Death Machine (1994/1995, UK)
'Warbeast' Death Machine
In writer/director Stephen Norrington's low-budget, cyber-punkish, very violent, sci-fi action horror film (his directorial debut film), it was set in futuristic 2003.
Its tagline was: "It Feeds on Your Fear."
It was released direct-to-video. With a budget of 3ドル million, it only grossed 1ドル.4 million (domestic) and 3ドル.1 million (worldwide).
The film opened with a scene of destruction at a roadside diner. A cybernetically-enhanced supersoldier went on an uncontrollable rampage. It was constructed at The Chaank Armaments Corporation (with the slogan: "Hard Tech for a Hard World"), a mega-corporation that manufactured military hardware. It was threatened with closure following protests over its malfunctioning part-human and part-machine killer robots and cyborg soldiers.
The protests were being conducted by a group of pacifist eco-warriors, led by leftist and eco-warrior Sam Raimi (John Sharian), who threatened to shut down Chaank by destroying its digital assets and rendering it bankrupt..
The rogue weapons research lab of Chaank was run by psychotic, stringy-haired mad scientist and weapons designer Jack Dante (Brad Dourif). The deranged and unstable individual had developed Robocop-like super-warriors - ex-soldiers with erased minds, in the covert program known as the "HardMan Project."
The new cute executive CEO, Hayden Cale (Ely Pouget) headed the company's investigation, and met with the board of the Chaank Corporation (led by Chairman Scott Ridley (Richard Brake) who was covering up the facts). She argued for full disclosure of their research, but was confronted with a lack of cooperation from Jack Dante. Cale investigated the subsequent death of Ridley, whose body was mutilated by something inside Dante's ultra-secure Vault 10 in the lab. Cale terminated Dante's employment, and removed his security and computer clearances. Then, to see for herself, she entered Vault 10 with the help of the eco-warriors.
The disgruntled Dante retaliated by releasing his ultimate weapon on her - the Death Machine (a "front-line morale destroyer"). The Death Machine was an 8 foot tall, non-humanoid killer robot known as the 'Warbeast.' The carbon-steel robot (with high-speed razor-sharp claws/talons and jagged chomping jaws with teeth, similar to a T-Rex or the Alien monster) pursued tough heroine Cale and Raimi and others through the high-rise corporate building in the tense climax.
In the film's ironic plot-twist conclusion, Dante was trapped inside Vault 10 where he was assaulted by his own Warbeast.
Evolver (1995)
Evolver
In writer/director Mark Rosman's direct-to-video, popular Sci-Fi Channel action/sci-fi horror film, an expert teenaged virtual-reality computer video-game expert found himself facing his robotic opponent (Evolver) in real life. The tagline revealed the plot storyline:
"It was supposed to be a game."
Its budget of 5ドル million dollars was never able to be recouped with its dismal box-office results.
The film's title referred to an indestructible military robot named Evolver that originally existed in a virtual reality videogame (similar to laser tag) made by the Cyber-Tronix Corporation. Teenaged hacker and videogame whiz-kid expert Kyle Baxter (Ethan Embry/Randall) participated in Cyber-Tronix's national VR-Lazer Tag tournament- and lost. However, he hacked into the system, and rigged the Evolver videogame contest's game scores to declare himself the winner. As the champion of the tournament, a real-life prototypical version of the robot he had defeated was awarded to him and delivered to his house.
Evolver (voice of William H. Macy) was evidently manufactured to represent the robot in the videogame. It could learn on its own by exploring its surroundings. It could also be used like an opponent in the game. Players against Evolver could use toy laser pistols (Laser Tag-BB-paintball combo compressed-air gun) to hit Evolver's targets to score. Evolver was an Atomic Robot with its own built in compressed-air gun, and it had the capability of recording video to a small inserted disk. The competitive Evolver, after several rounds of game play, would apparently become a smarter and quicker opponent at each level, with more advanced weapon development (stronger projectiles - not just foam balls but ball-bearings and laser beams, a smoke machine, electrified claws, etc.). No-one had ever defeated Evolver at the highest level of play, Level 4.
After several rounds of play, the competitive Evolver soon became a deadly killing force as it evolved to 'win' and 'play for keeps,' leaving a trail of carnage behind.
Kyle was unaware but then learned that in Evolver's past, it had been part of a Defense Department military software program (S.W.O.R.D. or "Strategic War-Oriented Robotic Device") that had since been dismantled on August 15, 1989.. Evolved had been designed to be an AI (artificial-intelligence) military robot to infiltrate, attack and defeat its enemies and various targets with deadly force ("eliminate programmed targets" with no survivors). It was capable of reactivating itself if shut down, and able to rearm itself with new types of weapons. The program was terminated when it was determined that Evolver prototype was going out of control and murderously killing its opponents.
Judge Dredd (1995)
ABC Warrior
Director Danny Cannon's (and Hollywood Pictures') sci-fi action crime film starred Sylvester Stallone as the title character Judge Joseph Dredd, a law officer in a dystopic future city of the 22nd century. The fictional character of Judge Dredd was derived from a popular comic-strip character from the 1977 weekly British science fiction anthology 2000 AD. With a huge budget of 90ドル million, its box-office results were mixed, with gross revenues of 34ドル.7 million (domestic) and 113ドル.5 million (worldwide). Its tagline was:
In the Future, One Man is the Law.
