Robots
Metropolis
I, Robot
Greetings and salutations, carbon-based lifeforms! It’s another week in October, which means it’s time for more spooky cinematic selections and this evening, on my birthday randomly, we’re exploring a friend and foe of the film world that I have yet to cover: robots. Robots have been around as long as science fiction itself. And as our technological world becomes more advanced and complex, so have our depictions of robots. There are numerous robots in countless films, many of which utilize this technological invention as an ally to protagonists, or they’re cast as the protagonists themselves. Good robots in movies include bots like Wall-E, Astroboy, the Iron Giant, C3PO & R2D2 from Star Wars, Tik-tok from Return to Oz, the transformers from Transformers, Data from Star Trek, Dan Stevens’ romantic robot from I’m Your Man, and many more that I cannot think of. These sidekick-y robots often serve as protectors to humans, or reservoirs for helpful information. I suppose the robots in Blade Runner are potentially evil, depending on which ones you’re talking about, and the same could be said for the robots in Westworld, the androids in the Alien films, not to mention Karen from Spongebob Squarepants or Bender from Futurama. Robots aren’t inherently evil, but because they’re always created by humans, who certainly have high potential to be evil, their morals are often grey and cold. Their concerns are based in logic, not emotion, which opens up a big, ethical can of worms when these bots are presented with human dilemmas. Because of this, the robots in film are frequently villains like Ava from Ex Machina, the Sentinels from the Matrix, Skynet from Terminator, the fembots from Austin Powers, the wives from Stepford Wives, Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pat from Smart House and many more that I cannot think of. Whether the robots on screen are good or bad, they all typically revolve around a human who is forced to reckon with the horrifying fact that “good” and “bad” are subjective, human constructs, and robots operate outside of most of those constructs. I love how creative the depictions of robots and technology have been in media historically. It’s funny, because the technological inventions that have been imagined in pop culture are often way cooler and more effective than the technological advancements we’ve made in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I love my car and my iPhone and my indoor plumbing, but what ever happened to those flying cars we were promised? What about hoverboards? What about the streamlined, nondiscriminatory healthcare that’s imagined in movies like Big Hero 6 or that episode of Family Guy where Quagmire takes a pill that instantly cures him of an STD? We could’ve gathered the most intelligent minds of the world to make a device that ends hunger, or homelessness, or illnesses, but instead, these efforts are wasted on strengthening weapons, and lately, artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, just like the vaguely-racist and typically-way off AI DJ on Spotify, the AI that can’t proofread as well as I can, or the AI that’s now on Google, that really struggled to help me find coherent, succinct lists of robots in pop culture just now. I don’t mean to sound like an old curmudgeon who can’t evolve with the times, I know how much we rely upon technology every single day, and I know that not all AI is bad. But as I get older, and as the chokehold of AI continues to grip our society that so desperately wants to seem cool and hip, the less I care to use digital replacements and supplements. If I can write, edit, and proofread this shitty blog on my own, it’s not much, but it’s more than some typo-ridden, AI-reliant websites can say. Now, before AI swallows up all of the creative jobs in and around the film industry, let’s dive into two well-known but unique takes on robots. Up first is one of the earliest and most famous robot films in movie history, and yet it still isn’t technically the very first film to do so, this is Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic: Metropolis. You might be thinking, “Ugh, Lili I do not give a shit about long, slow, silent movies, it’s October and I want a horror movie!” and that’s totally valid but, I would argue that almost every single silent film ever made is a horror movie. The sheer mystery surrounding silent films, and how many have been lost because they were mishandled or physically destroyed, creeps me out. And many of the well-established tenets of good horror movies—black and white shooting, wide-eyed expressions from actors, and haunting music—are always a part of silent films. Metropolis is considered one of the greatest, most influential films of all time, which is funny, because upon its initial release the reviews were very mixed. While some audiences appreciated Metropolis’ feats of storytelling and effects, others criticized it for being “too simplistic”, they thought that its messaging leaned a bit too communist, and legendary hater and author H.G. Wells said that it was just silly. I’m no expert—on