Speaking Clock were to call you up with the time, temperature, and distance attacking alien craft.
So, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Douglas Trumble admits to being inspired by Todd Browning's movie "Freaks" showing a legless man walking on his hands. He used this idea to put people in robot suits that weren't shaped like a human body. He used amputees, and small ones, too; three of the actors: Steven Brown, Cheryl Sparks, and Larry Whisenhunt are adolescents, needing school on set (which means onboard the USS Kitty Hawk!) and all, and the fourth the then-only 20 year old Mark Persons. The robot body he built has no head, and defies being read as a face, with asymmetry of the features on it.
There are some who say the movement of the drones is too organic, so we have a robot we can place a few milliislands above them: the Maintenance Operator, or MO on the Saturday morning cartoon "The Space Sentinels." The design is (they admit) inspired by the drones. In Saturday animation, even the organic beings don't move too organically, so MO does not walk, its legs and feet are mainly just fixed at its side as support, and possibly part of its hovering mechanism; its body is mostly kept parallel to the floor, that may be a bit of it as well. You might think cartoons would be a great source of robots that don't have to look like people in suits, but they span the spectrum. Androids indistinguishable from humans (or anthropomorphic animals) can be one-off copies of the main character (as in the saying that in animation the special effects cost the same as a shot of folks walking down the street; a doppelganger in live-action requires split screen or traveling mattes, or body doubles or whatever, on a cartoon it requires xeroxing the character drawing onto another cell), other human-looking robotic characters often reveal their robotness by opening panels and extending an improbably amount of equipment from inside. (I have almost no knowledge of Astroboy, are his rocketboots part of his body, or just clothing he wears over his rocketfeet?) I can't think of a good example of a person in a robot outfit; Bender's arms and legs are just a bit too thin for me to justify saying it could be one of "Futurama"-style human drawings in a robot outfit drawing. Rosie, maid to "The Jetsons," balances precariously on a wheeled base. "Rubber hose limbs" describes a loose type of animation where a character's hands or feet are positioned where they need to be for an action, and the arms or legs are just sort of sketched in to connect them to the body, without real consideration of the way they'd move, or the position of the elbow or knee. Applied to robots, I think of these as "gooseneck lamps." As seen on Bender, the lines of rubber hose limbs have lines drawn across them to make it look like they are segments. This also leads to the idea of a coil spring or telescoping rod, for stretching the limbs out. Another simple cartoon robot limb is just two thin metal rods bolted to each other loosely enough to hinge; no real indication of what moves them, and no need to fit a person's arm in to do it. Robots from cartoon shorts include the Mechanical Monsters from the Superman cartoon of the same name, a pest eliminator that chases Bugs Bunny around in a circle... the circle of a rotating sprinkler, and, in a house of the future Daffy is trying to sell Elmer Fudd, a series of robots specialized for specific tasks, each summoned by its own button (but "Not the wed one! Don't ever press the wed one!"). Adventure cartoons of the '60s through '70s would feature robot one-offs, like the daddy longlegs robot eye of "Jonny Quest." Japanese anime also has many, such Haro, a robot about the size and shape of a basketball; it is of limited utility and basically acts as a mascot to the pilots of the giant fighting robots in the Gundam series, and also as the corporate mascot for the animation studio Sunrise. The anime series "The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" features automobile-sized robots called tachikomas (slightly different from the fuchikomas of slightly different world of "Ghost in the Shell" manga series or movies: Japanese "rebooting" and "reimagining" technology was well in advance of ours) the series explores the human mind in cyborg bodies, having bionic senses, even in electronic communication with other minds or machines, the tachikomas reflect those themes with robots achieving sentience. A live-action "Ghost in the Shell" movie was made in the US, you may remember the furor over the disinclusion of any tachikoma.
(This seems the appropriate place to mention Robert the Robot from the Gerry Anderson puppet series "Fireball XL5." It appears it could be a puppet human in a buckethead and barrel, except it is made from a clear material, and you can see the gears inside!)
