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From Metropolis to Avengers: Age of Ultron, robots are such a staple of movie-going that it's easy to forget they haven't always been around. The idea of automated machines doing work for us has existed for as long as civilization, but it wasn't until 1920 that Czech playwright Karel Čapek coined the word "robot" to describe a humanoid machine in a play called R.U.R.

Robots have been part of science fiction since even before the word was coined, but as powerful as literary explorations of the technology can be, there's nothing like seeing it on-screen. Maybe it's because, through the power of visual effects and production design, movies can give even the most futuristic robot an existence viewers can actually see. Or maybe it's that watching real people react to robots allows audiences to explore the relationship between humanity and technology by watching actual human bodies and faces.

Update: 2025/01/15 04:06 Est...

Netflix’s upcoming sci-fi adventure The Electric State adapts a much-loved art book by Simon Stalenhag. Or does it? We weigh up what counts as an adaptation.

Does Netflix read YouTube comments? If so, it’s a wonder what it makes of the 2,200 (and counting) responses beneath the debut trailer for its upcoming movie, The Electric State. They’re not what you’d call enthusiastic.

“It’s literally an art book,” reads one. “How did they make it look so wrong.”

“The tone looks nothing like the book whatsoever,” reads another. “I loved the hopeless, lonely, and dystopian feel of the source material.”

It’s churlish to judge a film too harshly based on its marketing, of course, but watching the 147-second promo for Netflix’s upcoming, (reported) $320m sci-fi adventure raises a number of questions. Most pressingly: why option Swedish artist and author Simon Stalenhag’s graphic novel of...

I, Robot director Alex Proyas is currently in pre-production on an adaptation of Karel Capek’s seminal 1920 play, R.U.R.

Alex Proyas, director of such movies as The Crow, Dark City, I, Robot and more besides, is currently in pre-production on a film called R.U.R, it’s been revealed. It’s based on the 1920 play of the same name originally written in 1920, and is famous for introducing the word ‘robot’ into the sci-fi lexicon.

Proyas has written the screenplay himself, and if the brief description published by Deadline is anything to go by, it’ll be at least somewhat close to Capek’s original story. Set in a future where robots are mass-produced on an island factory called Rossum’s Universal Robots, the technology has long since spread worldwide, largely replacing human labour. The robots’ proliferation leads to much debate about their use as slave labour, and a pressure group called...

Exclusive: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actress Mallory Jansen and Emmy and Tony Award winner Anthony Lapaglia are boarding Alex Proyas’ upcoming sci-fi satire R.U.R. opposite Lindsay Farris (Ash vs Evil Dead).

Cameras roll on Oct. 21 in Sydney, Australia.

Proyas penned the screenplay which is an adaptation of Karel Capek famous science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), published in 1920. R.U.R. follows Helena, played by Jansen, who visits the island factory of Rossum’s Universal Robots to emancipate the robots from capitalist exploitation, with catastrophic results.

Proyas is the filmmaker behind the $353M-grossing Will Smith 2004 summer hit I, Robot.

The film is being produced by Proyas, Morris Ruskin, former CAA agent Adam Krentzman, Steven Matusko and Brett Thornquest. EPs are Matthew Rhodes of The Hideaway Entertainment, Rohit Khanna,...

Alex Garland's "Ex Machina" isn't so much a film about the nature of artificial intelligence as it is a penetrating exposé of callow, sexist tech bros and how they, in their arrogant, macho way, try to define womanhood. "Ex Machina" follows Caleb (Donmhall Gleeson), a low-level coder at a high-tech robotics firm who has been specially selected to visit the home of the company's a-hole CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Nathan has built a lifelike artificially intelligent robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander) who, he says, still needs to undergo several tests to ensure she is actually artificially intelligent. Caleb is tasked with interviewing Ava in what is essentially a prolonged Turing test.

Audiences soon learn, though, that Ava was constructed from Caleb's "porn profile" and that Nathan has installed her body with a working robotic vagina. As the two men discuss what qualifies as intelligence and consciousness from a machine perspective,...