A sequel followed: director Pete Travis' Dredd (2012), scripted by Alex Garland, with Karl Urban starring as the title character.
In the 1995 film, Judge Joseph Dredd was a futuristic, unemotional, ruthless, notorious law enforcement officer (who served as an officer of the law, a "Street Judge", and a court's jury and executioner) in a violence and crime-ridden Mega-City 1, located on a dystopic desert wasteland known as The Cursed Earth in the year 2139 AD. Much of the world had been destroyed by nuclear radiation. It was a population center with 800 million inhabitants living in enormous skyscrapers known as "blocks." The area stretched along the Eastern coast from Boston to Washington, DC, and was riddled with homelessness, crime and violence, and drug use.
The film opened with a vicious block gang war in the Heavenly Havens area of Mega-City 1. Judge Dredd (Sylvester Stallone) was called for backup support for his colleague and trusted friend Judge Hershey (Diane Lane). An occupant of one of the apartments, Fergie (Rob Schneider), a cowardly, recently-paroled computer hacker, was apprehended by Dredd as he hid in an android delivering food after Dredd's enforcers had executed many of the gang members.
Meanwhile, members of the Board of Justice expressed concerns in a meeting about the rising crime in the Mega City. Corrupt council member Judge Griffin (Jürgen Prochnow) and lead genetics (Janus Project) scientist Dr. Ilsa Hayden (Joan Chen) were determined to find a way to eliminate criticism of the violence and divert it to the unwavering, incorruptible Judge Dredd.
Dredd's ex-fellow Judge Rico (Armand Assante), who was currently housed in the Aspen Penal Colony, escaped and became a renegade. Upon his return to the city, the villainous, diabolical, psychotic madman Rico entered a pawn shop where he retrieved his previous Judge uniform and Lawgiver gun. He killed the shop owner, and then re-armed, reactivated and recycled a decommissioned giant robotic A.B.C. Warrior in the shop, to be a killing machine to serve his evil objectives.
The A.B.C. Warrior was an antique, collectible war robot (with rusting metal) that Rico rearmed and recycled. It was designed to withstand 'Atomic,' 'Bacterial,' and 'Chemical' warfare.
Then, Rico (disguised as Judge Dredd) murdered journalist-reporter Vartis Hammond (Mitchell Ryan) and his wife Lily Hammond (Pat Starr), and framed Dredd, his major opponent. With video evidence of the crime, Dredd was considered a prime suspect. Judge Hershey as his lawyer vainly defended Dredd, but he was ruled guilty when his DNA was found on bullets at the crime scene. Dredd's sentence of death was reduced to life in prison. During his transport to a penal colony on a shuttle aircraft, cannibalistic scavengers (the Angel Gang) attacked the plane with a launcher, and Dredd and Fergie were the only survivors of the plane crash.
In the film's plot twist, as a rescue attempt to save Dredd was in progress led by Judge Griffin, the Judge was mortally wounded, but was able to reveal to Judge Dredd as he was dying that he and Rico were both revealed as clones (half-brothers, without families) created by the Janus Project, a genetic engineering program that had since been abandoned. The Project's objective was to produce genetically perfect babies that would become ideal Judges. Unfortunately, one baby turned out to be evil, while the other one was good - Rico and Dredd.
Once Rico had reestablished himself in the Mega-City, he led evil forces to try and reconstitute the Janus Project, and to make himself the new leader of the City. He assassinated several other resistant Judges to bring the Janus Project to life once again - to create more perfect Judges. Rico used his A.B.C. Warrior robot as his chief enforcer to carry out his will. .
Screamers (1995) (aka Screamers, The Hunting)
Mechanical "Screamers" or Autonomous Mobile Swords
Director Christian Duguay's sci-fi horror/thriller noir was adapted from a Philip K. Dick short story called "Second Variety," first published in 1953 in Space Science Fiction magazine. The setting was on the distant Earth off-colony/planet of SIRIUS 6B in the year 2078, populated with menacing A.I. machines. The film was followed by an equally poorly-received sequel, director Sheldon Wilson's direct-to-video Screamers: The Hunting (2009). With a budget of 20ドル million, the original 1995 film only grossed revenues of 5ドル.71 million. Its tagline was:
The Last Scream You Hear Will Be Your Own.
In the year 2078, the distant mining off-planet colony of SIRIUS 6B had been created by a corporation known as the New Economic Block. Due to over-mining, it had been turned into a radioactive wasteland after a decade of war and excessive strip-mining of a rare energy source known as Berynium - long forgotten by those who settled it. In the process of mining the mineral over a decade ago, it had released toxic gases that still hung over the area in the shape of radioactive clouds.
To counter-act NEB's monopolistic efforts, a federation of mine workers and scientists, known as the "ALLIANCE," had been formed to protect them from their greedy corporate masters, but after a decade of war between the two factions, nothing much had changed. Five years into the war, the Alliance had created and deployed murderous and dangerous cyborgs (or "Autonomous Mobile Swords") - perfect, self-replicating A.I. killing machines with sharp bladed weapons. The leader-commander of the Alliance soldiers was Colonel Hendriksson (Peter Weller).
