Directors like to make robots "interesting"
Satan was once called the ape of God. Computers and robots - our automaton counterparts - pull a similar stunt for the human race. We build 'em so they spend all day doing long division and other impossible higher-brain functions, or give them solid employment in inhospitable mines on alien planets, and how do they repay us? By displaying greed, jealousy, megalomania and all the other petty human flaws that we were trying to lose in the first place. Note: some directors think this makes them (and us) "interesting".
1) 2001's HAL is the luvvie, the Larry Olivier of renegade mainframe computers. His Oscar moment - singing Daisy, Daisy as some inconsiderate human switches him off - gets me every time.
2) "Not bad. Let's make it bad!" The evil robot Bill and Ted hit San Dimas, and send their human versions to the grave.
3) Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot was conceived in a more innocent age when atomic power made your hoover work, alien planets were hand-painted places of wonder, and androids were innocent helpers, not implacable killers.
4) What would the world be like if the machines did get to run the show? Like an afternoon down Laser Quest in Hemel Hampstead if you believe James Cameron in Terminator, or curfew time on a Teesside industrial estate if you're with the Wachowskis and The Matrix Revolutions.
5) Alien had Mother presiding coolly over the biological horrorshow; Aliens had Lance Henriksen - so often a face in search of a role - as the android Bishop: melancholy, but with a spectacular party piece.
Cheers for chipping in on the topic of voyeurism in last week's Clip joint. Here's what has piqued your curiosity from across the way:
1) The rise of the erotic thriller in the late 80s is one of those cultural phenomena that may never be fully explained. Too much perving seems to get to William Baldwin's head (and thankfully, his career) in Sliver.
2) Disturbia, with Shia LaBoeuf's idle hands stirring mischief on three-month house arrest, looks like it plays the old sex-death card pretty hard. Surely they could have put his time to better use thinking up a decent title?
3) How could I forget this? The late Ulrich Mühe breaking boundaries, then hearts in the Dr Zhivago of voyeurism flicks, this year's The Lives of Others.
4) A cracking suggestion, this. More boundaries tumbling - a "curious" guard gets his jollies watching two prisoners in Jean Genet's 1950 short, Un Chant D'Amour.