robotics or film—but watching Metropolis in 2024, almost 100 years after it was released, the film felt far from simplistic or silly. German director Fritz Lang wanted to make a bold, big-budget, dystopian movie, so he did—with vigor and a horribly oppressive directing style. Ironically, this story of social disorder and class struggle was apparently beloved by Hitler and Goebbels, allegedly telling Lang that he could be made an “honorary Aryan” despite his Jewish background. It’s said that this prompted Lang to move to Paris that very night, and eventually, he fled to America. (There’s so much more to the story of the insane making and releasing of this film, including the fact that Lang’s co-writer/wife Thea von Harbou became a fuckin’ nazi, and I encourage you to read about that further because it adds even more confusing context to this complex film!) It was when Lang first visited New York City in October of 1924, and laid his eyes upon the gigantic buildings and skyscrapers, that he conceived the idea for Metropolis. "I looked into the streets—the glaring lights and the tall buildings—and there I conceived Metropolis. The buildings seemed to be a vertical sail, scintillating and very light, a luxurious backdrop, suspended in the dark sky to dazzle, distract, and hypnotize." Lang and his wife, Thea von Harbou, had been developing the story of Metropolis for sometime, but when he gazed upon the structure of this big, American city, the aesthetic for Metropolis was born. The film begins with a message from writer Thea von Harbou: “This film is not of today or of the future. It tells of no place. It serves no tendency, party, or class, It has a moral that grows on the pillar of understanding: the mediator between brain and muscle must be the heart.” We then see a fuzzy montage of machinery, several mechanisms and pipes and levers, all overlaid on top of one another, all functioning swiftly and wildly. Instead of whirring or clanging or clicking, we hear Gottfried Huppertz’ gorgeous and enchanting score. A title card reads “the day shift” before we’re shown a hellish underground factory, where workers hang their heads low and keep their fists bunched, all marching in a slow rhythm while entering the barred grounds where they’re about to toil and sweat and risk their lives. “The worker’s city, far below the surface of the earth” another title card reads. Suddenly, we’re transported to a heavenly, luxurious setting “high above, the pleasure garden for the sons of the masters of Metropolis.” This is where we meet Freder, the son of Joh Frederson: the master of Metropolis. Young Freder’s life seems to be galavanting and frolicking and gorging himself on luscious foods and women, until a particular woman wanders into his life. We see Maria, the daughter of a worker, enter this heavenly garden, in humble clothes and surrounded by underprivileged children. “Look,” she says, “these are your brothers” before she is escorted out of the rich people zone. When Freder witnesses this, he cannot get it out of his mind. He visits the underground world that the workers call home, and sees what it takes to keep the bustling city above running smoothly. Steam pumping in and out, gears shifting, buttons being pressed and pulled, bodies stretching and struggling and aching and bleeding for this job. Men, women, and children (made up of about 30,000 extras), all suffer and slave away to keep the lights on and the city functioning, and Freder cannot believe it. After witnessing a workplace mishap where several workers are killed violently, Freder runs to his father, who simply says, “Such accidents are unavoidable.” Freder is in utter shock, saying “It was their hands that built this city of ours, father, but where do their hands fit into your plan?”, to which his father replies, “In their proper place, in the depths.” A now fully-radicalized Freder ventures back down to the depths of the worker’s city, and he works a full, exhausting, 10-hour day in an attempt to help these poor people out. Upon finishing his shift, he follows his fellow workers down even further, into the catacombs, where Maria, the woman he saw earlier, is speaking in front of a congregation of workers. She tells the story of the tower of Babel, underscoring the discord between the intellectuals and the workers, urging them, “Between the brain that plans and the hands that build there must be a mediator. It’s the heart that must bring about understanding between them.” When Freder’s father learns of these inspirational, unionizing speeches, he takes action immediately. He enlists the help of an inventor named Rotwang, who creates a robot in the image of Maria, which will be used to preach a different, completely opposite message to the workers—not one of peace, but one of violence. This is where Metropolis’ robot finally comes into play, and while we do see a robotic prototype at first, the robot that eventually causes a myriad of damage looks just like a human being—one whom the workers trust. This adds an important nuance to Metropolis’ strong anti-capitalism narrative, as it depicts the insidious nature