MACHINES LIKE US: ROBOTS IN SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA

MACHINES LIKE US: ROBOTS IN SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA | Offscreen

The robot has always occupied a special place in cinema history, especially in the science fiction genre. The term, derived from the Czech word for "work", was coined by playwright Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R., first staged in 1921, and used to denote mechanical beings designed for menial, repetitive tasks. The first major screen robot was Maria the "Maschinenmensch" in Fritz Lang's silent classic Metropolis (1927). American film serials of the next two decades featured an assortment of "automatons" in tin suits, though robots of the 1950s, sometimes doing the bidding of alien invaders, were seen as threatening metaphors for the Cold War. On a lighter note, an early fandom developed around the benign figure of Robby The Robot from Forbidden Planet (1956), leading to an early example of robot toy merchandising.

The Star Wars franchise pioneered the term "droid" to describe R2-D2 and C-3PO, the loveable face of robotkind, though the first sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) introduced the Evil Empire's less cuddly AT-AT walkers. Other kiddy-friendly automata included Johnny 5 from Short Circuit (1986) and WALL-E (2008). Meanwhile in Japan, the Takara company had the brilliant idea of combining the two most popular boys' toys - cars and robots - into "autobots", spawning a multimedia franchise otherwise known as Transformers.

Androids, equipped with anthropomorphic but artificial intelligence, were robots designed to pass for human. Films such as Westworld (1973) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) pitted killer androids against humans, while Blade Runner (1982) posed existential questions about the difference between man and replicant. Cyborgs, as seen in RoboCop (1987) and Hardware (1990), were humans whose bodies had been partially replaced by mechanical parts and became a staple of post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk subgenres, the most sophisticated representations being found in Japanese anime such as Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence (2004).

In the 21st century, developments in Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and robotics, coupled with increasing public awareness of how much technology is now part of our everyday lives, have made stories about the relationship between humans and machines more popular than ever. On TV, the reboot of Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) upgraded the Cylons from the shiny metal robots of the original series (1978-1979) to androids indistinguishable from humans, while the Westworld TV show (2016-) turned the android antagonists of the 1973 film into fully-fledged protagonists with character arcs and emotions. And movies such as Eva (2011), Ex-Machina (2014) and The Artifice Girl (2022) increasingly explored the complex interdependent relationship between humans and their artificial creation. To quote Eldon Tyrell, Blade Runner's replicant designer, "More human than human is our motto", indeed!

With more than 30 films, robots provide this year's Offscreen Film Festival with its most expansive module, comprising 20 films at Cinematek and complementary screenings at Cinema Nova and other venues. An International Symposium will provide guest speakers and audiences with opportunities to add context and debate to the theme of Robots on Film.

MACHINES LIKE US: ROBOTS IN SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA | Offscreen

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