Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Who comes up with these movies,nothing to go watch
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I Coulda Been a Computer: The new flick "Real Steel" posits that robots replace people in prizefighting. Presumably, in the tradition of feel-good boxing films, the hero robot, Atom, will be a 1-to-100 underdog against an unbeatable champion. Then by winning, he will gain the affection of a pretty girl robot.
Obviously "willing suspension of disbelief" is required for a movie like this. What seems striking about "Real Steel" is not the implausible premise, but that the action is supposed to occur in 2020. In this flick, just nine years from now, not only will gigantic fighting robots be common in American cities -- Hugh Jackman will find the parts for Atom by scrounging through a junkyard, because well before the year 2020, gigantic used robots are already being tossed out as trash.
As TMQ has noted, Hollywood tends to assume technological advances happening too soon to be probable. The movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," released in 1968, had Pan Am commercial flights to orbit in the year 2001. "Blade Runner," released in 1982, was set in 2019, and depicted super-advanced cyborgs plus colonization of planets in other star systems. "I, Robot," released in 2004, was set in 2035 and had armies of super-strong sentient, clairvoyant robots. Maybe there someday will be boxing robots that trash-talk with each other during weigh-ins. But it's not going to happen in nine years.
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