80 Years Of Robots In Hollywood Options

[noorie]

The Eyes of the State
Metropolis (1927)

ROBOT:Maria

QUOTE: "There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator."
—Maria, the leader of the underground world of the workers, calling out to her followers.


Alfred Abel and Rudolf Klein-Rogge in Metropolis.

Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece set many of the ground rules for the sci-fi epics to come, not just in the way it depicted a dystopic future, but also the way it dealt with mad scientists and of course, their creations.

Depicting a world in which the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are literally divided by the Earth's surface — the elitists living above ground and the workers living in the dark, dank caverns beneath the surface — Maria is a robot used by those in power to pry their way into the workers' world. A silver machine created in a secret lab, Maria takes on the face and characteristics of the female leader of that underground world, the one who the workers trust and rally around. By controlling the robot, the surface-dwellers manage to control the underground populace, turning Maria's words of uprising into words of reassurance: Get back to work, and be happy.

One of the very first big-screen depictions of a robot in this, the first great sci-fi film, is that of a mole and an imposter; of an enemy that can't be defeated, much less identified. For so many of the movie robots to come, Maria was the defining transition from the robots of sci-fi literature to the artificial intelligence of the sci-fi movie.

[noorie]

Just One of the Gang
Forbidden Planet (1956)

ROBOT: Robby the Robot
QUOTE: "Sorry, Miss. I was giving myself an oil job."
—Robby the Robot, explaining to his master's daughter, Altaira, why he did not answer the bell when she called him.


Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet.

Forbidden Planet became a cult classic for its pioneering special effects and a satisfying combination of 1950s cheesiness and sexual innuendo, not to mention a young (and serious) Leslie Nielsen. But the real star of the film is a hilariously smug robot named Robby. While his predecessors had all the personality of a toaster, Robby behaves like a deadpan Shakespearean clown (the film's characters and theme found an unlikely inspiration in The Tempest). He is pompous yet clumsy, domineering yet still willing to get drunk with the crew. More advanced than humans could create, Robby was constructed by a man named Dr. Morbius who used plans from an alien computer system.

Robby is not just a charmer, he also has heart, following the same robot morality introduced by writer Isaac Asimov in his 1940s and 50s I, Robot stories. Because he is programmed to follow three basic tenets: obey human orders, protect his own existence and never injure humans, Robby faces a philosophical dilemma when he is ordered by a human (Dr. Morbius) to kill a human (Dr. Morbius) in order to save his own life.

To date, Robby is the first and only movie prop to receive "star billing" in a film, perhaps because he cost so much to make — a reported $125,000 in the 1950s, the equivalent of a gazillion dollars today. He later re-appeared in TV shows like The Twilight Zone and inspired countless robots after him, most notably Star Wars' C-3PO.