Helena Třeštíková’s film is a strange sequel to her 2008 portrait of a Czech career felon and his popular notoriety that she helped create

Shot over the course of 20 years, Helena Třeštíková’s 2008 film René followed the near continuous prison stints of her charismatic subject; these happened in parallel with the colossal political changes that took place in the Czech Republic towards the end of the 20th century. Conceived as a sequel to this milestone work, René: The Prisoner of Freedom is another long-term project which charts not just the dehumanising cycle of incarceration, but also the trappings of accidental fame.

Beginning with scenes showing the jam-packed premiere of the earlier documentary, which turned René into an unlikely celebrity for Czech audiences, Třeštíková’s new film observes how notoriety does not always translate into economic stability. Struggling to make ends meet, René took on various odd jobs, including as a...

In Robert Hloz’s sci-fi feature debut “Restore Point,” second chances are big business.

In the year 2041, anyone who has an unnatural death has the right to be brought back to life, provided they’ve dutifully created a backup of their personality called a “restore point.”

Naturally, some object to the notion of artificially extending life ad infinitum, wherein the story begins to get complicated.

“I wanted to make a sci-fi film since I was a little kid,” Hloz says, “but I would never guess that it will happen to be my debut. I thought maybe third, fourth film.”

But, as the Czech director recalls, he found himself going through notes for film ideas from screenwriter Tomislav Cecka and one of them began to loom large.

“He came up with an idea for a very realistic sci-fi about our society in the near future, where people can be restored if something bad happens to them,...

S1M0NE.Recently my MacBook showed signs of malfunction that I feared were fatal. I rushed to the Apple Store, where I was promptly introduced to Isaac, Apple's in-store virtual assistant—that is, a handheld device—to sign off on what was apparently a very standard procedure. Fifteen minutes and three Geniuses later, I was informed that numerous attempts had been made to restore my MacBook to its factory settings, all of which had inexplicably failed. “It just didn’t want to die,” said one of the Geniuses, directing me toward the newer models available for purchase. “It must have loved being yours.” I walked home in a state of devastation—and surprise at my devastation, too. At my desk I unboxed the machine, which I knew was in many ways identical to my former MacBook but for now felt uncanny. Powering up the screen, I was reminded...

XYZ Films has closed a raft of deals for Czech filmmaker Robert Hloz’s science-fiction feature “Restore Point,” which is part of the company’s recently launched New Visions slate of genre films.

The film has been sold to Germany and Switzerland (Plaion); Scandinavia (NonStop); France (The Jokers); and Australia/New Zealand (Umbrella). Several other territories are in active negotiations, while XYZ is also confirmed to handle the U.S. release of the film.

“Restore Point” is set in the year 2041, when the gaps in social and economic inequality have left the world on the brink. A breakthrough in science has given humanity the ability to bring victims of a violent crime back to life by backing up their brain every two days. This affords an ambitious young detective the opportunity to solve a case of a murdered couple when the restoration team is able to bring one of them back.

The Avengers: The Emma Peel Collection (1965-1967)

Blu-ray

[Imprint] Television

1965-67 / 1.33: 1 / Black and White and Color

Starring Diana Rigg, Patrick Macnee

Written by Brian Clemens, Philip Levene

Directed by Roy Ward Baker, Sidney Hayers, Charles Crichton

Though remembered for its idiosyncratic humor, The Avengers made its debut in 1961 as a no-nonsense crime drama. Ian Hendry starred as David Keel, a doctor turned detective, while Patrick MacNee haunted the sidelines as an inscrutable investigator named John Steed. Shot in black and white under grey English skies, the show was unmistakably a product of the Cold War, fueled by John Dankworth’s stentorian theme and an origin story that predicted television’s noirish The Fugitive; Keel’s fiancée has been murdered, prompting our heroes to join in the search for her killer.

It was a brief sojourn for Hendry who left at the end of the season, relinquishing star billing to Macnee and his new partner,...

Iran-set coming-of-age story “Summer With Hope” won the top prize at the 56th Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, winning over the Crystal Globe jury with its story of youthful competitive swimmer Omid as he struggles to train for a risky ocean competition.

The film, directed and written by Iranian-Canadian Sadaf Foroughi, is her sophomore feature, following up on 2017 teen drama “Ava.” The Karlovy Vary prize comes with 25,000.

