Sci-Fi Movies - Futuristic - Cyborg

Playboy

Just wondering if anyone can recommend any good futuristic/Sci-Fi movies .... particularly ones with a theme on cyborgs e.g. Metropolis, Bladerunner, Ghost in the Shell, Tetsuo.

Its for a Phd proposal on "The male cyborg in cinema represents the ideal feminist view of masculinity"

Suggestions from all genres would be appreciated.

Thx in advance.

Makaveli

Terminator
Universal Soldier
The Ghost in the Shell series

monkeyfudge

Android is one you should definitely have a look at.

It deals with an android who falls in love with a woman. Although he is a bit of a wimp if I remember correctly.

And maybe Demon Seed

D!ve^Bomb!

cyborg

2 Espressi

SOLO ...

http://static.highbeam.com/w/washingtoninformer/august141996/mariovanpeeblesplaysactionheroinsoloandtheinformer/

Crap movie IMO, but it might illustrate your point.

Xcom2

Westworld
Circuitry Man
Hardware
Knights
American Cyborg

or just go here http://www.androidworld.com/prod07.htm



X

is_that_so

Playboy wrote:

Just wondering if anyone can recommend any good futuristic/Sci-Fi movies .... particularly ones with a theme on cyborgs e.g. Metropolis, Bladerunner, Ghost in the Shell, Tetsuo.

Its for a Phd proposal on "The male cyborg in cinema represents the ideal feminist view of masculinity"

Suggestions from all genres would be appreciated.

Thx in advance.

Sounds like Metropolis to me

Capt'n Midnight

is_that_so wrote:

Sounds like Metropolis to me

except she wasn't a male android.. but very influential

Alien & Aliens
Star Wars - C3P0 (not a good example)
Android - yeah he was wimp.. (was he from waltons mountain)
The day the earth stood still - comparison of ideal man and a robot.
Forbidden Planet - robbie
you've already got blade runner

(probably best to stay away from mecagodzila / transformers )

I think you might want to post this on feminist forum and stand back - by all accounts the ideal view of masculinity is not unfeeling, cold and super strong.

CyberGhost

robocop

ObeyGiant

Playboy wrote:

Its for a Phd proposal on "The male cyborg in cinema represents the ideal feminist view of masculinity"

My girlfriend's thesis was on something similar (although I still don't understand what it had to do with Theology - what she was doing her degree in.. still, she got a first). She delights in ruining Terminator 2 for me by pointing out all of the ultra-camp Village people references (biker guy, cop). Apparently, there's a very famous essay about this very subject, it might be worth tracking down.

mycroft

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

except she wasn't a male android.. but very influential

Alien & Aliens
Star Wars - C3P0 (not a good example)
Android - yeah he was wimp.. (was he from waltons mountain)
The day the earth stood still - comparison of ideal man and a robot.
Forbidden Planet - robbie
you've already got blade runner

(probably best to stay away from mecagodzila / transformers )

I think you might want to post this on feminist forum and stand back - by all accounts the ideal view of masculinity is not unfeeling, cold and super strong.

Examine Alien Ian Holms character attempts murder by stuffing a porno mag down the throat of another character, if thats not a freudian reference I'll eat my cigar.

Most Cyborg films are just sterotypical nonsense, I remember film theory
from college, focus on the really great films of the genre, and do some research into foreign films that explore the theme, can't think of any off hand, but promise to get back to you, to examine cross cultural handling of the theme.

By ideal I assume you either mean the clunk of metal who's purely functional, or do you mean the ideal of the basest attitudes of mankind?

Captain Trips

Playboy wrote:

Just wondering if anyone can recommend any good futuristic/Sci-Fi movies .... particularly ones with a theme on cyborgs e.g. Metropolis, Bladerunner, Ghost in the Shell, Tetsuo.

Its for a Phd proposal on "The male cyborg in cinema represents the ideal feminist view of masculinity"

Suggestions from all genres would be appreciated.

Thx in advance.

Try finding an old movie from the 80s called Saturn 3 (I think). It's about a cyborg/robot helper on a remote Saturn moon where a scientist lives with his wife and the cyborg thing's influence on their relationship (he's cuts up the guy to take possession of her I think, but it's prob 15 yrs ago) .....sort of like that episode of the simpsons with Pierce Brosnan as the robotic house.

Cactus Col

Star Trek First contact.

ekelly

The obvious examples are Alien and Aliens. Also look at Universal Soldier (I know! but honestly it deals with human/machine hybrid), the film Cyborg, the Terminator series, Tetsuo (a Janpanese film) the Matrix, Robocop, The Cybernator, Knights, Nemisis, Cyborg Cop, Shandow Warriors. You're probably aware of these books already but Alien Zone 1 and 2 and books by Donna Harroway can be helpful in terms of looking up films mentioned. This is also a link to some articles on the subject. You might find film through these.
http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/cpace/cyborg/film/studentov.html
A lot of these films are pretty terible, but should give you some examples for your research. I'm very interested in gender and sci-fi/horror film myself so I wish you the best of luck with your PhD.

