Top 5 Robots

It’s time to give some love to our mechanized companions.   Here in no particular order are my top 5 Robots:

Right off the bat we have the Abbot and Costello of science fiction, R2-D2 and C-3PO.  I’m including them together because in all fairness, they’re a double act.  You can’t have one without the other.  For many of us, these were the first robots we saw and pretty much sum up how they’re presented in fiction.  They’re a modern Greek Chorus and are essentially the audience’s stand ins.  They’re everything we look for in robots, brave, loyal, capable, and occasionally pretty damn funny.  They’re iconic and endlessly copied.

Next we have the original robot from film, Maria.  You know, from Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s masterpiece and arguably the first major science fiction film?  Well, if you haven’t seen it, check it out.  Maria is almost the poster child for malicious robots.  She starts out as a fairly mechanical looking construct, but is transformed by her creator Dr. Rotwang into a stunning young woman who uses her wiles to seduce and infiltrate the film’s resistance movement.  She’s an iconic film character and looks pretty impressive for a film from the late twenties.  She’s a great robot and a great villain.

Now for everyone’s favorite android, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  For those unaware, Data’s an android and looks human except for odd skin pigmentation.  Data is a great robot character.  His unending quest to be more human serves as a great mirror for the audience to further examine their own humanity.  He really makes one think about what it means to be human.  He was also a great stand in for civil rights as he seemed to constantly need to prove his worth and rights in the face of prejudice.  In fact, I can’t think of a bad Data episode.  It’s actually difficult to think of Data as a robot.  I think that means he’s pretty close to realizing his dream.

While we’re on the subject of androids, let’s talk about Marvin from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Marvin doesn’t want to be human or anything else really.  He’s too busy bemoaning the fact that he’s greatly overqualified for any task.  But you’d be too if you had a brain the size of a planet.  Marvin is hilariously depressing and any scene or passage with him is sure to be a winner.  He’s like the opposite of the ideal robot.  He’ll do a task you ask to, but he’ll complain the whole time.  He’s also incredibly loyal and willing to wait billions of years for his employers.  While he may not be the best company, he’ll definitely make it worth putting up with the complaining.  Mostly.

Last we have ASIMO.  Why is he here?  Because he actually exists!  ASIMO is the most famous and recognizable humanoid robot actually built by people, Honda to be specific.  Is ASIMO useful?  No, not really as his job is basically kind of a gimmick and restricted to PR.  But what he really is, is a symbol.  He’s a symbol of what may be.  We have actually created a real mostly working robot.  Is it cost effective? No.  Is it really that useful to people as a whole?  No.  But it is a sign of things that someday we may have the others on this list as well.  Except Maria maybe.

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