Dream machines

A scene from the hit film Transformers. (Dreamworks Pictures)

Transformers, those metamorphic toys from the ’80s that inspired this summer’s blockbuster movie, are among the coolest creations in the pantheon of fictional robots. But when you begin tallying up the memorable robots that have walked, wheeled and whirred their way through pop culture, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. A staple of sci-fi and fantasy since the 1920s, they’ve come in all forms, from little fireplug-shaped R2-D2 of Star Wars to the ultra-human androids of Steve Spielberg’s A.I. and the Terminator films. The following is a survey of some of the more famous (and quirky) robots in pop history, several of which have been inducted into Carnegie Mellon University’s Robot Hall of Fame.

(Note: Cyborgs, which are half-human, half-machine — such as RoboCop and TV's Bionic Woman — have not been included.)

The original robot story: R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots).

Mechanical creatures, from dancing dolls to steam-powered men, were the stuff of fiction well before the 20th century. However, it was Czech dramatist Karel Čapek who introduced the word “robot” to the lexicon in R.U.R., his 1920 sci-fi play about mass-produced android slaves that rebel against their human masters. Čapek  coined “robot” from the Czech word robota, meaning “forced labour.”

The seminal robot book:  I, Robot.

Prolific sci-fi author Isaac Asimov penned this influential series of stories, published in book form in 1950, which laid the foundation for many subsequent fictional robots. Among Asimov’s contributions are the Three Laws of Robotics, governing the conduct of robots, and the terms “robotics” and “positronic brain” – the latter referring to a robot’s artificial intelligence. The 2004 Will Smith film is only loosely related to the Asimov work, but another of Asimov’s many robot tales, The Bicentennial Man, was turned into a 1999 movie starring Robin Williams. 

Robots on film – the classic robot: Forbidden Planet.

Robby the Robot, with his bubble head and pincer claws, almost stole the movie from his flesh-and-blood Canadian co-stars Walter Pidgeon and Leslie Nielsen in this inventive 1956 sci-fi classic, inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Robby, designed by Robert Kinoshita and voiced by Marvin Miller, was such a hit that he was duplicated as a children’s toy, while the original prop went on to make guest appearances in movies and TV shows for decades to come.

Klaatu the alien (Michael Rennie) and Gort the robot (Lock Martin) in The Day the Earth Stood Still. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Robots on film – the alien robot: The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The other great robot of 1950s sci-fi movies is Gort, bodyguard to the extraterrestrial emissary Klaatu, in Robert Wise’s celebrated Cold War parable.  Tall, silent and built of sleek steel, Gort (portrayed by lofty actor Lock Martin) wore a visor from which he shot a deadly ray capable of vaporizing guns and tanks. He could only be stopped with the command: “Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!”

Robots on film – the femme fatale robot: Metropolis. 

The proto-fembot is Maria in Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterpiece about class warfare in a future society. A sexy “gynoid” (the female equivalent of an android), Maria is built at the behest of the film’s tyrant to resemble the heroine of the workers and sow dissent among them. Mike Meyers sent up the fembot femme fatale in 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

Robots on film – the lovable robot: Star Wars.

Gold-plated C-3P0, the Jeeves of robots (played with  inimitable fussiness by British actor Anthony Daniels), and his bleeping, whirring little sidekick, R2-D2, have become iconic since their debut in the first Star Wars film in 1977. They are also history’s first robot comedy team.

Robots on film – the slapstick robot: Sleeper.

A bumbling Woody Allen impersonates a robot butler in his nutty 1973 sci-fi spoof. He finds himself in peril when his “owner,” Diane Keaton, sends him to the repair shop – where faulty robots have their heads wrenched off.

Robots on film – the evil robot: The Terminator.

A perfectly cast Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as this skin-clad killing machine from the future in James Cameron’s 1984 action thriller and its sequels. Among its contributions to robot fiction is the robot point-of-view shot, in which we see the Terminator processing computer data through its eyes.

