Science Fiction has many robots and computers but how many of them would you class as iconic?
There are very few that fall into this category but I will give it a go with a couple. These are in year of release order, any other order is purely co-incidental.
Let’s start off with the oldest, and in a way the most iconic.
“Evil Maria” from Metropolis
The grandmother of all science fiction film robots. Well you could say that one on this list isn’t but I’m making the list not you!
From her appearance in Metropolis, her transformation scene has gone down in movie history. Not only that, the dystopian view that the film gave us is still being used to this day. She was, also, a robotic mimic. Being a duplicate of the lead character, Maria. Setting up another of the robots on this list.
Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet
The 50s had it’s own style on what space, and the future, was going to look like. This era of cars with more chrome and wings to keep the industry in work for decades, gave us our second robot on this list.
He made this list for his iconic appearance in the classic Forbidden Planet. A re-working of Shakespeare’s The Tempest as well as giving us one of Leslie Nielsen’s best film roles.
C-3PO from Star Wars
Best described as “Evil Maria” from the 70s. A total rip-off of that character
Some of the original design concept art shows our protocol droid looking even closer to the art deco classic that started this list.
The opposite of his grandmother. Male, on the side of good and, for me, very homosexual sounding
T-800 from The Terminator
The final robot on the list is also the most evil. The T-800 AKA The Terminator. The bad guy of the first movie of the series but then becoming more and more good as the series moves forward.
A robot on a mission. a simple one at that. All he had to do is kill one woman and save “robot kind” and destroy the human resistance in one fowl swoop.
The results
Why not rate the robots against each other? How would you rate them against each other? Do you agree with me?
| Evil Maria |  |
| Robby the Robot | |
| C-3PO | |
| T-800 | |
The above table maybe a bit bias towards Maria, but that’s one of my all time favourite films as well as defining the look of robots for decades to come.