Back to actors in tin suits, the farthest they've taken it is probably R2-D2, a fireplug of a robot with Kenny Baker there to waddle it out of tight corners and give its activity a personality when radio controlled motors can't. Looking at the other robots from "Star Wars," we start a good one: a pair of camera eyes held on a pole on a treaded platform (indeed, the fan/official name is Treadwell); its star moment -it is with Luke when he sees the starship fight over Tatooine- got cut, but we do see another one for sale by the Jawas, and it has a spider's nest of robot arms arrayed around the central pole. There is a rounded box wandering around on a pair of feet. A "mouse" droid on the Deathstar gets officious but skitters away from the Wookiee's growl. There are a few devices we can hope are not complex enough to have developed personality: Ben's training remote (I had thought it was Han's equipment pressed into impromptu service), the X-Wing targeting computer, and especially Vader's interrogation assistant. "The Empire Strikes Back" with the Probe droid on antigravs with a number of arms dangling beneath; we don't see it at its best on the wastes of Hoth, imagine it searching through the woods or picking up clues from the remains of a rebel base that had been abandoned for some time. A pair of medical droids: one with a face that seems to give consultations, while a more cylindrical one does all the work. (?!?) Two of the bounty hunters are droids: 4-LOM (effects crew says it stands for "Lots Of Money"): a 3P0 body with a head modeled on its humanoid alien companion, and IG-88. From "The Return of the Jedi" I only remember the droids in Jabba's palace; like the aliens there, they were mostly just designed to look weird. The Remastered versions introduced new droids, including flying cambots and a humanoid robot that is a bit rude to one of them; the humanoid robot has a large hollow through its torso, so we can see there is not a person inside playing it. This is carried into the prequels, with the battledroids being the framework of a humanoid, but no covering on the machinery. Podracing pit droids follow a similar pattern, but at about 1/3 the height. New battledroids were designed to be more intimidating... theoretically; the bulge of weapons emplacements along the forearms and the plating around the head reminds me of Alice the Goon from Popeye comic strips (the original battledroid head being her nose). The other droids I remember as more decorative in a more elegant time: the motive force for a Tatooine rickshaw, waitress in a Coruscant diner, even robotic nursemaids. The sequels give us BB-8 and the mystery of how they did it if it isn't a computer graphic.
One drawback of R2 is that it can have any tool it needs hidden behind any of its panels, which makes me think it is cheating on being a real robot. That's why I rate slightly higher V.I.N.Cent from "The Black Hole." Its gripping arms and lasers (it needs two?!) are stored along its sides, but it is limited to them. Its too-cuteness, like K-9 from "Doctor Who" looking like a dog are not strikes against them in my eyes. They are made things, and the in-universe designers, like the production designers, chose to design them that way. (Disney owns Star Wars, does R2-D2 plus V.I.N.Cent equal BB-8?)
Maximillian, the evil robot from "The Black Hole," was, I've read, a fight between the robot designer, who wanted to design a forceful shape, but nonhuman, and the other makers of the film, who felt terror came in the shape of a man. I say the head is acceptable, but not the legs, which they try to pass off as control vanes for flight. The designer insisted on its hovering it to keep them from putting a man in the suit. (He'd wanted the security robots to run on a tripod set of wheels or treads, but had to settle for metal-clad legs.) Here is the point where I mention that hovering or antigravity on robots is a good cheat to avoid needing an actor's legs or fighting to get treads or wheels to work on all surfaces. Forcefields or tractor beams for manipulators is something I have less patience with.
An early design of robot as machine is in the East German movie "Der schweeigende Stern" ("The Silent Star": American title "First Spaceship on Venus.") Omega is a robot scout with a roundish head holding two camera "eyes" (and a row of lights or buttons only coincidently where a mouth would be) that is mounted on a tractor tread chassis. The whole robot is only knee-high, and, in emergency, can be mounted as transportation. (The First Spaceship has auxiliary craft labeled Alpha through Gamma, given the Communist planning on display, there were probably twenty other pieces of equipment aboard but unused.)
A more recent movie, "Moon," featured throwbacks to 1970s design, its robot, GERTIE, is a very geometric shape, instead of walking, wheeling, or hovering, is supported from a track on the ceiling of the moonbase, to which its activities are confined.