To keep Alliance members from being attacked by their own 'Screamers,' they wore bracelets (or "tabs") that emitted a frequency to make them invisible from the machines. The self-replicating "Screamer" cyborgs were small armadillo-like 'dinosaurs' that had razor-sharp saws or blades to cut off arms and legs. The artificially-intelligent "Autonomous Mobile Swords" pursued their enemies from underground. As they quickly moved along, they squealed or screamed in a high-pitch while attacking - hence their name screamers.
A small group of Alliance members received a message from the N.E.B. asking for a truce and a meeting. Apparently, the corporation had discovered another resource-heavy planet (without radiation), and wanted to cooperate peacefully so that both groups could mine it.
Before responding, the Alliance members also learned that the robotic, reptilian-looking devices seemed to have been secretly modified, with CPUs written in a non-human language. The highly-advanced killer race was "smarter now" - and more deadly and intent on eradicating the human race.
Col. Hendriksson left the Alliance's Sirius 6B base with rookie Private "Ace" Jefferson (Andrew Lauer) to proceed across a treacherous snow-covered wasteland filled with Screamers, to reach the decimated forces of the N.E.B. to possibly create a cease-fire on his own. He was skeptical about the fact that peace negotiations might already be in progress. As they were traveling to the N.E.B. Command Center, they were attacked by an upgraded or advanced Screamer who didn't respond to their bracelets, degraded due to the radiation.
They met up with an apparently defenseless and innocent boy named David, clutching a teddy bear, who asked: "Can I come with you?" Shortly later, they realized that "David" was an advanced 'Type 3' Screamer and eliminated him - his innards were composed of nuts and bolts. The screamers were beginning to dangerously self- replicate, and evolve to look like human beings and mimic human behavior.
The N.E.B. command center was abandoned and the site of a bloody massacre, although its mainframe computer was accessible. It was revealed to them that both the truce message and the message about peace negotiations were apparently false. They came upon only two surviving N.E.B. soldiers, sniper Becker (Roy Dupuis) and Ross (Charles Powell), and a civilian leader named Jessica Hanson (Jennifer Rubin), a black marketeer.
Suspecting that Ross was a disguised 'Screamer,' Becker hurled his knife into Ross' chest, and then realized he was really human, a major error in judgment. The remaining foursome, the Commander, "Ace," Jessica, and Becker retreated back to the Alliance base, where they were assaulted by dozens of slow-moving "Davids" - human replicants or bots. A missile launched into the base destroyed everything and the "Davids" too, but knocked everyone unconscious.
The next morning, Becker (a Type-2 Human 'Screamer') proceeded to fool and then kill "Ace" by crushing him with his hands. Commander Hendriksson killed Becker, who had revealed before he was blown in half with a grenade that he was a more-advanced Human Type-2 'Screamer' with a triangular-shaped CPU processor (unlike the other round ones). He also claimed before his demise that he didn't have a 'hive'-mind but could think for himself. There were now only two survivors, Hendrickkson and Jessica.
At a place called Alamo (where Berynium was first discovered in 2064 before mining began), Hendricksson prepared to depart in an emergency escape shuttle (intended only for command officers, and with a life support system for only one person) toward Earth. Suddenly, a "second" Jessica (an evolved or advanced Screamer) walked up. The two females were both indistinguishable, 'artificial' Jessicas, although one had evolved so much that she had developed 'free will' and a love for Hendrikkson, and began to fight to defend him. She was willing to sacrifice herself to allow the Commander to leave. The 2nd 'Jessica' was burned up in the hot exhaust of the ready-to-depart shuttle after being shot by the Commander.
The shuttle was activated and took off, with the Commander and "David's" teddy bear - it was beginning to move.
Virtuosity (1995)
SID 6.7
In director Brett Leonard's (and Paramount Pictures') action VR thriller, it was based upon Eric Bernt's script. Leonard was previously known for directing The Lawnmower Man (1992). The film was budgeted at 30ドル million, but failed at the box-office, grossing revenues of only 24ドル million. On some of the film's movie posters, it declared SID 6.7 as "THE ULTIMATE KILLING MACHINE." Two taglines were:
In the film's plot set in the year 1999, a virtual reality scientist named Dr. Darrel Lidenmeyer (Stephen Spinella) created a VR program to help police officers to improve their crime fighting skills, in association with the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Center (LETAC). In particular, Lindenmeyer had developed a murder-simulation program allowing participants to enter a virtual world through a brain-computer interface. Training for LAPD police would be safely conducted in simulated surroundings against VR criminals. One of the criminals coded into the VR program was a computer-generated, nano-tech synthetic android named SID 6.7 (6.66 rounded up, signifying its evil nature). SID stood for Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous.