Playboy

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

except she wasn't a male android.. but very influential

Alien & Aliens
Star Wars - C3P0 (not a good example)
Android - yeah he was wimp.. (was he from waltons mountain)
The day the earth stood still - comparison of ideal man and a robot.
Forbidden Planet - robbie
you've already got blade runner

(probably best to stay away from mecagodzila / transformers )

I think you might want to post this on feminist forum and stand back - by all accounts the ideal view of masculinity is not unfeeling, cold and super strong.

Its my girlfriends thesis .. and i think it has to do with a comparison of cyborg/female, and the themes of the 'outsider' and a 'search for identity' in cinema.

nadir

Evangellion and Rahxephon could be considered as cyborgs I guess, considering it's something of a symbiotic relationship.

Pigman II

Bicentennial Man & AI perhaps?

mycroft

Pigman II wrote:

Bicentennial Man & AI perhaps?

Please don't try and read any intelletual sub text into two of the most turgidly Hallmark esque insipid films of the last few years.

Honestly both films has all the death of one of those inane "data tries to understand a human emotion" moments in star trek;

"Commander Riker, what does it mean it make someone laugh"

"brain the size of a planet (okay thats marvin but you get my point) and you can't work out a knock knock joke; what are you autistic?"

ObeyGiant

But an intellectual subtext to, say, Alien, Robocop or the Terminator, is okay?
They're all just as shallow as each other.

Westworld?

mycroft

ObeyGiant wrote:

But an intellectual subtext to, say, Alien, Robocop or the Terminator, is okay?
They're all just as shallow as each other.

Westworld?

Well Alien can be re read as a freudian nightmare about sex and pregnancy

Both Robocop and the terminator have christ like allegorys.

While bicennetial man, and AI are respectively just a couple of phenomnial overlong reinterpretations of pinnocio.

I mean christ I don't really have much time for film theory and academia, I think the majority of is it over intellectalising ****e, but if must done pick some films with some meat on it's bones.

ObeyGiant

mycroft wrote:

Well Alien can be re read as a freudian nightmare about sex and pregnancy

Both Robocop and the terminator have christ like allegorys.

While bicennetial man, and AI are respectively just a couple of phenomnial overlong reinterpretations of pinnocio.

I'm not particularly fond of either AI or Bicentennial Man (although I do count myself as a fan of Kubrick and Spielberg more than Chris Columbus or Asimov), but to dismiss the others so unceremoneously while allowing the words "christ-like allegories" to come out of your mouth regarding Robocop is a picture-perfect example of a double standard.

Both Bicentennial Man and AI have rather deep subtexts, albeit wrapped in twee, saccharine clothes. Both deal very broadly with themes of humanity, emotion and consciousness on a level that even surpasses, say, Blade Runner. And to be fair, there are a couple of moments where the sweetness is dropped to reveal a truly cynical, pessimistic view of humanty - such as the "electric city" with its pleasure-bots, or the scene with the humans destroying robots because they are encroaching on "their" domain.

Although the questions these films ask might be of a slightly less flashy ("sex! blood! gore!" vs "love - aww") that doesn't necessarily mean they're any less valid.

mycroft

Although the questions these films ask might be of a slightly less flashy ("sex! blood! gore!" vs "love - aww") that doesn't necessarily mean they're any less valid.

Well see it all comes down to subjectivity, a matter of taste. I could make some excuse about how I feel all important or good cinema (or any art) must be challengingly, however as that thread about "name that film" goes I can say pretty much for certain I've watched my fair share of sholock, and enjoyed it. You can't just sit down on a friday night pop open a bottle of wine an watch requim for a dream for laughs.

The thing about both Bicentenial man and AI that bothered me was these were films which attempted to deal with epic meanin of life and what is it to be human and sentient while refusing to acknowledge the baser and darker aspects of what it means to be human. The pleasuredome looked like a hi tech modern vegas. It made no reference to the darker aspects of human sexuality, what would happen if someone was allowed to explore their sexual desires without fear of repercusion or guilt. Essentially it's trying to make a film which makes bold statements about humanity while refusing to acknowledge the darker aspects of human nature that reside within a portion of the population.

What I find exists in Bladerunner is Ruger Hauer's final speech has an eloquence his final realisation that revenge is pointless and how his experience his life will just disappear, it's a nilihistic beautiful challenges Deker's worldview and inspires thought about a agnostic worldview (on an aside the religious themes of battlestar are what I find most intriguing about the series).

I'm not saying a film must be bold or dark or savage, I'm saying if you're going to make a film about artifical intelligence and the meaning of being human while deciding to only skimp certain aspects of our psyche, they're you're cheating yourself and the audience, and the only worth of either of these films is as a counterpoint thematically in playboys thesis