"Interstellar" is a movie I'll have to see again, or find out if there is "making of" documentation. Its boxy robot seems to be outside the box thinking on design. It appears to be a be three thinner boxes making one larger case, at one point the outer two hinge at the top of the middle one to give it a tripod gate of a person on crutches, at another time they hinge in the middle of the length to paddlewheel in water... it never gets enough screentime, I am afraid it is more a clever trick than a workable tool. I see references to either TARS or CASE, so there were two? Currently I rate it above BB-8, which I can picture rolling towards and away from a piece of equipment several times while trying to line up the port on its body where the tool is with the spot it has to work on.
Rate them: Putting them in the order I like them, then assigning numerical values:
0.08 Westworld robots
0.11 THX robot police
0.15 Astroboy
0.2 GONK droid
0.30 Maria, Robocop
0.31 C-3P0
0.38 Gort, Twiki
0.39 Bender
0.5 Robby, the Robot
0.6 Huey, Dewey, and Louie
0.61 MO
0.7 R2-D2
0.75 VINCent
0.76 Haro
0.8 Omega
(This seems to be the realm of pure machines, machines going down to simple levers or pulleys.)
0.81 Treadwell
BB-8
TARS, CASE
Tachikoma
0.9 ED 209
0.95 Gertie
1.0 SID
I know I'm missing alot, any you all want to see rated?
--
-Jack
Your Name
Oct 15, 2022, 7:31:01 PM10/15/22
to
On 2022-10-15 21:17:33 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
>
<snip>
There is definitely a ton missing, but it would be near-impossible to
rank them *all*. Loads from Star Wars, more animated show ones (e.g.
Rosie from the Jetsons), as usual all the Asian and UK ones, such as
Doctor Who's Cybermen, Daleks (although more mechanical wheelchairs for
a living beings), Metal Mickey, "Humans" TV androids, Transformers, ...
It may also depend on what you term as a "robot". Something like KITT
is technically a car-shaped robot (self-thinking, self-moving, etc.).
>
<snip>
rank them *all*. Loads from Star Wars, more animated show ones (e.g.
Rosie from the Jetsons), as usual all the Asian and UK ones, such as
Doctor Who's Cybermen, Daleks (although more mechanical wheelchairs for
a living beings), Metal Mickey, "Humans" TV androids, Transformers, ...
It may also depend on what you term as a "robot". Something like KITT
is technically a car-shaped robot (self-thinking, self-moving, etc.).
Jack Bohn
Oct 16, 2022, 7:10:30 AM10/16/22
to
On Saturday, October 15, 2022 at 7:31:01 PM UTC-4, Your Name wrote:
> On 2022-10-15 21:17:33 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> >
> > I know I'm missing alot, any you all want to see rated?
> There is definitely a ton missing, but it would be near-impossible to
> rank them *all*. Loads from Star Wars, more animated show ones (e.g.
> Rosie from the Jetsons), as usual all the Asian and UK ones, such as
> Doctor Who's Cybermen, Daleks (although more mechanical wheelchairs for
> a living beings), Metal Mickey, "Humans" TV androids, Transformers, ...
I meant to rank Rosie! Somewhere about 0.42 or so. I may be giving too much credit for the narrow wheelbase; I'm thinking if you did it live she' mostly be supported by wires.whereas a live Bender would probably be someone with the legs and arms made of that flexible conduit cover, like the arms of Robby.
> On 2022-10-15 21:17:33 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> >
> > I know I'm missing alot, any you all want to see rated?
> There is definitely a ton missing, but it would be near-impossible to
> rank them *all*. Loads from Star Wars, more animated show ones (e.g.
> Rosie from the Jetsons), as usual all the Asian and UK ones, such as
> Doctor Who's Cybermen, Daleks (although more mechanical wheelchairs for
> a living beings), Metal Mickey, "Humans" TV androids, Transformers, ...
Every time I'm away from the computer I think of more robots, but when I sit down at the keyboard I forget. I meant to mention that "Silent Running" had a pool-playing robot, evidently based on what researchers at the time were working on!
> It may also depend on what you term as a "robot". Something like KITT
> is technically a car-shaped robot (self-thinking, self-moving, etc.).
