Robot Theory
March 13, 2005
With the release of “Robots” onto the American pop-culture map, I got to reminiscing about other famous automatons in film and TV history, and how some, though they all represent the same thing- humanistic non-breathing beings- are more equipped than others to work as Science-Fiction staples. Take for instance Gort, from Robert Wise’s landmark “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, a huge metallic man in a cheesy silver get-up, who is the very epitome of human-controlled man-robotics. On the one hand, he represents the future, or at least, what we thought of the future during the Cold War, and in so much as he’s a walking peace-bringer, he’s also equipped to reign fury down upon anybody with ill will against him, or essentially, their own fellow man. As science-fiction, Gort works about as well as a 7-foot actor in a stiff rubber suit, but as morality and symbolism wrapped up into one idea, he’s the very best “robot” of all time, capable of drawing gawks from on-lookers, while spreading one message, as told through his humanoid alien master, that hate and war will lead to nothing but non-existence. If all robots exuded such a creed, similarly found in the robot in Brad Bird’s superb “The Iron Giant”, than the future would certainly be a better place than most Sci-Fi, especially Japanese anime, would have us imagine.
In Japanese animation, as well as more far-out features like “Tetsuo”, the future is bleak, inhabited half with remaining humans, and half with very realistic human androids (think Ian Holm in “Alien”, or Lance Henriksen in “Aliens”). In Mamoru Oshi’s brilliant double feature, “Ghost in the Shell”, and “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence”, humanity looks like a robot-infested film noir, with computers running a very intricate network crazier than “The Matrix”, and more sophisticated than HAL, or any other-reality ever put on paper by the master of futuristic satire, Philip K. Dick. Similarly, in anthologies like “Memories”, and “Neo Tokyo”, as well as respected cyber-punk trips like “Metropolis” and “Parasite Dolls”, skin-covered robots co-exist with humans only through a clause that suggest the other side never harm the living, but on the flip side, humans can use their handiwork for machinery, weapons, and most seemly, the sex trade. Invariably, like much in Japanese animation, or indeed, a favorite tool of the Sci-Fi writer, robots living in such close proximity- physically and metaphysically- to humans usually always rebel (“Ghost in the Shell II” follows recent American films like “Terminator 3” and “I, Robot” in this category), leaving the day-saving to a loner hero (think Will Smith in “I, Robot”) who is always one step ahead of his dreaded frenemies.
When robots and humans co-exist in the arts- be it as campy as “Lost in Space”, as frightening as Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, as entertaining as “The Terminator”, or as awkwardly nostalgic as Fisher Stevens, Michael McKean, and Johnny 5 in “Short Circuit 2”, the philosophical ramifications usually involve second guessing the steady progress of technology. In “Terminator 2”, Arnold Schwarzenegger comes back from the future to help destroy a cutting edge computer chip that will doom earth, eventually terminating himself (cue sappy irony) to make the plot holes solidify. This isn’t far off from another robot staple, the willed soul, as in, humans tinkering enough with artificiality that their robots can feel emotions, comprehend attitudes, and suffer the consequences of mad science gone philosophical. Arnold’s stilted love for John Conner in “T2” could directly lead to Spielberg’s “A.I.”, which is all about the humanization of flesh-like robots, or, Johnny 5 feeling “alive” when he sees the glorious sights of NYC for the first time, or, in a comedic sense, the worker robots in ‘Lisa’s Wedding’ who melt after shedding water from their ill-conceived robot tear ducts. Modern robots are no longer little gizmos with wheels trained to sweep our floors, or computer chips designed to shut off our lights with the clap of a hand, but variations on the human condition Mary Shelly established with “Frankenstein”, that the Modern Prometheus need not have been born of a human to know right from wrong, but made of human hands, and imbibed with human learning tools, to function as if they were truly human. In Japan, this often leads towards a doomsday scenario, but in more affable works, the advance of technology is a double-edge blade, of triumph, and skepticism.
Finally, in Science-Fiction, the future where humans and robots co-exist is often set after a devastating nuclear war (remember Gort’s warning?), but sometimes this world isn’t always doom and gloom, and in what I think is the supreme example of modern futuristic storytelling via satire, the now sadly defunct classic “Futurama”, humans, aliens, creatures of all kind, and robots all live somewhat peaceably in a reincarnated melting pot of a futuristic New York City. In its 72 total episodes, culled onto four DVD sets, and repeated nightly on Comedy Central, Matt Groening’s wickedly funny satire of modern Sci-Fi ethics managed to not only create a world where the key relationship was between a 20th century loafer (Fry), and an alcoholic, foul-mouthed, cigar-smoking robot (Bender), but it did so without so much as a hint of the standard Sci-Fi morality. Bender, for all his rude behavior and hilarious ticks, was simply a rude robot designed to bend gerders, but cared more for cooking shows and power grabs than he did his designed task, and Fry, for all his 20th century stupidity, and homesick attitude, grew to love Bender like a brother, despite getting sent to a robot insane asylum on his behalf, or getting whipped like a slave when Bender became a Pharaoh of an Egypt-like distant planet. “So just because a robot wants to kill humans,” once said the wise Bender, “that makes him a radical?” On “Futurama”, such a line passes for witty satire, but Groening’s second masterpiece is a rare exception, because in the normal world of modern Science-Fiction, robots who want to rebel and kill humans are not mere radicals, they are the majority. Bender and his friends may be harmless comedic fodder, but tell that line to Gort, and he’ll say there’s nothing funny where we’re headed.
by Adam Suraf