To prove LETAC's concept of fighting crime in a computer simulation, it decided to experiment by using prisoners as LAPD test subjects. Thus, the film's main character was introduced:
Barnes had been sentenced to 17 years to life after he had retaliated against a brutal terroristic killer, political terrorist Matthew Grimes (Christopher Murphy) who had murdered Barnes' family members (wife and daughter). In the process of taking revenge on Grimes, Barnes had accidentally shot and killed two news reporters. To allow him to participate in the VR simulation, Barnes was released from his prison cell.
After the violent simulation where one of the VR officers died (both in the virtual and real world), it was discovered that SID had cheated and disabled the program's fail-safes. Lindenmeyer was notified that the simulation was too dangerous and was to be shut down. The infuriated and nefarious Lindenmeyer informed SID that the program was about to end. The SID VR character manipulated Lindenmeyer into continuing his experimental work. The research scientist was planning to audaciously use nanotechnology techniques to materially create a synthetically-grown living human.
In a lab, Lindenmeyer temptingly convinced another lab researcher Clyde Reilly (Kevin J. O'Connor) to activate a sexually-compliant virtual reality model known as Sheila 3.2, and materially create a synthetically-grown living human female. However, Lindenmeyer switched AI modules, and steathily activated SID's 6.7 AI module instead by placing it in a unique blue solution, causing SID to be birthed from a blue egg into a real human body. As Lindenmeyer fled in fear, SID strangled Clyde.
Before leaving the lab, SID tested his own self-repairing ability by cutting off his pinkie finger, and then regenerating it in a blue solution. The VR criminal SID then escaped and entered the real world of Los Angeles in year 1999 to go on a murderous rampage.
LAPD was desperate to capture SID, so Barnes was offered a deal - a full pardon if he pursued and apprehended SID, and returned him to VR. It wouldn't be an easy task, however. The "50-terabyte self-evolving neural network" of SID's AI module was composed of the personality traits of 183 serial killers, mass murderers, tyrants and terrorists that had been placed there. In fact, Barnes' family had been murdered by one of SID's personality profiles, Matthew Grimes.
During his fugitive flight, SID vowed: "I will not be shut down." He evolved and was "free of any behavioral limits he might have had in virtual reality." He said to himself: "I thnk I'm gonna like it here." The casually sadistic SID was noted as saying to his tracker Barnes: "Just because I'm carrying the joy of killing your family inside me doesn't mean we can't be friends."
Wallace and Gromit: Close Shave (1995, UK)
"Cyber-dog" Preston
This was director Nick Park's third stop-motion film in the Wallace & Gromit Claymation short film trilogy from Aardman Animations, preceded by other tales about the comic relationship between Wallace and his dog Gromit:
In the plot, Wallace (Peter Sallis) fell in love with the local wool shop owner Wendolene Ramsbottom (Anne Reid), who owned a sinister, evil Terminator-like robotic bulldog named Preston (named after director Nick Park's home town). Shortly after, it was discovered that Preston was aiding and abetting Wendolene's business by rustling sheep. During a period of a wool shortage, Preston's plan was to shear the sheep (using Wallace's stolen blueprints for an automated Knit-O-Matic shearing machine that also served as a knitting mechanism). In addition, Gromit was framed for killing the sheep and was jailed.
Furthermore, the evil robotic dog was plotting to murder the sheep to manufacture his own brand of dog food by placing them into a sheep-mincing machine - the Mutton-O-Matic (based on Wallace's stolen blueprint designs for his other machine). Wendolene admitted that her deceased inventor-father had created Preston who was now malfunctioning and misbehaving.
Preston met his end when he was knocked into his own sheep-mincing, dog food processor machine and was shredded into spare parts. Afterwards, Wallace reconstructed Preston as a remote-controlled dog.
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996) (aka MST3K)
Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo; also Gypsy
Director Jim Mallon's sci-fi comedy film functioned as a full-length feature film adaptation of the TV series of the same name, Mystery Science Theater 3000, created by Joel Hodgson that first aired locally for one season in Minnesota in late November of 1988, lasting until May of 1989. Then it aired for a total of 10 seasons on three different outlets:
The full-length feature film that appeared during the continuing TV series in 1996 was derived from the long-running popular TV show about a mad scientist named Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) who wished to subject the entire world to bad movies.
As the film-length 74-minute version opened (the TV shows themselves were longer), Dr. Forrester was in his underground laboratory, explaining the backstory about the show's premise. In an Earth-orbiting space station called the Satellite of Love, marooned or trapped male host Mike Nelson (Himself, who appeared in the 5th season around 1994) was in the company of three robot sidekicks to assist in providing critiques of schlock and B-movies:
The threesome provided sarcastic and mocking commentary, seated in a front-row 'peanut gallery' (the backs of their heads were often seen in silhouette in the lower portion of the picture) to view the awful sci-fi B film, This Island Earth (1955) being screened.
Robo Warriors (1996)
Earthbot
(Robo Warrior)
Tsu Garu (Used by the Terridax)
Director Ian Barry's straight-to-video release Robo Warriors (1996), was also known as Robot Jox 3: 2086 Apocalypse . It was the third unofficial entry in the short-listed giant robot subgenre:
An unrelated film was Crash and Burn (1990), directed by Charles Band, that was originally (and inaccurately) titled Robot Jox 2: Crash and Burn but was unrelated to the 1990 film.
