by Fumei Shirokuro
In the beginning I said that in the ‘80’s a lot of different kind of robots were introduced to the world. A lot of them are introduced through television series, while we also got to know a few from movies.
Let me start with the most famous one. Who doesn’t know The Terminator? The Terminator is a Cyborg who travels back in time to kill Sarah Connor. The reason behind this is to make sure that the robots will win in the future, since Sarah’s unborn son will put up a revolution against the robots.
But what is the movie scenes with robots that look like humans? Why not create robots that look like robots. Well in Short Circuit we got to know with Johnny Five. A robot which was built for the U.S. military to fight in the Cold War. Short Circuit is about how Johnny Five is one of the robots who ‘escapes’ the military. He’s been found by a animal-lover who thinks that Johnny Five is an extraterrestrial visitor. Because of the animal-lover gives Johnny Five access to books, television and other stimuli. Through this Johnny develops a whimsical and curious personality.
Next up is Data! Lieutenant Commander Data is an android from the series Star Trek. Even though Star Trek is a series that debuted in the ‘60’s, only until mid ‘80’s. Lieutenant Commander Data is introduced. Data served as the second officer and chief operations officer aboard the starships USS Enterprise-D and USS Enterprise-E. During his life he tried to understand various aspects of human behavior. But because he’s an android he had troubles with understanding human emotions. Throughout the series this led to the creation of an emotion chip. This chip let to the point that Data could understand and feel human emotions.
Beside KITT a car that stays a car. We were also introduced to robots who can transform into vehicles (and later on in the series even animal looking robots). Yes I’m talking about Transformers! Who don’t know them, those aliens who came to earth. Here we were introduced to the Autobots and the Decepticons. Everyone will probably remember Optimus Prime who could transform into a Freightliner Cab or their enemy Megatron from the Decepticons. Yes Japan introduced us to these amazing robots.
A less unknown robot, but non the least a cute one, is Robin the Robot. Robin is a robot who appeared in the dutch television series Bassie & Adriaan. Robin was accidently created by Bassie, who wanted to try and make a clock radio out an alarm clock and a radio. Instead of that he created a self-assured robot. Robin is a joker who is often seen quibbling with Bassie. But beside that Robin has a few functions. He can hold things and is able to use a keyboard of a computer (although you wouldn’t say that when you see Robin).
These were a few robot’s that were created in the ‘80’s. Of course there are a lot more. There were robots who were created before the ‘80’s. Like K-9, Daleks, Cybermen from Doctor Who or R2-D2 from Star Wars. And even now we’re still creating robots! Ever scene Disney’s Wall-E? If not you really should take a quick look at this cutely made movie.