Wednesday 2 March 2011

Robo-ginga!

Little bit of an esoteric one this. I am hoping some 'real' nerds read my blog, as its only a 'real' nerd who would know what Im talking about when I say: Demon Seed.
1977. (Again with the 70s!) The lovely Julie Christie stars as in a rather strange role that has her impregnated, or rather raped and impregnated, if you want to get down to mechanics, by an artificially intelligent computer called Proteus IV.
Proteus IV is apparently a system, incorporating organic elements in a quasi-neural-matrix giving it, to all intents and purposes, the power of thought. Now the voice alone is spooky. Spooooookily spooky, and believe it or not, it is none other than the voice of Robert Vaughn, who requested his name be removed from the credits. Vaughn in my opinion does the best spooky computer voice EVER!

But this is the Top 5 Spooky Robot Countdown, I hear you cry! Of course children, of course. Proteus IV isnt my choice.
It's Proteus VI's offspring that is so spooky it has to be seen to be believed.... (ROBO-GINGA ALERT!)




Another creeped-out creation of Proteus' is an invalid's wheelchair with a mechanical limb attached to it. Yes, you heard me correctly. Like something straight out of Herbie Hancock's 'Rockit'.
So, what do you call the child of an artificial intelligence and a human? I suppose the term 'robot' will fit loosely. This particular robot gains a hell of a lot of extra spook points for having ginger hair as well. (ROBO-GINGA ALERT!)
So the Demon Seed is No.3 in my Top 5 Spooky Robots countdown.
The films premise is an intelligent, thought provoking one, but one which I think is not fully exploited due in large part to production values. Originally a novel by Dean Koontz, it is still worth a read or in fact a watch.
Tune in to Spooky robot No.2 in my next blog.
Big D out.

1 comment:

  1. Scary robot: http://yfrog.com/h6doppj

    ReplyDelete