Peter Cushing, Jill Curzon and a Dalek in a scene from the BBC's Doctor Who. (Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Robots on television – the evil ersatz robot: Doctor Who.

Looking like giant, bumpy traffic cones and barking “Ex-ter-mi-nate!” in their metallic monotone, the Daleks of Doctor Who are Britain’s most famous contribution to robotic culture — even if, in fact, they aren’t genuine robots, but a mutant alien race concealed inside mechanical armour. The Daleks were first introduced to the long-lived BBC series in 1963 and have since reappeared regularly to menace its time-travelling hero.

Robots on television – the protective robot: Lost in Space.

“Danger, Will Robinson!” The robot on Irwin Allen’s mid-1960s family sci-fi series often served as a big brother to Billy Mumy’s Will, the youngest member of the planet-hopping Robinson clan. A bubblehead model like Forbidden Planet’s Robby, but with a barrel-shaped body and caterpillar treads instead of feet, he was also designed by Robert Kinoshita and named “B-9” (as in, “benign”). Dick Tufeld provided his distinctive voice.

Robots on television – the curious robot: Star Trek: The Next Generation.

A character inspired by Asimov’s robot stories (and possibly the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz), the popular Lt.-Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) of the second Star Trek series was an inquisitive android who wanted to understand human emotions. Eventually (in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations) he had a chip installed to let him experience feelings.

Astro Boy. (Right Stuf)

The greatest cartoon robot: Astro Boy. Oodles of robots have turned up in comic books and cartoons, but Japan’s durable Astro Boy straddled both mediums and has been entertaining generations of kids since the 1950s. A boy android who resembles Pinocchio with super powers, he began life as a manga comic by Osamu Tezuka in 1951, was transformed into a pioneering anime TV series in 1963 and has since been revived twice, in the 1980s and 2000s. The Robot Hall of Fame (where he was inducted in 2004) has dubbed the little guy the “first robot with a soul.”

Here are some other notable robots:

The saddest robot: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A robot mind is a terrible thing to waste. Marvin, the “paranoid android” of Douglas Adams’ cross-medium cult classic, struggles with the melancholy that can only come from being 50,000 times smarter than the average human being, but with no suitable outlet for all that brain power.

The most obnoxious robot: Futurama.

The Danny De Vito of robots, Bender in Matt Groening’s animated comedy series is a raspy-voiced, beer-chugging, cigar-chomping pile of metal with the sensitivity of a bulldozer. But beneath that dented exterior lurks the secret desire to be a folk singer.

My wife is a robot: The Stepford Wives.

Hollywood, in a rare feminist mood, released this now-legendary 1975 thriller about suburban Connecticut husbands who replace their uppity spouses with androids. The Ira Levin novel on which it’s based owes something to sci-fi master Ray Bradbury’s short story, “Marionettes, Inc.” (The movie was remade in 2004.)

The cover of the Flaming Lips album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. (Warner Music Canada)

Robots in music:

Inevitably, robots have been a favourite subject with electronica bands, from Kraftwerk’s Die Roboter to Daft Punk’s Robot Rock. Prog-rockers the Alan Parsons Project put Asimov to music with the I Robot concept album. Among the most offbeat robot tunes: The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, a tender ballad about a Japanese robot fighter, and They Might Be Giants’ Robot Parade, a catchy nursery song for futuristic children. Radiohead’s enigmatic Paranoid Android from OK Computer is a nod to the robot from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For a great robotic performance, check out Devo’s reworking of the Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

Worst. Robot. Ever: Robot Monster.

Phil Tucker’s no-budget 3-D horror flick from 1953 turns up regularly on lists of the world’s worst movies, not least for its laughable title villain – a robot alien played by a lumbering actor (George Barrows) in a gorilla suit and a diving helmet. It has to be seen to be believed.

Martin Morrow writes about the arts for CBCnews.ca/arts.

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