This weekend , we ’ll all be watch giant automaton turn into trucks and dinosaurs , and it ’ll be like firework for your learning ability . But robots can do more than just fuddle down — they can make us question the nature of existence . Here are 12 mindblowing indie movies about robots that you could check instead of Transformers .
Top image : RoboCop / Terminator : Kill Human # 2
1) Silent Running (1973)
Director Douglas Trumbull had done the special effects sequences of 2001 : A Space Odyssey , but he still did n’t have a huge budget to work with as he created this story of Bruce Dern stuck in infinite with three trivial robots , trying to protect our last forest . Because of the low budget , most of this flick was shot inside an aircraft repair shed and an aircraft carrier . This film has a lot on its mind , including environmentalism and loneliness — but the most memorable stuff involve the three golem who become the right friends a lonely man ever had .
2) Dark Star (1975)
This is the ultimate modest - budget science fiction picture show — the moving picture ’s alien is a beachball with pes — and it ’s a eldritch / silly distance romp . But it ’s the sequences with the golem bomb that wants to detonate , and get into a philosophical discourse with the guy seek to defuse it , that have made this movie an immortal classic .
3) Android (1982)
I do n’t know if this is a nifty movie , but it ’s unquestionably a thought - provoking and captivating one . Don Keith Opper is an android who ’s green-eyed that his creator Dr. Daniel ( Klaus Kinski ! ) is create a young , higher-ranking distaff humanoid ( Kendra Kirchner ) . But when a group of humans arrive on the space station where Dr. Daniel is illicitly experimenting with create hokey life , the androids have to learn about sexual green-eyed monster and murder .
4) The Terminator (1984)
For the Terminator sequel , James Cameron had a higher budget and also spent a circle more time explore the nature of contrived consciousness , and what it would be like to try and reprogram a killing machine . But this first , less - expensive crusade still has some majuscule minute where we get to see through the eyes of a killer golem sent from the future to pass over out Sarah Connor . And it ’s shaped our sympathy of venomous unreal intelligence for all clock time .
5) Cherry 2000 (1987)
This movie is n’t of necessity a classic — but it ’s definitely a rage classic . And this narrative of a man adventure into a Mad Max - style wasteland to find a replacement for his dear sexbot is all about the bond we form with technology and the length we ’ll go to for it . And ultimately , the reawakening of human connections . Oh , what the hell — it ’s mostly about Melanie Griffith with a big gun . But it ’s pretty awesome .
6) RoboCop (1987)
RoboCop himself is n’t really a robot , as anyone who ’s see this classic will bear witness . He is , essentially , a zombi who ’s been reprogrammed and turn into a combat auto . But he ’s up against actual automaton , the ED-209s , which keep misfunction and kill the improper people . And he ’s a victim of a perverted corporate culture that tries to turn people into machines . The direct contrast between the still - human RoboCop , who manages to intend for himself , and the purely obedient ED-209s is the substance of the film in many way .
7) Hardware (1990)
When a guy cable goes out into the post - apocalyptic wilderness to scavenge stuff , he finds a coolheaded count robot drumhead , which he give to his girlfriend as a present . And she decides to use it as … an art project . turn out the robot head has an graphics project of its own that it wants to pursue , one that ’s somewhat more mortal . This isa twisted cult classicthat demand a lot of the same themes as Terminator in weirder commission .
8) Robot Stories (2003)
We ’ve blab the praise of this anthology film from comics scribe Greg Pak before , but it always deserves more love . This is a compendium of shortsighted stories about robots , ranging from a duet “ enkindle ” a robot babe to a mother collecting robot toys for her ill son , to two robots fall in love illegally . These are some of the most memorable automaton narratives we ’ve seen on screen , all in one tight package .
9) Casshern (2004)
This post - apocalytic Nipponese moving picture has a fate of swell philosophical ideas on its idea , and some really acute greenscreen visuals . And it involves sub plump intoan ancient stronghold that admit automaton warrior - making facilities , lead to some fantastic automaton - vs - human fights .
10) Moon (2009)
Duncan Jones ’ brilliant low - budget debut includes a whole lot of Sam Rockwell confronting the bleakness of universe in a excavation base on the Moon … but the plastic film play , in large part , because of the robot Gerty ( Kevin Spacey ) and its relationship with Sam Rockwell ’s character . Gerty ’s development over the course of the film is elusive but vitally important .
11) Robot and Frank (2012)
This might be the best movie about humans and automaton we ’ve seen in the past decade — the floor of a former burglar ( Frank Langella ) with dementia , who gets a robot helper is affecting and fabulously sad , but also a rattling geographic expedition of exactly how robot might complete us . And how we might change robots in the process .
12) The Machine (2013)
And eventually , this motion-picture show about another killing machine who develops a scruples is almost too overstuff with ideas and subplots to work . But it has some dead - on perfect notions about artificial consciousness needing to be programmed through human interaction , and the ways in which the great unwashed might try and corrupt that fundamental interaction to bend a robot into a weapon .
author : Cyberpunk Review , IMDB . Thanks to Madeleine and Ryan for the help !
Androidkiller robotsmachineMoviesRobotsTerminatorTransformers
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