Movie Cyborgs - More bad than good
June 1st 2009 08:01
In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character describes itself as being a cybernetic organism. We know his type better as simply ‘cyborgs’.
The Oxford Dictionary describes a cyborg as ”a person whose physical tolerances or capabilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by a machine or other external agency that modifies the body’s functioning; an integrated man-machine system”.
The less formal Wikipedia says fictional cyborgs are portrayed as a “synthesis of organic and synthetic parts, and frequently pose the question of difference between human and machine as one concerned with morality, free will, and empathy. They may be represented as visibly mechanical or as almost indistinguishable from humans.
They are not to be mistaken with an android, which we’re classifying here as basically a robot merely shaped like a human being. Check out the lamest robots in film here.
Cyborgs can look like Yul Brynner or Arnold Schwarzenegger, more your robotic-based cyborgs that look human from Westworld (1974) and Terminator (1984).
… “The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human… sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot,” so says Kyle Reese in Terminator …
Or they can look like the helmeted pair of Peter Weller and Darth Vader whose characters in the RoboCop and Star Wars series were once human but given mechanical body parts to not only survive, but thrive.
Wiki goes on to say that cyborgs in fiction often play up a human contempt for over-dependence on technology, particularly when used for war, and when used in ways that threaten free will. Cyborgs are also often portrayed with physical or mental abilities far exceeding a human counterpart (military forms may have inbuilt weapons, among other things).
There have been some great representation of cyborgs on the big screen, such as the aforementioned, as well as the replicants from Blade Runner (1982), headed by Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty, and the Borg from Star Trek: First Contact (1996).
But, there have been some shockers. Here’s some of the worst …
13 Cyborg Films That Need Termination
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