--
-Jack
Your Name
Oct 16, 2022, 5:33:15 PM10/16/22
to
original, not Moore-Ron's crappy reboot version).
Possibly the Six Miliion Dollar Man and Bionic Woman (plus a bionic dog
in one episode), but even if cyborgs don't count, there was also a
couple of fully robot men, including a look-a-like one that replaced
Oscar Goldman.
Gary R. Schmidt
Oct 16, 2022, 9:54:06 PM10/16/22
to
Cheers,
Gary B-)
Your Name
Oct 17, 2022, 2:24:59 AM10/17/22
to
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_robots_and_androids>
It includes robots in books as well as TV and movies.
Jack Bohn
Oct 19, 2022, 9:47:35 AM10/19/22
to
All androids nearly indistinguishable from humans go between 0 and 0.1, with small differences like that differentiating them. Or sometimes just an acknowledgement of how difficult that task (as opposed to hiring an actor) would be. Veejur's reconstructed Ilia probe, with its small osmotic micropump, puts her up near a full 0.1.
Data rates above the 0.1, because they didn't get his skin right, or his eye color. Plus, he gets the cumulative effect of all the times we see his head or limbs detached, or some port in his skin open to show the circuitry beneath.
What I would like suggestions for is a complete zero: a robot naively built with the full appearance of a human. "I've built a robot as an experiment; to see if it can walk and talk." "Why did you take the trouble to give it skin, and a nose, and hair?" "Why wouldn't I?" (I have become aware that 19th Century automatons were built in the shape of people, even if they only sat at a desk and wrote out copies of a poem.) I think there is a Twilight Zone episode that might fit. Maybe the robot of "Small Wonder" or "D.A.R.Y.L." but I haven't watched either.
There's certainly room for bionic ladies and gentlemen, which opens the door for Cybermen and Daleks, and not to forget Darth Vader, "More machine now than man." Commenting on their mechanical parts, of course.
--
-Jack
Your Name
Oct 19, 2022, 5:27:21 PM10/19/22
to
chaarcter obviously an android, but they changed over the years to
become more human-like (probably a least partly so the actor didn't
have to spend so much time in the make-up room getting ready).
Data also had a "twin brother" Lore.
For the earlier Star Trek, there was a storyline in the novels where
the main crew were replaced by android version of themselves.
<https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Spock_(android)>
> What I would like suggestions for is a complete zero: a robot naively
> built with the full appearance of a human. "I've built a robot as an
> experiment; to see if it can walk and talk." "Why did you take the
> trouble to give it skin, and a nose, and hair?" "Why wouldn't I?" (I
> have become aware that 19th Century automatons were built in the shape
> of people, even if they only sat at a desk and wrote out copies of a
> poem.) I think there is a Twilight Zone episode that might fit. Maybe
> the robot of "Small Wonder" or "D.A.R.Y.L." but I haven't watched
> either.
(UK and original Scandanavian) and "Not Quite Human" ... among others.
> There's certainly room for bionic ladies and gentlemen, which opens the
> door for Cybermen and Daleks, and not to forget Darth Vader, "More
> machine now than man." Commenting on their mechanical parts, of course.
slowly replaced almost all of his body with droid parts, leaving only
his brain, heart, and lungs remaining as organic. Thos too might have
eventually been replace if he hadn't been killed in the duel with
Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Jack Bohn
Oct 20, 2022, 1:02:21 PM10/20/22
to
Your Name wrote:
> On 2022-10-19 13:47:34 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> > What I would like suggestions for is a complete zero: a robot naively
> > built with the full appearance of a human. "I've built a robot as an
> > experiment; to see if it can walk and talk." "Why did you take the
> > trouble to give it skin, and a nose, and hair?" "Why wouldn't I?" (I
> > have become aware that 19th Century automatons were built in the shape
> > of people, even if they only sat at a desk and wrote out copies of a
> > poem.) I think there is a Twilight Zone episode that might fit. Maybe
> > the robot of "Small Wonder" or "D.A.R.Y.L." but I haven't watched
> > either.
