Robots are a common factor in many sci-fi movies, as they have always seemed like something a futuristic society would have. Of course, as society progresses, there are now some real robots, maybe even in your own home. While we may have countless examples of artificial intelligence today, one thing we still haven’t discovered (for better or for worse) is actually making these robots aware, something we still only see in fiction.
While this topic remains fictional, there are many movies that like to play with the idea that robots come to life and get their own sense. There are also many different ways to play with the subject. From starting the AI as conscious to showing them get it over the course of the movie, from making it good, bad, or somewhere in between, there are a lot of good stories to make, and there are a lot of good movies already made. .
I robot
I robot is based on the famous novel by Isaac Asimov and is set in the year 2035. Intelligent robots are found all over the world and perform various functions in the public service. To keep them under control, they operate under three rules designed to keep people safe. Detective Del Spooner (played by Will Smith) investigates an apparent suicide by the founder of the robotics, and comes to believe that a robot has broken one or more of these rules and is killing the man.
As he delves further and further into the case, he begins to uncover a plan that could turn the robots against the entire human race and turn them into their slaves. With some public robots becoming aware due to hardware upgrades that allow them to ignore the rules, while others have been around long enough to have evolved around the rules on their own, the high stakes in this movie are certainly attributed to the AI.
Ex machine
Ex machine follows computer programmer Caleb Smith, who wins a competition at work. The award gives him a week’s vacation on the private estate of the company’s CEO (a great Oscar Isaac). Caleb soon discovers that the CEO has created an AI and programmed a robot, Ava, with it, and expects Caleb to take part in the Turing test, along with a few other tests of her abilities.
However, while talking to her, he discovers that she is much more aware than he expected, and discovers that the CEO may not be who he seems. Without a doubt, Ava is right in the middle of the story here, fighting for her safety and freedom in the only way she knows how. The film even won an Oscar for its visual effects, most of which are in the works with the robot.
Blade Runner
The story Do Androids dream of electric sheep? by the great Philip K. Dick is the inspiration behind Blade Runner. Rick Deckard, a former police officer, is brought back to the station and asked to do one last job. They need his help to track down and take out four replicants, bio-engineered humanoids specially made to work in the space colonies. Four of them left and illegally returned to Earth, now hiding among the humans.
Despite having done this for most of his career, as he pursues these four, Deckard begins to blur the line between normal humans and the biotechnologists, and wonders if these hominids aren’t essentially humans in their own right. core. While the robotic aspect of this movie isn’t as obvious as some of the others on the list, there’s no question that it was one of the most influential science fiction movies of all time.
Hair
Just set in the near future, Hair follows the story of Theodore Twombly (played by Jaoquin Phoenix), who is lonely and depressed after the end of his marriage. He earns a living writing letters for other people who don’t want to, and his writing struggles because of the emotional state he is in. To try to cope, he buys a new operating system intended to co-develop with the person who buys it and becomes a unique entity intended to match the person who bought it.
When she starts, she calls herself Samantha (a tender Scarlett Johansson) and they quickly become friends. Despite being essentially his computer, their relationship soon develops deeper into a more romantic situation, and Theodore begins to wonder if this is the right thing to do. Hair was a pretty unique take on AI that stole the hearts of its viewers. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and Golden Globes, and also won Best Screenplay at both.
The Matrix
The Matrix is a classic AI movie. The film follows Neo, a computer programmer who soon discovers and wonders what the Matrix is, as he has discovered it multiple times. He is approached by Trinity and Morpeus and when he decides to learn more instead of returning to his life, he discovers that humans have been enslaved by machines and harvested for their bioelectricity, and that the world they lived in was just a simulation that their brains were forced to run.
Neo then joins the pair to fight the machines and any obstacle they throw at the team to try and free the humans from their control. When we talk about evil robots taking over the human race, it doesn’t get much better than this. The film won the Oscar for special effects, which brought this strange world to life and revolutionized sci-fi for the new millennium.
2001: A space odyssey
In 2001: A space odyssey, large, indestructible obelisks seem to exist all over space, emitting certain frequencies that people are very interested in. The first contained the secrets of technological progress and showed early humans how to make weapons out of bones. When another signal is discovered on the moon and suddenly sends a radio signal into space, an attempt is made to investigate where the signal went, and maybe even why.
A team of astronauts are sent on this mission without being told exactly what they are doing, which quickly leads them to distrust their computer system, HAL 9000, because he knows the secrets and will do everything he can to keep the mission going. The brilliant Stanley Kubrick film has been praised for its realistic portrayal of space travel, and HAL is a perfect example of a sentient AI doing terrible things for what they think is the right purpose, without the emotions and empathy that sometimes real people no longer exist. logical and start to be moral.
Wall-E
The animation film WALL-E follows the titular robot with his solitary life on Earth, the last robot still functioning among a sea of garbage. He and others like him were created to try and solve the overwhelming waste problem on Earth, as the humans left in spacecraft to cruise around the galaxy. When a spacecraft robot lands on Earth on a mission to see if there is vegetation so humans can return, Wall-E quickly falls in love.
When she’s picked up again, he won’t let her go, so he hops aboard the shuttle and ends up on a journey across the galaxy to win her hand and help the humans return in the process. It’s a nice change of pace from many of the other movies on the list, and adds a sweet, whimsical side to AI as Wall-E starts meeting other robots and humans, finally not alone anymore. The film won the Best Animated Feature Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Saturn Awards, among others.
the terminator
There’s no doubt about that the terminator is the perfect example of an AI movie. The cyborg assassin known as The Terminator is sent through time itself by Skynet, a sentient machine that seeks to kill the human race in the future. Skynet believes that by sending the Terminator back in time and killing Sarah Connor, the mother-to-be of a son rallies the remaining humans against Skynet and leads the resistance that gains the upper hand.
If Sarah is gone, her son would be too, changing the future and bringing Skynet everything it wants. However, another time traveler from the Resistance struggles to save Sarah and keep the timeline intact. With two antagonists being robotic, if only partially, the AI threat is certainly real in this movie, and it’s definitely one of the classics.