Robot Weekend continues today with plans to watch more silly 80s robot movies — “Making Mr. Right” and “Electric Dreams”.
Also, here’s a cute little robot story on Deep Sky Anchor (originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact), newly illustrated by Midjourney.
So, I don’t think it’s so much that Making Mr. Right hasn’t held up… as that it was probably never a good movie…
That said, Ann Magnuson is lovely in it, and seeing John Malkovich play both the cold prickly scientist and his warm naive android is quite charming.
Also, Making Mr. Right is my oldest association with The Turtles’ song “Happy Together.”
So, an 80s movie being elevated by 60s music.
Music is so essential.
Now for a round of grasshopper drinks—hot chocolate with a splash of mint—because Johnny 5 looks like a grasshopper and learns about life by squishing one.
Look, designing themed weekends is hard.
And like I said, it’s not at all clear what foods or snacks fit a robot theme.
I haven’t seen Electric Dreams in years… but the way the computer comes to life from champagne spilled on it stayed with me and I think of it often.
When I write things that don’t quite make sense, I think, maybe they don’t need to. Because champagne brought a computer to life.
One thing I do have to give Making Mr. Right is that it’s a robot movie where the beautiful, sexualized, objectified robot is a man.
I do appreciate that. I get very tired of the reverse. And John Malkovich as the Ulysses android is lovely.
I hadn’t remembered how far Electric Dreams (1984) veers into the horror. It could almost be a Black Mirror episode.
And now for the best of the 80s robot movies… DARYL.
Right away, first scene, I’m struck by just how little he is… I remember watching this and Daryl seeming normal. He was a kid, like me, and he made more sense than other people.
Now he looks like a tiny child. Cause he is.
Time is weird.
Apparently my spouse just noticed for the first time the connection between the best friend, Turtle, in DARYL and the goofy biologist dog, Turtle, in In a Dog’s World. I thought it was pretty obvious. Not a lot of characters out there named Turtle, and I love this movie a lot.
The downside to over anthropomorphizing and imagining sentience where it doesn’t yet exist is being decent to something when you didn’t have to be.
The reverse mistake is worse.
This thought brought to you by DARYL, TNG’s Measure of a Man, Short Circuit, etc.