From: jack.bohn64@gmail.com   
      
   TCM is wrapping up their Robots in the Movies Month.   
      
   They saved the best... well, the biggest for last!  Mechagodzilla, how do I   
   rate that?  If a seven foot Gort gets credit for being too tall to be a person   
   in a suit, what to make of a 50m Mechagodzilla?  I guess it depends on how   
   much you believe    
   Godzilla isn't just a person in a Godzilla suit.   
      
   Mechagodzilla was preceded by a Mechani-Kong in the 1967 Toho movie "King Kong   
   Escapes."  Robots of unusually large size is a Japanese tradition running back   
   at least to "The Mysterians" in 1957; although an alien invasion movie, it   
   included a giant    
   monster for more box office draw; a high-tech machine used by the aliens   
   rather than an animal.   
      
   Going forward, Mechagodzill was rebuilt for a sequel movie, then the Godzilla   
   series finally petered out.  In the '80s a Godzilla series of movies started,   
   ignoring the previous series, being direct sequels to the original movie,   
   after which Godzilla had    
   not been seen for thirty years.  A change in Emperors means these two sets of   
   films can be referred to as the Showa-era Godzilla and the Hesei-era   
   Godzilla.  Spoilers, but the Hesei series will also peter out, another set of   
   movies, each individually a    
   direct sequel to the original, will be known as the Millennium series.    
   Mechagodzilla was redesigned and recontextualized in each of these series, and   
   also in the recent Legendary series of giant monster movies.   
      
      
   Final movie of this celebration: "Deadly Friend" (1986).  A youngster with a   
   hobby robot that gets put out of commission, and a neighboring friend who   
   falls into a vegetative coma, thinks to combine the two to get one functional   
   friend.  The robot BB (   
   Charles Fleischer provided the voice) is a rather mechanical design, perhaps   
   sometimes puppeteered or marionetted, but mostly controlled remotely by cable   
   or radio.  The IMDb trivia says Johny 5 from "Short Circuit" parts were used   
   for BB, but call me    
   skeptical.  That movie was released five months before this, if the two   
   followed a similar production pattern, one five months behind the other, the   
   design and building process for BB would likely be before Johnny Five was   
   released from filming duties.     
   Then I fell down a rabbit hole in realizing four such lite romance movies with   
   a mechanical robot actor appeared in 1986.  In order of US release: "Killbots"   
   (aka "Chopping Mall"), "Short Circuit", "Deadly Friend", and "Wired to Kill"   
   (aka "Booby Trap").    
    (With a fifth, "Flight of the Navigator" involving a computer of a CGI   
   ship.)  Was there something in the air?  Or maybe the water?  I would point to   
   "The Terminator" endoskeleton appearing back in 1984.  This was from director   
   James Cameron, previously    
   a special effects artist, who knew what animatronics innards were needed for   
   moving a human-like design.  (Interestingly, another use of his moviemaking   
   technology onscreen to save time designing future technology is in his   
   "Aliens" where "smartgun"    
   armature uses a Steadicam rig.)  1986 is also the year of Doctor Who's "Trial   
   of a Timelord" the first four episodes of which feature an advanced robot, not   
   the person-in-a-suit Drathro (which somewhat hides the lines of special   
   effects technician Paul    
   McGuinness), but the treaded L7 robot.  The DVD commentary mentions that the   
   L7 was built with components of a motorized wheelchair, introducing the idea   
   that advancing technology can make representing robots easier.  And cheaper.    
   There was a quote from    
   a movie-maker earlier in the '80s to the effect that if they could design a   
   single prop that could do everything required in the script, there'd be more   
   money in selling it than in using it to make a movie.  The prop department and   
   set design know all    
   the scrapyards to scrounge for cool stuff.  I picture a movie made in the   
   future with an ASIMO wearing a tin robot suit.   
      
   IMDb trivia for "Short Circuit" says the proximate inspiration for that was   
   "Let's Go," a short Showscan film made by Douglas Trumbull for the Expo in   
   Japan in 1985.  (And now I wish I'd explained the proto-Showscan of his   
   "Brainstorm" when I mentioned    
   that movie earlier.)  I was this week old when I found this out, and now I'm   
   wondering if there is any way to see this, or other Expo films.  It was a '60s   
   documentary short that brought Douglas Trumbull to the eye of Stanley Kubrick   
   for "2001."   
      
   Later, Sunday morning, is "It!" -- possibly.  The online schedule has that   
   title, and the cast for that movie, but a synopsis for "It! The Terror from   
   Beyond Space."  It's anybody's guess what the technician will pull out to run   
   in that spot.  If it is    
   the Roddy McDowall movie, it(!) is a golem-like statue.  Later in the day is   
   "I Walked with a Zombie."  One aspect of the robot concept seems to be control   
   over another intelligence: think of Doctor Smith pulling the power pack of the   
   Robot, or Harcourt    
   Fenton Mudd's "Stella" series of androids, which will berate him until he   
   tells them to shut up.  Such thoughts came even before we had the capability   
   to fulfil them.  These old-style zombie movies pretty much condemn such   
   urges.  Monday has "The Plague    
   of the Zombies," "Curse of Frankenstein," and the three Universal   
   Frankensteins with Boris Karloff as the monster.  While I'm thinking about it,   
   for all the foreshadowing about  criminal body parts and an abnormal or   
   damaged brain, this trilogy of movies    
   treats the creation as, mostly, an innocent.  Thoughts about death as a reboot   
   or clean install of mind, breaking the cycle of bad habits?  Sleep is often   
   touted for a change in outlook.  Does the sleep of death actually mean you are   
   reborn?   
      
      
   How to rate these robots?  They are, essentially, robots; the movie magic is   
   their motivation and control source -human rather than computer- and   
   substitutions of specialized versions for specialized actions.  I will rank   
   them in their believability as    
   robots:   
      
   Protectors ("Killbots")   
   the robot from "Wired to Kill" -- I only watched it once, if it has a   
   designation, I've forgotten   
   Johny Five   
   BB   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)