This summer’s installment of the live-action Transformers series offers nothing to challenge my earlier comments on this giant robot franchise, but after reading the review/FAQ from Topless Robot (you thought I’d actually go see this movie?) I think Transformers: Dark of the Moon warrants its own post. My position previously was that the Transformers, Autobots and Decepticons alike, are just further evidence that giant robots are bad and out to destroy humankind. TF3 does nothing to change that view and in fact strengthens my case. In this edition, the Decepticons hatch a plan to enslave humanity in order to rebuild Cybertron. Typical evil robots, enslaving humans and making us do their dirty work for them. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it turns out the Autobots sorta let the Decepticons ravage and destroy a good chunk of Chicago just to show us humans how bad the Decepticons are. Yeah, that’s some great hero behavior there, Optimus Prime. But the more I hear about this movie the more I think that maybe I should stop worrying about robots in disguise and start worrying about the real threat to humanity: Michael Bay summer blockbusters.
It’s hardly a controversial position to take, but Blade Runner is most certainly the pinnacle of sci-fi dealing with the conflict between robotkind and humankind. It’s all because of Ridley Scott’s genius (not to mention PK Dick) that the replicants are the total embodiment of night terrors and at the same time I am captivated, mystified, and sympathetic to their situation. From the very get go I should be rooting hard for Deckard as he retires the rouge cyborgs, but bewilderingly I start feeling bad for those infernal machines. The humans have lost their humanity and only the androids seem to any compassion. It’s all so confusing and upsetting. But this is the point, right? If we never never bring sentient machines like Roy Batty into the world then we never have to face those moral questions when it comes time to take him out.
The fear that robots will someday rise up and enslave humanity can be traced back at least as far as Rossum’s Universal Robots by Čapek in 1921 and probably further back if you want to consider creatures like the Golem to be proto-robots, but the true headwater for all our modern cyber phobias has to be The Terminator. As blockbuster Hollywood entertainment, these films are all pretty good (top notch in a couple cases), but for robot fear mongering it just does not get any better than this series. First and foremost there is the terminator itself: Whether it’s Arnold as the original T-800, Robert Patrick’s T-1000 model, or the T-X from T3, these machines embody everything that gives me the terrors deep in the night. They are indestructible, relentless, and merciless in carrying out their purpose of exterminating humans. And then there is the whole origin story with Skynet being set loose and turning on humankind. That is exactly what would happen, right? And here we can see the end result: nuclear holocaust, worldwide devastation, and two hours of a sneering Christian Bale. Is technological advancement really worth that price?
If Star Trek and its formidable array of sequels and spinoffs is to be believed, our journey to the final frontier might take us to where no man has gone before, but when we get there we’ll probably find some robot got there first. The galaxy, it seems, is populated not only by hot, blue-skinned women but also uncountable numbers of androids, cyborgs and sentient machines. Maybe the reason interstellar space is so vast as to make it practically impossible to cross is to keep all those robots confined to their own star systems, otherwise they’d surely overrun the entire galaxy and eventually the universe. Of course if we’re to believe the multiverse theory, somewhere out there in the infinite vastness of existence there must be an entire universe teeming with silicon-based lifeforms where organic life is the artificial intelligence that is born of scientific and engineering hubris. And in that singular instance of infinite realities, someone is probably right now blogging their fears about how those carbon-based interlopers will ultimately rise up and overtake the silica civilization. Whoa. Really kinda blows your mind, huh?
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the original 1970s series or the second millennium reboot, Battlestar Galactica embodies exactly the sort of nightmare scenario that awaits us if we continue in our foolish quest towards sentient machines: We make some robots that can think and act on their own and they turn against us, resulting in nuclear holocaust and the end of the human race. The Cylons from the original ABC series were mostly chrome hulks stamping about like so many Cybermen, but they were still pretty scary with their red laser eye and “By your command” business. But the SyFy (née Sci-Fi) series managed to ramp up the terror with a more insidious and evil breed of Cylon that looks and acts human, one could fit in so well we’d never know until it was too late. Seriously, if the robots ever leave Earth and colonize other planets, we should just start looking for a new home because those things are obviously going to evolve into some kind of humanoid cyborg and then come back to wipe us out. Oh, that’s right, we are sending robots out into space. FAIL!
