Rise of the robots, Hollywood style

Hollywood robots are no match for Rajnikanth’s 'Chitti'. Yet they are designed to achieve wonders and too good to be true

Remember Ultron — the accidental creation of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner — who gives himself a metal body, plots the earth’s destruction and sends hundreds of drones to swarm the Avengers? The big action finale of Avengers: Age of Ultron can be the perfect metaphor for robot invasion in movie theatres. If Hollywood is obsessed with sci-fi, they’re often incomplete without the metal marvels having charismatic personalities. We are talking of robots that can be menacing, uniquely intelligent and can save the day like super heroes. Here are some of the unforgettable movie robots and why:

TARS
He’s the sarcastic space robot, the real breakout star of Interstellar. With rectangular structures, he doesn’t have a face (but he does have screens) to flaunt. He’s witty, speaks fluently and can be programmed to be a better suited companion. While many robots tend to encounter monumental engineering problems to cross even a room, TARS can actually travel through black holes, move through water and willing to sacrifice himself to help his space-friends.

David
He’s the android attendant who served as a crew member aboard the spaceship  Prometheus. David is calm, emotionally sensitive, has unlimited memory and can perform critical surgeries. He’s fluent in all known languages and can even communicate with the extraterrestrial 'Engineers'. He activated the virtual map of the galaxy inside the alien craft and has the ability to navigate it. And that’s not all. David can continue to function even after getting decapitated.

Terminator T-850
In the battle between humans and machines, he’s our masiha. With metallic endoskeleton covered with living tissue, he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger sans expression in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Programmed for extreme missions, he can drive just anything as well as fire lethal weapons with precession. He doesn’t have onboard weaponry like the T-X (hybrid infiltrator cyborg), but can withstand plasma fire, reboot and even revert alterations from (T-X’s) nanobots. Hasta la vista, baby. 


Atom
A washed-up junkyard bot that challenged, mocked and almost defeated the mighty Zeus — Atom is a true 'people’s champion' in Real Steel. While other bots rely on remote and voice commands, Atom has an additional shadow mode capability and mimic its handler’s movements with flawless accuracy. He is small in front of most fighters, but he can take hits and just keep on going. And he’s not the shortest bot in Real Steel World Robot Boxing. Toolbox is.

BB-8
Finally, here’s the super-fast rolling droid that became a 'star' even before the Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens hit the theatres. It has a robotic ball for a body, topped with an equally robotic head that not only doesn’t fall off but also lets the body move freely below it. At the time of posting this piece, techies across the world are wondering just how it moves (the winning theory is ‘magnets’).