![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Procrastination: Electric boogaloo.
May. 23rd, 2009 12:12 pmWith the big-budget Terminator: Salvation opening this week, io9 have a nice article on another, comparatively no-budget, story about killer robots. Is the Robots of Death the greatest killer robot story of all time?
I don't know if it's the greatest one of all time but I do know I love the hell out of this story. It's clever without being convoluted, the special effects are cheap but not toe-curlingly awful, the robots are cheaply made but dammit, those metallic faces with that faintly egyptian facial style just look cool. It owes a lot to Asimov, sure but it you're, going to borrow in a robot story, borrow from the. To me, Asimov is to robots what Tolkien is to fantasy, what George Romero is to zombies. I think the writers of New!Who should take a look at this story and freaking learn from it. There's no ear-drum splitting soundtrack, no frantic running around, no yelling, no supporting characters who just gawp the doctor and go on about how awesome he is, no wangst. Most importantly, there's no random deus-ex-machina with the Doctor solving the problem with some random shiny tech or a magic beam, no to save the day he uses ( spoiler! )
Like I said, don't know if it's the best killer robot story but it's definitely one of the best Who stories. If youre only experience of Dr. Who are the new seasons, pick up a copy of Robots of Death to further your Who education. See how they did things in the olden days.
I don't know if it's the greatest one of all time but I do know I love the hell out of this story. It's clever without being convoluted, the special effects are cheap but not toe-curlingly awful, the robots are cheaply made but dammit, those metallic faces with that faintly egyptian facial style just look cool. It owes a lot to Asimov, sure but it you're, going to borrow in a robot story, borrow from the. To me, Asimov is to robots what Tolkien is to fantasy, what George Romero is to zombies. I think the writers of New!Who should take a look at this story and freaking learn from it. There's no ear-drum splitting soundtrack, no frantic running around, no yelling, no supporting characters who just gawp the doctor and go on about how awesome he is, no wangst. Most importantly, there's no random deus-ex-machina with the Doctor solving the problem with some random shiny tech or a magic beam, no to save the day he uses ( spoiler! )
Like I said, don't know if it's the best killer robot story but it's definitely one of the best Who stories. If youre only experience of Dr. Who are the new seasons, pick up a copy of Robots of Death to further your Who education. See how they did things in the olden days.