The closing night gala, which filled the Grand Hall of the storied Hotel Thermal in the western Czech spa town, saw several honorees commenting on the critical issue of artistic freedom and urging solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Benicio Del Toro, honored with the fest president’s prize, praised Karlovy Vary for hosting the Odesa film fest’s work-in-progress event this year, saying, the support would help “ensure another culture won’t be a casualty of war.” He also thanked film audiences,...

The biggest recipient is Valeska Grisebach’s fourth feature ‘The Dreamt Adventurer’ (working title).

Four projects, all by women filmmakers, have been supported by the German-French Funding Commission made up of representatives from Germany’s Ffa and France’s Cnc.

The largest single amount of production funding of € 360,000 went to Valeska Grisebach’s fourth feature film The Dreamt Adventurer (Der Geträumte Abenteuer). It will be the latest collaboration between Germany’s Komplizen Films and France’s Kazak Productions, co-producers of Filmfest München’s opening film Corsage, as well as Sebastian Schipper’s 2019 film Roads and actress-director Nicolette Krebitz’s Berlinale...

Ryan Lambie Jun 1, 2019

Commercials and TV form an integral part in Paul Verhoeven's classic sci-fi films, RoboCop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers...

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

"I looked at American society in a kind of dazed way when I was doing RoboCop," director Paul Verhoeven told Den of Geek UK a few years ago. Back in the mid-80s, when he was better known for his Dutch films like Soldier Of Orange and The Fourth Man, Verhoeven was still getting used to the pace and tone of American culture - and his outsider status arguably fed into the wry, spikily satirical edge in all three sci-fi films he made while in Hollywood.

"It was all so different from living in Holland," Verhoeven recalled. "A lot of my, let's say, amazement, at American society is in RoboCop; in the commercials, in the news reels and so forth,...

Ryan Lambie Apr 6, 2017

Adverts and TV form an integral part in Paul Verhoeven's classic sci-fi films, RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers...

"I looked at American society in a kind of dazed way when I was doing RoboCop," director Paul Verhoeven told us earlier this year. Back in the mid-80s, when he was better known for his Dutch films like Soldier Of Orange and The Fourth Man, Verhoeven was still getting used to the pace and tone of American culture - and his outsider status arguably fed into the wry, spikily satirical edge in all three sci-fi films he made while in Hollywood.

See related Deadpool: Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick interview Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds on channeling the character

"It was all so different from living in Holland," Verhoeven recalled. "A lot of my, let's say, amazement, at American society is in RoboCop; in the commercials, in...

Curtis Harrington took an assignment nobody else would and fashioned a gem of low-budget Sci-Fi. A Russian space epic provides expensive-looking special effects scenes for a new horror show about a deadly alien rescued from a crash landing on Mars. The extras include excellent interviews with Roger Corman and effects specialist / historian Robert Skotak.

Queen of Blood Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1966 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 80 min. / Street Date December 1, 2015 / 29.95 Starring John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, Florence Marly, Judi Meredith, Dennis Hopper, Robert Boon, Don Eitner, Forrest J Ackerman. Cinematography Vilis Lapenieks Film Editor Leo Shreve Original Music Ronald Stein Written by Curtis Harrington from the Soviet film Mechte navstrechu Produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, George Edwards Directed by Curtis Harrington

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

A.I.P. released some tacky movies in its day but none were less respected than those cobbled together from foreign imports spiked with new filmed-in-Hollywood storylines.

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

Popular to contrary belief, robots aren’t exclusive to 50′s B-Movies and toy boxes. What you are about to see and read about are ten of the most advanced and unbelievable robots in production today. Ranging from humanoid – capable of a broad range of tasks that can prove difficult for even the best of humans – to prosthetics and even giant mechs resembling those featured in anime and computer games such as Titanfall.

The word robot was coined by Czech playwright, Karel Capek for his 1920 play Rossum’s Universal Robots and ever since he did, we have shared a wonderful romance with them. As an undeniable star of the sci-fi genre in all mediums, our fascination has never faltered and with the success of Robocop this year and the upcoming Edge of Tomorrow and Transformers 4, they’re as trendy as ever.

But, enough of the fictional ones.

