Theme: Robots

Robots are machines that are independently mobile and capable of actions. They have some capacity for independence, which can range all the way from mere programmed functionality to speech and the ability to respond to verbal commands to fully-fledged Artificial Intelligence.

Machines that are built to resemble human beings are referred to as Androids – all androids are also technically robots but for the purposes of discussion here, robots that resemble human form are discussed on the Androids page and less human-like and more mechanical robots are listed here.

The first screen robot was the android Maria in Metropolis (1927). Thereafter the serials of the 1930s and 40s could be counted on for an assortment of clunky men in tin suits. The 1950s brought an assortment of robots aiding alien invaders of the era but also the fan favourite of Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet (1956), the first robot to follow Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.

The next major development came during the era of Star Wars (1977), which introduced the ‘droid’ and showed that robots had become a familiar and everyday part of the world. Numerous films in the aftermath took such an approach. The era also introduced an assortment of cute and cuddly robots.

The Terminator (1984) popularised the killer android and in the spate of killer machine films that followed, there were a good many lethal and hulking non-humaniform robots on the attack.

The major development of the 2000s was Transformers (2007) and sequels, featuring vast shape-changing machines battling it out in colossal displays of mass destruction. The late 2010s brought an upsurge of real world developments in Artificial Intelligence, including a number of works dealing with robotics.