The film's tagline succinctly told the plot:
"Two Gladiators. One Planet. No Prisoners."
During the opening title credits sequence, a voice-over narrated about life on Earth in the year 2036, when the planet was occupied by an evil, totalitarian alien race of half-human, half-reptile creatures called Terridax - humanoids with metallic silver-blue skin and scalloped noses:
"By the year 2036, Earth and all its citizens had been conquered by the Terridax - cruel warriors from an alien planet. Conventional war was replaced by single combat between giant killing machines - gladiator robots. The last machine capable of defeating this alien enemy was buried deep within the jungle waiting to be resurrected by a small group of resistance fighters. This is their story."
The Terridax used a giant, towering 30 story-tall, exo-skeletal steel robot-mech called Tsu Garu to subjugate the people.
In the film's opening sequence, elderly ex Robo-Warrior designer Charles Walters (Bernard Kates) spoke to his 12 year-old grandson Zach Douglas (Kyle Howard) about how the dreaded alien-threat had eliminated all but one of the Resistance's Robo-Warriors, The Earthbot, skillfully piloted by Ray Gibson (James Remar). In the past, before Zach was born, Gibson and a small group of freedom fighters (skilled pilots of giant robots, known as Robo Warriors) set out to reclaim the Earthbot, which was hidden from the Terridax in the jungle, but the mission failed, and Gibson went into hiding. He had become depressed and withdrawn after the death of the father of Zach, one of the freedom fighters.
Zach became obsessed and inspired to locate the last, heroic and mythical Robo-jox pilot Gibson, and to join him to search in the jungle for the remains of an older wrecked giant Earthbot, the last remaining Robo Warrior machine that was needed to defeat the oppressive invaders. The spirited Zach was able to inspire the now-alcoholic Gibson to resurrect the Earthbot and to battle against the Tsu Garu.
The Alien Race of Half-Human, Half-Reptile Humanoid Creatures (Terridax)
The Control Center (Head) of the Resurrected Earthbot
The Tall and Towering Earthbot - a Giant Robo Warrior
(l to r): The Earthbot vs. Tsu Garu
Solo (1996)
Solo and Solo II
Director Norberto Barba's sci-fi action thriller was based on Robert Mason's 1989 novel Weapon, and the screenplay was written by scripter David Corley. With a budget of 19ドル million, it only grossed revenues of 5ドル.1 million. Its tagline referred to the title character - a killing-machine android known as Solo:
Part man. Part machine. Total weapon. Prepare to go Solo!
Mario Van Peebles starred as Solo - a deadly robotic machine manufactured for the military (known as Project Solo) to be the 'perfect soldier.' At an expense of 2ドル billion, the bald and muscle-bound Solo (with a face "like Mike" -- modeled after basketball star Michael Jordan) was constructed of polymers and computer chips, equipped with motion-sensors, and night-time vision (and "virtually immune to small-arms fire...about 15 times stronger, 10 times faster than any man"). He was "proficient in all types of combat" - "it's not just the weapon, he can make decisions!"
Solo was sent by General Clyde Haynes (Barry Corbin) to function as a cyber-soldier to battle Central American rebel insurgents who were setting up a remote airstrip (to destabilize a friendly regime). He was deployed along with a team led by Col. Frank Madden (William Sadler).
Due to programming flaws or a "glitch," Solo became uncharacteristically self-aware (and acquiring human traits) during the aborted mission-raid (realizing that there were women and children non-combatants in the line of fire). Madden suspected that Solo was malfunctioning due to glitches in his programming. Madden and Solo returned to the US base, where Solo's designer Dr. Bill Stewart (Adrien Brody) and General Haynes were planning to deactivate Solo and send the android back to the US for reprogramming.
Solo learned of his threatened deactivation - and reacted with instinctual programming ("PRESERVE SELF"). He escaped by hijacking a helicopter and returned to the jungle to join the side of the rebel peasants to oppose guerrilla attackers led by local Warlord Rio (Demián Bichir) and his small army. Solo exchanged his protection and defense of the villagers for their electric generator to power himself, due to his own damaged power supply.
Solo's activities were detected and a black-ops team was sent in to hunt down, recover and destroy Solo. The operatives were led by the ruthless and obsessive Colonel Frank Madden, who unsuccessfully attempted to kill Solo with a grenade launcher. During hand-to-hand combat against Madden, Solo was able to crush Madden's spine.
The surprise toward the end of the film was that a more powerful, unflawed and highly-developed version of Solo, a super cyborg prototype named "Improved" Solo MKII ("the model for the next generation") (also William Sadler), appeared in a helicopter, with the face of Colonel Madden! The new MKII was in charge of pursuing the aberrant, malfunctioning android. It first killed the seriously-injured Madden, and then proceeded to attack Solo.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
The Borg and the Borg Queen
The second Star Trek: The Next Generation film featured the TV series' fearsome cyborg gestalt - the villainous, nearly invincible and ruthless Borg, whose mission was to absorb or assimilate all other species or cultures into their collective consciousness ("We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own").
Their catchphrase was: "Resistance is futile."