I've got an awesome retro sci-fi short film for you to check out. It's called R.U.R.: Genesis, and it combines past, present, and future in the style of an alternate 1969 history. This is kind of a cheesy film, but it's all part of the playful vibe. I had a lot of fun watching this, I especially loved the visual style and setting. The short was written and directed by James Kerwin, and it stars Chase Masterson who played Leeta in Deep Space Nine. Here's a little information on the story and how it came about thanks to TrekMovie:

R.U.R.: Genesis is an indie sci-fi thriller based on some very early sci-fi stories and themes. In 1919, Czech playwright Karel Capek began work on what would become a seminal science fiction story, R.U.R.. The film was set 50 years into the future (well, 50 years into the future from the perspective of...

From Marvel's Ultron to Obama's brain mapping project, science and fiction are breaking the barriers between man and machine

No sci-fi plot is as reliable as that of the rebelling robot. It's a story as old as digital time: the once promising but ultimately impetuous computer/child, realizing its mortal creators are at best obsolete and at worst a plight, tries to eradicate humanity/father.

The first play to feature automatons, Czech playwright Karel Capek's 1920 piece Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.), provided the template for the rotten robot, one used in movies, in books, on television and even music, as on The Flaming Lips 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

And of course comic books have mined the robot-versus-man myth, as in the latest Marvel Comics limited series, The Age of Ultron, a tale in which villain Ultron, terrorizing heroes since 1968, returns once again to kill his creator, which is...

"I see everything."

The field of robotics took another giant leap forward recently, with the creation of Rex, a "bionic man" with fully functional artificial human organs and lifelike features, bringing science reality ever closer to the science fiction depicted in movies. As incredible as it sounds, humanoid robots, or androids (just "droids" if you're George Lucas), like Rex have been appearing on screen since well before Czech writer Karel Capek gave the English language a name for them in his 1920 sci-fi play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), with the human simulacrum Hadaly a featured character in the 1896 French movie L'Eve Futur (The Future Eve). Hundreds of movies have included androids — and their part man, part machine, cyborg cousins — since Hadaly, but which ones were the best? Help us rank the movies with the coolest, the baddest, the sexiest, the deadliest, the most terrifying androids and cyborgs.

Rate the Top 10 Best...

Influential Czech film director with a talent for self-preservation

The Czech film director Otakar Vávra, who has died aged 100, was born in Bohemia when it was part of the Austro- Hungarian empire, and was seven years old when Czechoslovakia became an independent nation in 1918. He lived through the German occupation, communism and the Velvet Revolution, and saw his country become the Czech Republic in 1993, while never ceasing to make films. In each epoch, Vávra changed his skin in order to save it.

Among his lasting achievements was the film faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (Famu) in Prague, which he helped establish after the second world war and where he taught for five decades. Among his students were Vera Chytilová, Milos Forman, Ivan Passer and Jiri Menzel, all directors of the 60s Czech new wave, and more recently Emir Kusturica, all of whom had high praise for his teaching.

Fans of very-much-not-Pixar animation may be stoked at the news that Czech mentalist Jan Svankmajer is at work on an adaptation of Josef and Karel Capek's Insect Play.Originally written in 1921, it's a satire on oppressive totalitarian regimes, in which humans act like insects, and insects - gloomy beetles, warrior ants, whimsical butterflies - have all the personality. Josef Kapek was killed at Belsen in 1945, giving the play a horrible prescience.Svankmajer's version, to be simply titled Insects, will "combine dark comedy, grotesque, classic horror genre, and both animation and feature acting," he says, making it very much of a piece with the animator's previous Alice, Faust and Little Otik. He's wanted to make it since the 1970s: "I always liked it. It's very misanthropic. It reminds one a lot of Franz Kafka.""Svankmajer is 76 and I'm 72," laments Jan's long-time producing partner Jaromir Kallista. "We are very old mates,...

Famed animator Jan Svankmajer has announced that his next project will be an adaptation of The Insect Play - an early work from Czech science fiction writer Karel Capek. One of the greatest experimental / stop motion animators in the world, Svankmajer has potent material to work with here, Capek's tale one which puts human characteristics into insects and insect characteristics into humans for an effect that will surely call to mind Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. The Svankmajer version will be titled simply Insects and is not due for completion and release until 2015.Capek himself is an interesting figure and one whose work is increasingly being mined for film. He is widely credited with creating the term 'robot' and was one of the most influential...

