RTSF - Reviews of Robot Movies, Books, and Stories - Dedicated to promoting the understanding of real robotics through exploring robots in science fiction
It’s Friday robot movie night… for those of us saddened by @chucknorris passing, choose one of his TWO robot movies, one where he uses a robot and the other where he is the robot. Learn more about the movies, the robots, and what's real science at tinyurl.com/RTSF-chuck-norri…. He will be missed.
Did you know @chucknorris outsmarted a police robot in Code of Silence (1985), illustrating some very real technical and ethical issues that persist to this day. We miss him. Learn more about this and scifi movies and real world robots at tinyurl.com/RTSF-chuck-norri…
Did you know @chucknorris was a policeman using a robot two years before Robocop (1987) in Code of Silence (1985). The robot, Prowler, was a real military robot. Learn more about Prowler and how accurately it was depicted at tinyurl.com/RTSF-chuck-norri…
At 84, @chucknorris still kicked better in Agent Recon (2024) than real world kickboxing robots— compare videos of the two and decide for yourself- plus learn more about the difference between scifi and real world robots at tinyurl.com/RTSF-chuck-norri… We will miss him.
Did you know that Chuck Norris starred in a movie with a real military robot and in another played a robot? Learn more about the movies, the robots, and what's real. He will be missed. See tinyurl.com/RTSF-chuck-norri… and more at roboticsThroughScienceFictio…
Searching for a robot movie to snuggle up to with your significant other for Winter Storm Fern? Passengers about Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence meeting cute when their space cruise ship malfunctions and they are prematurely awaken. Their only company is a robot bartender played by Michael Sheen. And it actually has some insights for distributed robotics! See more at tinyurl.com/RTSF-passengers
Looking for family movies to watch this weekend? Fantastic Four: First Steps @RealPopMax and @Superman are both great choices and feature adorable robot assistants! See the discussion on how H.E.R.B.I.E. and Gary compare real-world robot assistants in the latest Science Fiction Science Fact column at @scirobotics. science.org/doi/10.1126/scir…
Automatic Noodle by @annaleen is a comfort food scifi novella about robots who start a noodle shop. Nothing particularly technical, though the different morphologies are cool, but man do I want some good noodles!
amzn.to/3JYYXjB
Looking for a scifi movie for Memorial Day? The holiday is about commemorating those who have died in war and seems a fitting time watch Pluto, the 8 episode series on Netflix. In a near future the humanoid robots from each of the major countries who fought a recent Middle East war are struggling to adapt to peaceful lives. Someone, or something, is trying to kill them, which isn’t helping. The series is a lyrical adaptation of the Japanese anime, and is a breath of fresh air from the increasingly over-produced big budget scifi movies with vacuous plots. Learn more about the science behind scifi robots at roboticsThroughScienceFictio….
Looking for a scifi movie for Memorial Day? The holiday is about commemorating those who have died in war and seems a fitting time watch Pluto, the 8 episode series on Netflix. In a near future the humanoid robots from each of the major countries who fought a recent Middle East war are struggling to adapt to peaceful lives. Someone, or something, is trying to kill them, which isn’t helping. The series is a lyrical adaptation of the Japanese anime, and is a breath of fresh air from the increasingly over-produced big budget scifi movies with vacuous plots. Learn more about the science behind scifi robots at roboticsThroughScienceFictio….
Looking for a robot movie for the weekend? The Wild Robot kept getting mentioned at the @compcomcon Future of Computing workshop. See the @scirobotics discussion at roboticsthroughsciencefictio…
Looking for a movie for May the 4th Be With You Day? Try the "unofficial" Star Wars movie: Akira Kurosawa's 1958 classic samurai film The Hidden Fortress, about two peasants, one tall and skinny, the other short, constantly nagging each other as they help a mysterious bandit spirit a headstrong princess through enemy lines to re-establish her clan. (Yes, Lucas admits The Hidden Fortress was an inspiration for Star Wars.) And see more about Star Wars robots at roboticsthroughsciencefictio…
May the 4th be with you! There's lots of cool robots in the Star Wars scifi universe. What's the real world @SciRobotics science behind them? roboticsthroughsciencefictio…
Why not a robot Pope? That’s the premise of Robert Silverberg’s 1971 Nebula Award winning short story Good News from the Vatican. Or maybe robots, being infallible, should build the next Pope (who would be a robot)? That’s the plot of Clifford D. Simak’s 1981 novel Project Pope. See which of the two has more science- and more pointers to robot scifi about religion at
tinyurl.com/RTSF-pope
Looking for a robot scifi movie? @starwars Revenge of the Sith has been re-released. It does give the opportunity to wonder why Darth Vader doesn't recognize R2-D2 in the original trilogy... Quibbling aside, see the @SciRobotics of astromechs here at roboticsthroughsciencefictio…