Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Zombie robot pandemonium

If I ever write a film it'll have zombie robots in it. No question.

I don't even know *how* a robot could become a zombie but I do know there is nothing that could prevent this zombie robot space epic from getting made - except possibly producers or film studios perhaps.

Anyhoo, if this film ever does get made I wouldn't make any of the zombie robots ninjas, I mean that would be too much. Same goes for zombie robot pirates - less is more don't you think? But what kind of characters could we have? I've done a quick search for images (gratitude links at the bottom) and have come up with five essential types.

Type one: The obsolete robot. At least the hand drier it's parked next to doesn't whimper when you go past it. It dreams of past glories and if it ever has the chance will wreak a terrible revenge upon humanity.

Type two: The dirty little secret. You thought he was just a box equipped with death rays, ultra sensitive detectors and a wicked claw that can both scrape and grab. But no, deep within the circuitry there lies the half beating heart of a once living breathing person. Usually a maniac to begin with and then the process makes it all ten times worse.

Type three: the stereo type buster. I like him. Designed to act as a butler to an evil genius he killed his master and spends his time gorging on fine wines, cigars and chocolate hob nobs. Deep down in his central database he knows that with his primary purpose dead ultimately all he has left is to ponder his crime.

Type four: The Frankenbot. Cobbled together from old robots and cow parts this dangerous idiot staggers from rage, to self pity to confusion and back again. It wasn't the universe that played a cruel trick by calling him into existence but Microsoft Futures Division. Will the blue skies thinkers never learn?


Type five: the hoards of zombie robots. Oh yes, everything seems perfect in sky city. All human needs are catered for and each of us lives like royalty. Little do we know that when the old robots are taken away to be scrapped they are in fact brought back to life by a monomaniacal servicebot who's desperate loneliness leads him to reanimate the dysfunctional models. They dismember him brutally and then rampage, of course.

Thanks to;

  • http://www.markbehm.com
  • http://kurainisei.vox.com/
  • http://img1.ifilmpro.com/resize/image/stills/films/resize/istd/2812807.jpg
  • http://thegreatgeekmanual.com
I'm tentatively tagging this post under "culture". Obviously I mean that in a very broad sense.

4 comments:

Phil said...

Zombie robots are possible. I remember a story line in the old Transformer's comic (circa 1987-8) that involved dead transformers coming back to life and attacking their living brethren as part of a mad scientist's plot to turn Cybertron into a spaceship. These zombie robots were rotting and everything, but unfortunately did not pass on a necrotising infection nor did they have a dietary penchant for Transformers' brains. Pity.

Jim Jepps said...

Phil - I love this comment!

Zombie robots are indeed possible, even likely, for the very reasons you lay out here.

It does lead into a new discussion about what is a zombie though... the brains / cannibalism thing for a start - do zombies only feast on the flesh of their own kind?

Phil said...

I don't know. We're entering an exciting moment in zombie studies. Simon Pegg and our Charlie have been debating whether zombies can run. The Romero zombies seem only interested in human flesh, while Max Brooks' zombies (of World War Z theme - soon to be a film) will eat anything made out of flesh, and those of the Return of the Living Dead spoofs just wanted brains. And can zombies develop intelligence when they've been shuffling around long enough? Land of the Dead seems to think so.

What I want to know is if you leave zombies long enough, will they rot away into nothing?

Jim Jepps said...

Well, the original zombies were products of voodoo magic and so would not have rotted - but today's zombies seem to be accidental byproducts of man's scientific folies - and therefore will no doubt behave just as a human corpse would if it was running around stuffing itself silly with tender living flesh.

In facebook world Cambridge has already started setting up its own Zombie Defence Plan a must in today's uncertain world.