Coolest Robot Evah?
The fine fellows over at Sf Signal asked some sciencefictioneers their opinion of the coolest robot in sciencifictiondom. I decided to share my opinion here. What’s yours?
Robots from television and movies will tend to take the prize, merely because we can see and hear them. I am tempted to say the most memorable robot from the movies is Gort from DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (the real one, not the remake). When the visor of Gort began to open (accompanied by shrill and unearthly theramin music) revealing what might have been an eye or an atomic death ray beneath it, it scared the bejeezus outta me back when I was a tender youth of 45. (I was less easy to impress when I was 5, though).
Can Cylons shoot death-beams from their eyes? I think not!
When Michael Rennie tensely announces “I am worried what Gort might do” revealing that the robot is not under his control, and then says Gort could destroy the Earth, you begin to get the notion of what a badass mofo Gort is. The material of which he is made is said to be indestructible; when he is locked in a block of plastic harder than steel, he simply melts his way out; and he can raise the dead to life!!
Klaatu emerging from the Tomb in his Burial Shroud, er, Spacesuit
(Albeit, we are reassured that only the Great Galactic Spirit can really and truly raise the dead to life; all Gort can do is raise the dead to life in some cases for an indeterminate period of time. WHEW! Avoided that sticky theological controversy! The sequel, where Mr. Klaatu “Lazarus” Carpenter returns as a blood-drinking vampire-zombie feasting on the flesh of the living — together with Gandalf and Spock to form a Troika of Terror from Beyond the Grave — was never written.)
And Gort gets to carry around Patricia Neal, who has the 1950’s what-hawt-babes-looked-like-when-your-Dad-was-young vibe going for her.
Even Dominique Francon is impressed with Gort!
Patricia Neal! Proof that Women were Hotter in Your Dad’s Day
Patricia Neal! More Proof that Women were Hotter in Your Dad’s Day (Not to mention Classy)
Tall, strong, silent, able to destroy the earth and resurrect the dead (sort of) and shoot disintegrator rays from his cyclopean eye, I would say the classical Gort space robot. on a scale of one to Awesome, is an eleven.
But is he cool? Coolness is slightly different from Awesome. Coolness is grace under fire, a Bogart twinkle in the eye, lighting the cigarette of Lauren Becall when she asks you if you can whistle. Cool is Fonz. Giant wrath-o’-god style space robot Gort is not Bogartian. But then, what robot is?
Too Cool for the T Rex
I have an answer, but it is from a book not very famous any more: Ravel from Keith Laumer’s DINOSAUR BEACH. If I may spoil the surprise ending, in the final chapters we discover he is from even farther in the future than the future, a form of nonorganic computerized life from a world after the extinction of man, yet still loyal to human aspirations and dreams. Ravel, and the overmind of which he is a fragment, destroys his own timeline, embracing annihilation, in order to preserve mankind and man’s home continuum. During the whole sequence, he is beaten and battered and bruised and confused as much as Sam Spade ever was, and he never loses his cool or finds a quirky quip far from his lips. He even gets the girl.
Ravel the time traveler from the final and post-organic era of time travel is the coolest of robots. He might have even been cool enough to carry Patricia Neal, if such a thing can be imagined.
She’s so hot, not even your Dad got to carry around Patricia Neal! (Unless your Dad is Gary Cooper)
So I leave you with this question: is there any robot out there in robotland who is (1) more cool than Gort or Ravel? or (2) who could defeat Gort in a round of Irish Stand-Down? or (3) is cool enough to carry around Patricia Neal, who is proof that babes were hotter when your father was young (classier, too) and you were just born too late, ya sap.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
