taksraven

C'mon, give us the juicy details. What exactly did you say?? Taksraven

I think that you could take the concept back further than that, all the way back to Frankensteins monster (OK, not a robot, but a misunderstood and destructive creature) and even (Ok, links getting more tenuous here) back to the Golem in Jewish folklore. I think that the idea that robots are inherently evil is an absolutely ridiculous idea in SF. Very few SF programs show the only way that robots would do evil things would be if they were given instructions to do evil things or if they were given conflicting instructions that caused inner turmoil and/or malfunctions. (HAL was one of the best examples of this, not evil but just given different instructions that he could not reconcile) Actually, one of the best portrayals of robots I have seen was the Dr Who tale from the 70's, The Robots of Death. Even though it "borrows heavily" (ie steals) a lot of ideas from Asimov, the ideas are effectively combined into an interesting story that not only looks at robots being corrupted by humans, but also looks at the nature of a lot of the fears that people have about robots, particularly the "walking mechanical man" type. (It considers the possibility that in a society where humans and robots work very closely together, some humans would not cope well due to the fact that robots do not use non-verbal communication methods in the same way that humans do and would seem like "walking dead") Taksraven

I think that you are kind of on the right track there. If you notice, a lot of robots that are "good" in western fiction are often trying to be more like humans (Data being the perfect example) or work in very close situations with humans (VINCENT in The Black Hole, with his telepathic link to Kate McCrae.) I think that the roots of the "noble synthetic seeking humanity" concept can be traced all the way back to Pinocchio. Interesting. One thing I have wondered about in that sort of area, and its not robot but is still mechanical, is some of the cultural adaptations that took place when Space Cruiser Yamato was brought to the West as Star Blazers. (I'm remembering some info here that I read years ago so I might not be totally accurate) In the original Japanese, essentially the Yamato itself was the hero of the series, the ship that always came through. But, for the Star Blazers version, the American producers shifted the heroic nature from the Yamato (now renamed Argo), to the crew of the ship (which the Americans called the Star Force), and this change was supposed to be due to cultural differences. Any thoughts on that? Taksraven

I think that NERV had the ability to do whatever it wanted to EVA bodies and be able to repair them later. Don't forget when they blew an arm off Rei's unit to stop ti being taken over by an angel and Asuka's had both arms chopped off by an angel as well as its head and they managed to "repair" it. Modifying one to run on wheels should be easy by comparison. Taksraven

Don't forget......

More EXCELLENT robots....... Taksraven

What....do......you.....mean?????

Does that smell like teen spirit? Taksraven

Not all "American" robots are hostile and nasty..... Taksraven

I will wait to see the actual movie before passing judgement on anything new. Seems to be the sensible thing to do. Taksraven

Is Afro Samurai any good?? Taksraven

Ok, how about some fresh meat. Did anybody see John Carpenter's 1995 remake of "Village of the Damned"? God, that was crap..... Taksraven

I am going to say that's not very impressive but I'm not going to shake my head like a puritan either. Sooooo many posts on these forums were dedicated to breast sizes in Frontier. And I am still pissed off that my "sexiest thing in MacF" thread was shut down too. I have to admit though that sexism and primitive attitudes towards female characters is pretty common in ALL forms of animation. Taksraven

Yeah, but picking on Star Trek V is kinda like picking on retarded kids. Its just too easy. Taksraven (sorry, I'm sure that probably offends everybody, but I have been hanging around the ruthlessreviews forum too much)

The best thing about it is that it is *very* brief and we know that no more was made..... Taksraven

I will certainly step up and defend some aspects of AI. Ultimately the movie was a failure but it did contain some interesting ideas about humanity and mortality. (Similar to Contact, another movie with good potential that ultimately failed) The role that Frances O'Connor had was the best one in the film, she was great in it. The story was very dark, too dark for some..... Taksraven

C'mon, weren't we all thrilled with the concept of the "Veritech mining robot" or whatever the hell it was! Taksraven

Hello BlackRose, welcome to the party. Yeah, when things go bad for HG they go to pieces so fast that everybody else gets hit by the shrapnel. Its NEVER their fault if things go wrong. The "What Went Wrong" chapter of Robotech Art 3: The Sentinels was pretty funny. (Don't forget that Macek also has a swipe at the Japanese for producing some substandard animation for the program and concocts his own hypocritical conspiracy theory that the Japanese possibly wanted to bastardise Sentinels footage in some way to make a new show for the Japanese market. One of the ultimate cases of the pot calling the kettle black.) Taksraven

Haven't heard anybody come leaping to the defence of Battlefield Earth. For the amount of money wasted on that crap, it gets my vote as worst SF film, then Waterworld. Taksraven

Quite agree on that point. Even though I have been at the rough end of some mod anger (and I deserved to be, I will be the first to admit that I am no angel ) the mods here are pretty fair. Like I have observed before, compared to other forums the mods here are great. (In another forum I was in, a mod started screwing around with my account, including my sig, which was really annoying. I promptly told that mod to f#ck off and was not banned, go figure) As a history person I have to say let the past be the past. Learn from it, but certainly don't dwell on it too much. Taksraven

Next you will be saying that the Star Wars Expanded Universe is a big load of garbage mostly made by nerdy fans with no lives of their own. Too much. Taksraven

Sorry bout that, it is from the days before I was posting here and I did try to check to see if there already was a thread on the topic, but typing in the word 'avatar' into a search is about as useful as typing in the word 'the' or even 'macross', as you get lots of unrelated threads. If the mods are happy for this thread to run, fair enough, or maybe they would be kind enough to merge the two, I dunno. Taksraven

At least with Robotech 3000 it was pretty clear that HG was trying to create a show that would avoid most copyright issues by not using any of the technology from the three products bastardised for the original Robotech. AND if it had gone ahead it would have sucked really badly. (no surprise) Taksraven

Just thought I would get in early and start a thread for this film. I first remember hearing about it during the early days of the internet and for a long time it dropped off the radar. Now, it looks like it is nearly here. The main question will be, was it worth the wait? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(film) Taksraven

If that was going to be the case, shouldn't Nimoy be Galvatron??? :lol: Taksraven