Top Ten Robots, Part 1

Courtesy of an IM conversation with Monk, I present my first five choices for top ten robots:

10. Robby the Robot, Forbidden Planet

He can synthesize whiskey and his defense override code is the word "Archimedes". Alone on a planet with a powerful scientist and his foxy of-age daughter, Robby is the only non-biased observer of the events of the film. Keeping with the Shakespearean theme of the film, this makes him the touchstone: how people treat the robot is a sign of their true intentions.

9. Mr. Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation

His head is 500 years older than the rest of his body and he constantly strives to try to understand humanity throughout a torrent of spacetime anomalies, warp core breaches, and his own brother trying to kill him. Mr. Data is the embodiment of unrequited desires: as an unaging, brilliant machine with superhuman speed, strength, and knowledge, he still wishes for something that he can never have. In several episodes, Data dabbles with being human. He tries comedy, romance, and violent fits of anger, only trying to understand the most complicated problem we have. What it is that makes us human?

8. Optimus Prime, Transformers

As the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime was the epitome of good, at least so far as a child can understand the concept. Forget Asimov's Laws, Prime wasn't just content to not harm humans. This bad-ass big rig fought for truth, justice, and the American Way. The fact that his trailer always contained, like, rocket launchers and shit was just icing on the cake for a robot that knew right from wrong and did something about it, goddammit.

7. Adam Link, "I, Robot"

Before Isaac Asimov wrote the classic I, Robot, the identically-titled story of Adam was written, and then turned into an episode of The Outer Limits. Twice. The 1960s version of the tale more closely followed the original plot of an automaton placed on trial for killing his creator. Leonard Nimoy also appears. Ultimately, the robot is convicted of the crime and it is determined that he is incapable of understanding the value of preserving human life. The episode ends with him being led out of the courthouse by armed guards, only to break free from them and run into traffic in order to keep a little girl from being hit by a truck. He saves the girl and is smashed into pieces, leaving the viewer more than a little aware of just how easy it is for people to want to believe that compassion is a quality unique to us.

6. Those metal spiders from Runaway

Gene Simmons has a gun that shoots smart bullets and he's dating Kirstie Alley. None of this stops robot-fighting cop Tom Selleck from going after him in an unfinished high-rise where Simmons has rigged the entire construction site with 4-legged walkerbots that squirt corrosive acid. These things were bad-ass in 1984, and they're bad-ass now. One of these things could basically annihilate an entire stockroom of Sony Aibos. And with good cause.