From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid
On Fri, 28 Oct 2022 07:22:23 -0700 (PDT), Jack Bohn
wrote:
>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.
All of which /could/ have been about 3 inches high.
/The Wild Wild West/ movie apparently actually /built/ one of the
spider's legs out of iron (as depicted in the film). It was so heavy
that no steam engine that would fit in the body could possibly move
it.
There is a /reason/ models and/or CGI are used for these things!
>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)
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