My Top 10 Robots and Killing Machines in film and TV
As a preface of Pacific Rim, I’d just like to take a pictorial look at some other famous robots through the years. I know the machines in Pacific Rim are technically not Robots, but they are Robotics.
My Top 10 Movie and TV Robots:
1) The first lady robot in film and the first lady robot of film, Maria Futura from the silent movie classic, Metropolis.
2) Most famous is Robbie the robot from The Forbidden Planet. After that film, Robbie, appeared in the film, The Invisible Boy (1957) and in guest spots on several TV shows, Twilight Zone, Addam‘s Family, and The Man From UNCLE, to name a few.. Robbie was the first Robot to demonstrate Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, in film.
3) The television series, Lost In Space had the wonderful computerized think-tank robot, aptly called Robot. He would give words of wisdom like, “That does not compute,” and “Danger, Danger, Will Robinson.” Actually, the robot’s name is B-9. (this pick goes out to Markmc2012)
4) Mechagodzilla was modeled after Godzilla. He appears in 5 Godzilla movies: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993), Godzilla against Mechagodzilla (2002), Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2004)
5) Terminator Robots – Naturally, we have the Terminator Robots, T-800 and T-1000 and the Terminatrix (T-X). In Terminator Salvation, we have The Harvester, a gigantic robot war machine sent to seek and destroy the human resistance. That is one awesome giant robot – the whole film should have centered around The Harvesters, IMO. Also in the film was an earlier model, the T-600.
6) The Gunslinger played by Yule Brenner was the original Terminator in the film Westworld (1974). Based on a Michael Crichton story.
7) Mecha-Kong was a giant robot modeled after King Kong in the film, King Kong Escapes. (Toho Films)
8) War of the Worlds (2005) Tripods – despite the successful 1950’s version of the film, the war machines in HG Wells’ classic were not saucers, but giant 3 footed pods. They came to life in Spielberg’s 2005 version of War Of the Worlds.
9) Sonny from I-Robot (2004). He was smart too. I felt bad for Sonny. The film’s many robots struggled to adhere to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
10) Fembots have been in quite a few films, Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), Doctor Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966), Austin Powers (1997), The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and GoldMember (2002)
Related articles:
Creature Features – Giant Robots
Robots in Film – A Complete Pictorial History (coming soon)
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