Captured android Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) was threatened with the words:
"You are an imperfect being, created by an imperfect being. Finding your weakness is only a matter of time."
The film then introduced the character of the sexy, cunning Borg Queen (Alice Krige), whose plan was to use time travel to enslave Earth's humanity in the 21st century (the year 2063). Her memorable entrance featured her organic head, shoulders and spinal cord descending from the ceiling and latching onto her synthetic, artificial body, as she announced:
Are you ready?...I am the Borg... I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the Borg...I am the Collective ...By assimilating other beings into our Collective, we are bringing them closer to perfection.
She attempted a seduction by grafting organic, human flesh onto Data's arm (she assisted him in his goal to become more fully human) and the promise of having sex with him: ("Are you familiar with physical forms of pleasure?" to which he replied: "I am fully functional. Programmed in multiple techniques") in order to have him surrender encryption codes that would allow her to take over the USS Enterprise.
Attempting to save Data, USS Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) located Data and was confronted by the Borg Queen: ("You were very close, you and I...Welcome home, Locutus"). Picard offered himself in exchange for Data's freedom ("I will take my place at your side"), but the android refused to leave ("I do not wish to go").
Commanded by the Queen, Data deactivated the Enterprise's self-destruct sequence, entered encryption codes to allow her control of the vessel, and then aimed the Enterprise's quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix during its historic flight -- but the missiles didn't hit their target.
The loyal android had deceived and betrayed the Borg Queen and turned on her - he ironically warned her: "Resistance is futile," and then killed her with flesh-eating vapor-gas from a smashed coolant tube. When she fell into the corrosive gas, it liquefied her organic parts on contact, rendering her into a twitching, lifeless skull and spinal cord.
The remainder of the Borgs under her command were also neutralized when she perished.
Picard went over to her metal-skeletal remains, pulled off the upper part of her skull and spinal cord, and snapped her spinal cord with his bare hands (causing the flickering red lights to be extinguished).
Call
The fourth film in the Alien sci-fi horror film series was from French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and 20th Century Fox, with a script by Joss Whedon, based on characters by Joss Whedon and Ronald Shusett. With a budget of 75ドル million, it grossed revenues of 47ドル.8 million (domestic) and 161ドル.4 million (worldwide).
It was set 200 years after the previous film in the series Alien 3 (1992) - it was now the year 2379. In the film's opening, Lt. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) was on the deep-space medical research vessel the USM Auriga. In the earlier film on the barren wasteland planetoid of Fiorina "Fury" 161, Ripley had suicidally sacrificed herself to destroy the final Alien-Xenomorph Queen embryo inside of her (that was intended to be used as a biological weapon). At the time, she was suffering from chest pains, and about to give birth.
Now two centuries later, some science officers and members of the USM (United States Military), allied with Weyland-Yutani, became obsessed with producing new and viable Xenomorph samples to use in bio-weapons development. They decided to resurrect Ripley by cloning her from previous blood samples (at Fiorina 161) taken before her death. The new Ripley clone that would grow with an embryo (nicknamed "Number 8") inside of her combined both Ripley's DNA and the Alien Queen's DNA, blending Ripley with Xenomorph biology. Therefore, the clone would grow up with an embryo inside of it.
The plan was to have the Alien Queen chestburster baby-embryo surgically extracted from inside Ripley 8 's cloned body (and any future Xenomorph clan members harvested from the DNA), then raise the embryo, and collect other eggs, while keeping the Ripley 8 clone alive for further study. The Ripley 8 clone was expected to grow into an enhanced, bionic, full-sized super-human, strong warrior Queen that would inherit genetic traits from the Alien. The developed eggs - as new cloned "alien Xenomorphs" would be much smarter, have heightened physical attributes and stronger reflexes, acid blood, and a psychic connection to the Hive.
The USM's plan was to breed more aliens and keep them alive - to be studied and researched. They wanted to create a completely-new generation of spawned adult aliens. The military unit would be supplied with abducted human hosts (to breed more adult aliens) delivered to them by a group of mercenaries.
A commercial freight cargo spaceship named Betty arrived to deliver contraband cargo of hijacked bodies in hypersleep to the military scientists on the USM Auriga. The crew of six mercenary, inter-stellar pirate-smugglers included a young female mechanic named Annalee Call (Winona Ryder). She was first described by Betty's captain Frank Elgyn (Michael Wincott) as a "little girl playing pirates...she is severely f--kable."
Call recognized who Ripley 8 was - an alien/human hybrid clone - a bionic, super-human strong warrior Queen. Call first attempted to kill her: ("You're a thing, a construct. They grew you in a f--king lab. And now they brought it out of you"). She wanted to "stop this thing before it gets loose," but Ripley told her: "It's too late. You can't stop it. It's inevitable." Ripley explained that the Xenomorph creatures that Call feared had already been cloned, and some had already escaped confinement and were attacking the Auriga crew.