> There is "Weird Science" (move and TV series) and the TV shows "Humans"
> (UK and original Scandanavian) and "Not Quite Human" ... among others.
Yeah, you mentioned "Humans" before, but it takes a while to get through my thick skull. That's a fine example, particularly considering it comes so late in the game. I had never heard of "Not Quite Human," and it's a trilogy!
> On 2022-10-19 13:47:34 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> > What I would like suggestions for is a complete zero: a robot naively
> > built with the full appearance of a human. "I've built a robot as an
> > experiment; to see if it can walk and talk." "Why did you take the
> > trouble to give it skin, and a nose, and hair?" "Why wouldn't I?" (I
> > have become aware that 19th Century automatons were built in the shape
> > of people, even if they only sat at a desk and wrote out copies of a
> > poem.) I think there is a Twilight Zone episode that might fit. Maybe
> > the robot of "Small Wonder" or "D.A.R.Y.L." but I haven't watched
> > either.
> There is "Weird Science" (move and TV series) and the TV shows "Humans"
> (UK and original Scandanavian) and "Not Quite Human" ... among others.
> > There's certainly room for bionic ladies and gentlemen, which opens the
> > door for Cybermen and Daleks, and not to forget Darth Vader, "More
> > machine now than man." Commenting on their mechanical parts, of course.
> There's also Star Wars' General Grievous - original a living being who
> slowly replaced almost all of his body with droid parts, leaving only
> his brain, heart, and lungs remaining as organic. Thos too might have
> eventually been replace if he hadn't been killed in the duel with
> Obi-Wan Kenobi.
--
-Jack
Your Name
Oct 20, 2022, 3:37:00 PM10/20/22
to
On 2022-10-20 17:02:20 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
> Your Name wrote:
>> On 2022-10-19 13:47:34 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
>
>>> What I would like suggestions for is a complete zero: a robot naively
>>> built with the full appearance of a human. "I've built a robot as an
>>> experiment; to see if it can walk and talk." "Why did you take the
>>> trouble to give it skin, and a nose, and hair?" "Why wouldn't I?" (I
>>> have become aware that 19th Century automatons were built in the shape
>>> of people, even if they only sat at a desk and wrote out copies of a
>>> poem.) I think there is a Twilight Zone episode that might fit. Maybe
>>> the robot of "Small Wonder" or "D.A.R.Y.L." but I haven't watched
>>> either.
>
>> There is "Weird Science" (move and TV series) and the TV shows "Humans"
>> (UK and original Scandanavian) and "Not Quite Human" ... among others.
>
> Yeah, you mentioned "Humans" before, but it takes a while to get
> through my thick skull. That's a fine example, particularly
> considering it comes so late in the game. I had never heard of "Not
> Quite Human," and it's a trilogy!
It's also "based on" a set of six books ... I don't know how closely it
> Your Name wrote:
>> On 2022-10-19 13:47:34 +0000, Jack Bohn said:
>
>>> What I would like suggestions for is a complete zero: a robot naively
>>> built with the full appearance of a human. "I've built a robot as an
>>> experiment; to see if it can walk and talk." "Why did you take the
>>> trouble to give it skin, and a nose, and hair?" "Why wouldn't I?" (I
>>> have become aware that 19th Century automatons were built in the shape
>>> of people, even if they only sat at a desk and wrote out copies of a
>>> poem.) I think there is a Twilight Zone episode that might fit. Maybe
>>> the robot of "Small Wonder" or "D.A.R.Y.L." but I haven't watched
>>> either.
>
>> There is "Weird Science" (move and TV series) and the TV shows "Humans"
>> (UK and original Scandanavian) and "Not Quite Human" ... among others.
>
> Yeah, you mentioned "Humans" before, but it takes a while to get
> through my thick skull. That's a fine example, particularly
> considering it comes so late in the game. I had never heard of "Not
> Quite Human," and it's a trilogy!
follows those books though.
"Extant" is another recent-ish TV series with a child robot.
Most lists of movie and TV robots:
<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/RidiculouslyHumanRobots/LiveActionTV>
<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/RidiculouslyHumanRobots/Film>
<https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeceptivelyHumanRobots>
(Click on the example sub-folders)
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