and means of manipulation of those who hold the power in our societies. Metropolis’ messaging was dangerous but prescient, as technology would only become more integral to governments and militaries as a tool for control and destruction. In addition to its timeless moral concerns, Metropolis features some extremely cutting edge and pioneering special effects to make its futuristic city seem more realistic. By using miniature sets, mirrors, a swinging camera, (no stunt people btw) and a whole-body plaster mold of actress Brigitte Helm, Lang was able to bring this city and this robot to life. And while Metropolis is far from frightening, it’s still eerier than you might think. Not just because its warnings of technology and those who hold the power, but due to its stunning performances. Gustav Fröhlich and Brigitte Helm looked believably horrified by the things they observed, and Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the mad scientist and inventor Rotwang was truly freaky to look at. After all of this complicated work, Metropolis flopped at the box office and continued to be edited and recut and redistributed. When asked about this film in a 1975 interview with William Friedkin, Lang said, “When I made it, I liked it. When I finished it, I hated it.” Despite its convoluted legacy, Metropolis was a harrowing and fascinating depiction of the class-anxieties that still exist to this day. A film that was perhaps less salient in the scheme of things, but still appropriately techno-phobic, was Alex Proyas’ 2004 film I, Robot. I’ve been wanting to see this movie ever since I saw the trailers for it as a child, and I experienced my first sensation of the uncanny valley (the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it) while looking at the main robot cast in this movie. Based off of Isaac Asimov’s short story of the same name, I, Robot follows a techno-phobic cop in 2035 Chicago named Del Spooner, who rejects the now-common use of personal robots and instead focuses on collecting older tech like a record player and “vintage” 2004 Converse. (This was the era of extreme product placement and those shoes are shown soooo many times.) In this future, robots are garbage men, dog walkers, personal assistants, and Shia Lebouf was still a promising young man, cast as a neighborhood scoundrel with a vague blaccent and an admiration for Detective Del. We know that this detective is traumatized and paranoid, from his PTSD nightmares, from his mistaking a robot for a thief when it was actually retrieving someone’s purse, and from the fact that Stevie Wonder’s Superstition plays in the first two minutes of this movie. When Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), the co-founder of the USR (United States Robotics), falls to his death from his high-rise office, Del receives a distress call from a pre-recorded message that the doctor left, specifically requesting that Del be put on the case. Everyone at USR, including current CEO Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), is pretty much certain that this was a suicide. But when a rogue robot is found hiding in the doctor’s office, Del is certain that Lanning didn’t kill himself. Everyone surrounding Del—his boss, his colleagues, his grandma, and USR robo-psychologist Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan)—assure Del that robots were designed to protect humans, not hurt them. Dr. Lanning himself invented the three laws of robotics:
The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Del is on a mission to prove that this independently-thinking, bizarrely-programmed, vaguely-humanistic robot named Sonny (Alan Tudyk) killed Dr. Lanning, and his investigation only becomes more and more treacherous. I, Robot has all of the terrible CGI and clunky dialogue that early 2000s action movies had to offer, but its science fiction horror was more effective and freaky than I’d expected. Maybe it’s the sleek, creepy, and odd design of Sonny, or the fact that when he’s about to be decommissioned he says to Dr. Calvin, “I think it would be better not to die, don’t you doctor?”, but that particular robot is kinda scary! I wonder if the idea of a robot takeover was at all frightening in 2004, because in the age of artificial intelligence infiltration and ubiquity, humanoid robots just seem like a small part of the problem. Maybe it’s because I have such a hatred for AI that I was unable to fear the army of robots that is eventually deployed, but the janky special effects in this movie certainly didn’t help. I enjoyed this film way more than I thought I would, but that does not mean that it’s great. It exists in a time and place where only the quality of rom coms and chick flicks could be trusted, so I forgive I, Robot for its shortcomings and weak scares. I am only slightly afraid of robot overlords because I’m too busy being afraid of all of the smaller, more bureaucratic overlords like bills and taxes and voting. Well I thank you for processing this data and analysis on your digital device, but now I gotta log off and reboot (aka drink a margarita)! Beep beep bye bye! 10100011000!
