Greetings from the Uncanny Valley!
I’m embracing my inner technophobia today with this collection of real and fictional robots that, for one reason or another, creep me the hell out. Is my fear of these machines truly irrational, or am I just smart for recognizing the early warning signs of the inevitable robopocalypse?
Boston Dynamics Big Dog
I’m pretty sure I saw this abomination in one of the Silent Hill games.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
Animatronic Baby
I can barely even watch this. I don’t know what it is about robotic babies that makes my skin crawl so much, but this video does it to me. Still not as creepy as the baby in Trainspotting, though.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLLaqsXTeto
Tripods from ‘War of the Worlds’
I saw this film with a girlfriend of mine late at night in an almost-empty theater. We were clinging to each other for support and I almost pissed myself in fear every time I heard THAT UNGODLY SOUND these things make when they’re about to appear.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE5V0iQdB10
Sidebar: I don’t understand why Spielberg’s War of the Worlds gets shit on so much. Is it because people hate Tom Cruise? Or Dakota Fanning? Or that it’s a remake? I don’t get the hate.
Teddy Ruxpin
I know, I should just turn in my 80’s Childhood Badge right now for admitting this, but I freaking hate Teddy Ruxpin. In this commercial, I would have been the kid in the back of the glass who dives out the window the moment this thing’s soulless, unyielding eyes flickered to life.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EshrR-xk2E
I’m not even sure why Teddy Ruxpin bothers me. Maybe it’s just the way he’s designed; that he has a tape recorder on his back, that he’s a weird, ugly beige color, that his eyes look crossed…? It makes no sense because one of my favorite toys from childhood was The Talking Mother Goose, yet another robotic storytelling animal that I never found creepy in the slightest. What’s up with that?
Phillip
A modern marvel of artificial intelligence or an early Skynet prototype? You decide.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIWWLg4wLEY