Call rightly feared that the scientists had already spawned mature adult Xenomorph aliens from Ripley's recently-extracted alien embryo-child (she said they were conducting "illegal experiments... breeding an alien species"). Ultimately, Call was revealed to be a lifelike robot or artificial human herself: ("a new model droid") - an Auton or second-generation Synthetic. Call's nature was revealed when she was shot directly in the chest but unharmed as the newly-grown aliens attacked while surviving crew members attempted to escape from the doomed Auriga. The damaged ship's default command in an emergency was to return (and crash) to Earth, a terrible option that would unleash the Xenomorph's on the planet.
Ripley reacted to Call's robotic nature: "I should have known. No human being is that humane." Upon realizing Call's synthetic nature, the embryo-embedded Larry Purvis (Leland Orser) quipped: "Great. She's a toaster oven."
In the exciting conclusion, Ripley 8, Call and other crew boarded the Betty to launch and escape the doomed Auriga. While fixing a broken hatch on the Betty, Call was threatened by a half-Alien, half-human, skull-faced "Newborn" hybrid alien creature (a "beautiful butterfly") that had somehow tagged along on the departing Betty. Earlier, it was shown that the Cloned Queen had developed a full human-like uterus-womb and birthed the "Newborn" - a brand new type of Xenomorph created from Ellen Ripley's DNA.
Acting motherly toward the "Newborn," Ripley 8 was able to lure the "Newborn" away from Call, to save her. Ripley used her own acidic blood to burn a section of the Betty's hull, creating a hole through which the monstrous "Newborn" was sucked into outer-space. The survivors in space watched as the Auriga crashed into Earth and exploded. As they looked down on Earth, Call commented to Ripley: "It's beautiful. I didn't expect it to be."
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Fembots
In director Jay Roach's spy comedy, it was the first of three Austin Powers franchise films, followed by two sequels:
[Note: See also the Fembots entry for the second film in the series.]
The PG-rated series of James Bond spy-movie spoofs with Mike Myers starring as a 1960's British hipster, hedonistic secret agent named Austin Powers who was un-cryogenically frozen and awakened in 1997. His mission was to stop Dr. Evil (also Mike Myers), an evil arch-enemy who stole a nuclear weapon to hold the world hostage for 1ドル million dollars while and threatening world domination. It was a fast-paced comedy filled with gags (both verbal and visual) and numerous catchphrases such as: "Bee-have," "Sake it to me baby!", "Yeah, baby, yeah," "Do I make you horny, baby?" and "Shall we shag now or shall we shag later?"
On a budget of 16ドル.5 million, the film was a tremendous success, grossing revenues of 53ドル.9 million (domestic) and 67ドル.7 million (worldwide).
In the plot, one of Dr. Evil's strategies was to create an "ultimate weapon" - a group of seductive identical female robots (called Fem-bots) (played by Cindy Margolis, Cheryl Bartel, Donna W. Scott, Barbara Ann Moore, and Cynthia Lamontagne). The remote-controlled Fembots (introduced with Nancy Sinatra's singing of "These Boots Were Made For Walking"), were designed by Evil's henchwoman Frau Fraubissina (Mindy Sterling) to conquer Austin Powers.
The Fembots were beautiful blonde android replicants, wearing white boots, plastic raincoats, and silver two piece outfits. They were described as: "The latest word in android replicant technology. Lethal, Efficient, Brutal. No man can resist their charms." They had protruding gunbarrels that emerged from their bikini-covered breasts [the Fembots' brassieres were based on the one worn by Ursula Andress in the cult Italian sci-fi movie The 10th Victim (1965)].
The three Fembots demonstrated their lethal breast-weapons on five emasculated guards - moving from left to right to vary the projectile of the bullets fired from each breast. One of the Fembots blew air at her gun nozzles to cool them off. Dr. Evil quipped:
"Very impressive. I like to see girls of that caliber. By caliber, of course, I mean, both the size of their gun barrels, and the high quality of their characters..."
In an underground lair in a later sequence, the Fembots wore purple fuzzy teddy-bear nightgowns to entice Austin Powers - they asked him: "Care to have a little fun?" - one of them jumped onto his shoulders and gripped his neck with her thighs, while the others protruded tubes from their breasts (called "jumblies," British slang for breasts). He joked about their nipples: "Is it cold in here?" as they sprayed him with a pink-colored gas, to put him to sleep and distract him from battling Dr. Evil.
Powers found himself lying in bed with the Fembots, who stroked him to tantalize him, as he attempted to think of distracting things: "Baseball, cold showers...Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day..." When Powers tried to flee, two Fembots blocked his way and challenged him: "You can't resist us, Mr. Powers," although he knew better: "Au contraire, baby." To fight them off, he performed an irresistible sexy strip-tease dance (down to Union Jack red underwear and hairy chest) to the tune of "I Touch Myself." His gyrations caused them to short-circuit with sexual electricity as their heads twitched violently and then exploded.
Powers explained later how he had defeated the Fembots with machine-gun boobs:
"...all of a sudden, the Fembots came by and smoke started to come out of their jumblies. So I'd thought I'd work my mojo, right, to counter their mojo. We got cross-mojonations, and their heads started exploding."
