Maybe we're establishing the various families of robots? I don't know what the Latin names ought to be, and this is by no means a comprehensive list:
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AI (like HAL or the Enterprise computer). Still not a robot in my opinion, although in the strict, literal definition of a robot, evil, autonomous machinery is technically a robot).
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Androids. For instance, Data, the
Blade Runner replicants (or are they technically genetically-modified clones, and if so, do the
Star Wars stormtroopers qualify as androids?), and the hobbit from
Alien.
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Droids. Apparently George Lucas is willing to flex his artistic license to extend this term to anything that is not 100% human (or alien. If it uses a toilet, it's not a droid, let's put it that way). R2-D2 is a droid, C3P0 is a droid, and apparently even those automated flying spaceships that attack Ben Kenobi and Annakin at the start of Chapter 3 are droids, too. According to Ben, "Flying is for droids," so apparently "droid" is also a racial slur of some sort.
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Garbage cans with appendages. R2-D2, for instance - personality means a lot for this little droid, because let's face it, he ain't got the body! Because they're too pathetic to even warrant their own family, I'm also throwing shoe-box droids into this category. If you want to know what I mean about that, think Death Star, think remote control car, think putting-a-shoebox-over-the-car. If I can make you in less than 10 seconds, you're not a movie robot!
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The Tin Man. No personality? No "heart"? Sorry, Gort, I'm looking at you, you
Oz rip-off! This has got to be the saddest excuse in movie-robot solutions:
"What should it look like?"
"I dunno, how about like a person?"
"Yeah, but a person with a metal body!"
"Okay, but that's gonna make the costume hard to move/animate."
"That's alright, we'll fix it in post-production by giving the robot a monotone voice. That'll make it exciting!"
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Cyborgs. Where does the man end and the machine begin? Who knows? Who cares?! It's either skin-deep and inconsequential, other than the flimsy "only flesh can be time-transported"
Terminator concept, or it's, apparently, an epic, interminable stuggle between man and machine, as in the
Star Trek borg. Make up your mind, borg: is resistance futile, or isn't it?! Am I meant to simultaneously believe that resistance
is futile, and at the same time, suppose that it
isn't? Is anyone with me on this - wouldn't it be more fun to just go along with the borg, presume resistance is futile, and watch an entire two-hour film that consists of nothing more than the borg running roughshod over the Federation?