Popular Russian film star and entertainer who brought a light touch to the Soviet era

After Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin's "cult of personality" at the 20th party congress in February 1956, political and cultural life in the Soviet Union underwent many changes. One of the first films to benefit from "the thaw" was Eldar Ryazanov's musical-comedy Carnival Night (1956), starring Lyudmila Gurchenko, who has died of cardiac arrest aged 75.

The 21-year-old Gurchenko herself attracted a cult of personality with her sparkling performance as an enthusiastic member of a Soviet youth group (Komsomol) who is planning a fun-filled New Year's Eve celebration at the "house of culture". She is pitted against a pompous middle-aged bureaucrat who wants to make the occasion serious and educational by inserting communist slogans into the show. Tired of socialist realist films, which were required to glorify the revolution and the power of the collective, audiences...

War with the Newts is based on the 1935 Czech novel by Karel Capek which was continued as either a comic or a newspaper strip. Back in April 2009, we brought you a concept teaser and news that the project was looking for backing.

Well I don't know if this awesome new artwork that Twitch uncovered means that the project is full steam ahead, but it's sure created some excitement around here and I intend to get to the bottom of it.

The story is based on some strange intelligent creatures living in the pacific ocean which get used as cheap labor and then rebel against their evil human overlords. I sense a metaphor in there somewhere.

Anyway, more as it come. Check out the artwork after the jump!

Head to Quiet Earth to see the stills.

VÁLKA S Mloky concept teaser

Embedded video stripped, see full HTML version.

Sci-fi yields many visions of helpful and friendly robots - as well as dangerous and destructive ones.

We have Gort in The Day The Earth Stood Still, Robby in The Forbidden Planet, the various mechanical creations in Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, the futuristic servants in I, Robot and the killing machines of Terminator.

And who can forget Twiki and his pudding-bowl hairdo in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Doctor Who's K9, Star Wars droids R2-D2 and C-3P0 and the more recent Wall-e? Their designs were as varied as their functions and purposes.

But what about the real world? Will robots have an important role as future human assistants? Can we teach them to be social beings? What uses could they be put to in human society?

You can get the answers to those questions and more at a forthcoming event called Rise of the Machines.

Robots in our past and present, in film and real life.

What Is a robot? Everything from a real-life car assembly machine to a fictional artificial human being gets called a “robot.”

The Merriam-Webster Online site gives its main definition of the term this way: “A machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being, also: a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized.”

That lack of humanity in a humanoid shell is what makes a great movie robot a great monster.

There were robots in films before the term “robot” was created. In fact, robots have been in films for as long as films have been a widely available entertainment.

Robots in film

Robots in film go back nearly as far as motion pictures themselves. In 1907, Vitagraph released a short film...

From what I can gather on this project from google translate (which doesn't work very well on the Czech language), this project is currently looking for funding and co-producers but they already have the involvement of one production company which is working on a sweet looking project called Aporver we've been following. Based on the 1935 novel by Karel Capek which I think was continued as either a comic or a newspaper strip, the story seems to be based on some strange intelligent creatures living in the pacific ocean which get used as cheap labor. From here I assume the war stars. Really, I'm half guessing, so if any of our Czech readers can provide a proper translation (wikipedia entry) please help us out! This sounds awesome!

Update: Thanks to the always awesome Avery, we know this book was sold in translated form with the title "War With the Newts" but...

Chicago’s Strawdog Theatre Company has mounted a new production of Karel Capek's 1920 play R.U.R. The seminal science fiction play gave the world the word “robot” (based on the Czech word for laborer) and this will run through October 25.

The play stars Ryan Bollettino, Brennan Buhl, Zachary Clark, Andrew Gebhart, Joe Goldammer, Sara Gorsky, Carmine Grisolia, Jocelyn Kelvin, Nick Lake, Anderson Lawfer, Michaela Petro, Henry Riggs, John Henry Roberts, Noah Simon, and Rebekah Ward-Hays.

The initials stand for Rossum's Universal Robots. The theatre company’s site says, “Forget clunky metal boxes, these robots are genetically engineered humans with the troublesome parts, like needs and desires, omitted. The men of R.U.R. live alongside their constructs on a remote island, closely guarding their secret formula while supplying the world with all the cheap labor it can stand. It runs like clockwork until a beautiful young robot rights activist arrives via her father's private boat.