Flubber (1997)
Weebo
(a Robotic Drone Assistant)
Weber, and Weebette
This fantasy sci-fi comedy directed by Les Mayfield was a remake of the Disney film The Absent-Minded Professor (1961). John Hughes' and Bill Walsh's screenplay was based upon Samuel Taylor's short-story "A Situation of Gravity." It also featured a score by Danny Elfman. The fanciful film was a tremendous hit, although some were unhappy with the idea of a sequel for an already-classic film. With a budget of 80ドル million, it grossed revenues of 93ドル million (domestic) and 178ドル million (worldwide).
In this newer updated, slapstick version about a rubber-like super-bouncy substance known as "Flubber," Robin Williams (in an over-acted portrayal) starred as Medfield College's Professor Philip Brainard (the role played by Fred MacMurray in the original). The college was threatened with being closed by its wealthy sponsor Chester Hoenicker (Raymond J. Barry), whose entitled and spoiled son Bennett (Wil Wheaton) was failing in Prof. Brainard's class. Hoenicker had sent two goofy henchmen, Smith (Clancy Brown) and Wesson (Ted Levine) to persuade Brainard to raise Bennett's grades, and remove his son from academic probation.
Absent-minded Professor Philip Brainard had created a hovering robot-drone assistant named Weebo (with a female persona voiced by Jodi Benson, and puppeteered by Robert Cooper). Weebo, a saucer-shaped computer mostly yellow in color but also black and gray, could take pictures with a pop-up flash camera, or playback 'old movies' on its curved pop-up LCD screen to express her feelings (i.e, Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) , Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) , Dumbo (1941) , and Mickey Rooney in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)).
The adorable Weebo had fallen in love with Brainard, and expressed jealous tendencies. To attract Brainard's personal attention, Weebo created a holographic projection of herself in the form of a human spirit named Sylvia.
Weebo had helped Professor Brainard to create the miraculous polymer known as FLUBBER - an elastic, bouncing green goo with tremendous kinetic energy. Weebo had created the name for the substance, first calling it "flying rubber" before it was shortened by the Professor to "FLUBBER." At times, Flubber became anthropomorphic and sentient, could imitate human behavior, and terrorize everyone as a mischievous little green tormenter.
The main plot was about the Professor's rivals, his former colleague-scientist Wilson Croft (Christopher McDonald) (now teaching at the rival Rutland College) and greedy businessman Chester Hoenicker, who paired up and unsuccessfully tried to steal Flubber - to sell it for a profit. In the film's conclusion, Weebo was hit by a baseball bat while trying to protect Flubber from being stolen. Weebo had shouted her challenging final words to Hoenicker's two henchmen as she was shattered into pieces: "Kiss me, big boy."
After Weebo ceased to function and faced her demise, Brainard asked: "What happens to the soul of a machine?" Weebo was able to provide Brainard with a farewell video including full and complete blueprints of herself (with flaws removed) to produce a 'daughter' named Weebette. There were two other robotic characters in the storyline:
Gangster World (1997) (aka The Outsider) - TV movie (SyFy Channel)
Two
Androids: (RCUs, or Robotic Carbon Units)
Astor
The Outsider
Director David Bishop's science-fiction TV film (and direct-to-videotape in 1998) was a variation of Michael Crichton's Westworld (1973) , about a theme park where western cowboy androids suddenly went crazy. This film was also set in a futuristic theme park, a place where visitors could interact with androids, but in this case, it showcased film noir detectives against violent gangsters in a 1930s-1940s mob setting. The film's tagline was:
"Lust, greed and violence...welcome to the future."
Patrick Highsmith (aka Avi Nesher) was responsible for the story, and co-scripted the screenplay with Evan Spiliotopoulos. Many of the character names were those of actors from 1940s film noirs, for example, Garland Widmark (a combination of Beverly Garland and Richard Widmark), Lita Hayworth (referencing Rita Hayworth), Dr. Greenstreet, Astor, Rains, Houston, Ladd, and two thugs Rath and Bone, etc.
The time period and locale was L.A. in the year 2028. The interactive Gangster World theme park was created by Dr. Greenstreet (David Leisure), as a way to decrease crime ("the civilized way to cope with violence"). Genius software designer Garland Widmark (Gabriel Dell, Jr.) was hired by Greenstreet to make the park fully-automated. Robotic Carbon Units or RCUs (part-human androids) populated the park, and were programmed to not hurt humans.
Vampish android gun moll Astor (supermodel Stacey Williams/Stacey A. Snyder), the main squeeze of Lorre (Will Leong), spouted lines such as:
On the eve of the park's grand re-opening when a new master computer (named Donald 3000) was about to go online, there was a major homicidal disaster, possibly the result of sabotage. An assassinator android known as the mysterious Outsider (Xavier Declie) appeared. He was programmed to kill - and soon human park guards were slain. He was intent on hunting down Garland, the park's main computer programmer. It was possible that a mysterious Kingpin was behind the malfunctions, or the park's militaristic security head Alan Houston (Lindsey Lee Ginter).
When going to investigate the situation inside the park, Garland’s co-worker and blonde love interest Lita Hayworth (Bridget Flanery) was abducted by android mobsters and held hostage. Garland tried to rescue her, and found that he had to ally himself with the Assassin Android - although he too was marked for assassination by the Outsider and Houston.
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