This was the coolest Robot I have ever seen in a Movie - HECTOR,
First of the DEMIGOD series. (Did you know that Achilles dragged Hector
around the walls of Troy?)
I saw this in the theater on the day it was released in 1980. This was a Grindhouse movie shown in little theatres, not in huge complexes. I went to see it not expecting much…
Not expecting, but got: This film had the coolest robot I had ever seen in my life. Back then I was not familiar with Harvey Keitel, I did not know that Roy Dotrice had overdubbed his voice, all I knew is this creepy guy, opens an airlock on a space station and lets his Captain fall through, shattering him into a million pieces of gore, and that was disturbing, and it was shown within the first 5 minutes of this film - And Keitel, who at the time was hidden by a black space helmet, giggling about killing this guy in that horrible way, what kind of film is this with a beginning like that.
Not the best Stanley Donen film, but Donen clearly had a talent for doing the best he could with very low budgets, it could have used a few more dollars in the effects budget.
After seeing Space done so beautifully and economically by Ridley Scott in Aliens, this film for me was a return to my roots of Low Budget Science Fiction, which I grew up on, so I enjoyed the cheesy view of Saturn's Rings, I even loved the 2-D effect of the space station, and Donen's directing of the initial scene where you think is this going to be a musical in space? But there were some good effects despite the Apparent lack of dollars to make them really good. And I first saw this in the theater, and things always look better on that huge screen, until you see it on TV and it looks Cheap.
So now, 32 years after I sat in that theater and was creeped out by Harvey Keitel and his robot "Hector" - I found a fairly good transfer of that film online and got it - And I watched it last night, for the first time in 3 decades.
And I still liked it, the interactions between Kirk Douglass, Farah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel were subtle and the dialog was understandable although a "future slang" was being used, we can get the gist of the conversations... "No Taction Contact!" IE, "Do Not Touch!" - Kirk Douglas was far from being a decrepit old man in this film, he plays the lead role in his usual way, although toned down from his gritting teeth roles like Spartacus. In fact, this was the first film I had seen Douglas in where he was very subdued in manner but held his authority, when usually he acts with a lot more force behind his words and actions. I think this was probably the biggest Movie role for Farah , not counting several made for TV movies like "The Burning Bed".
The Saturn 3 set is convincing as a space habitat, except of course the gravity would be less than earth's, there is no mention of artificial gravity, so we have to take all that for granted in the film.
The Hector concept, was the first time I had seen in a movie, that a robot had to be programmed from a human brain, and if that brain has problems: "I'm not malfunctioning, You are" as Hector tells "Benson"- So this film makes clear that a guy who giggles over murdering his captain in cold blood, if this guy is the template for Hector's Programming, then watch out - The film made this concept very clear.
This was also the first time in a movie where we see a socket at the base of a man's skull, this has been used in Science Fiction movies up to The Matrix.
The design of some of the space-ships came from earlier science fiction movies, and we can blame veteran effects man Wally Veevers for some of the opticals in this film... The three-winged craft that comes to check on Saturn 3 after the blackout, was used originally in "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" and the ship that brings Farah/Alex back to earth, I had seen in a science fiction film in the 60's, I like that this was done that way, it connected this film which was at the time, a modern science fiction film, to its predecessors from the late 50's and early 60's. Most of the spaceships look like they came from the covers of "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" or "Analog Science Fiction" or "Galaxy" or any number of those pulps where these stories came from...
And of course, the writer of this story was Martin Amis, the son of author Kingsley Amis, who wrote several science fiction stories with slants like used in this film.
So basically, this was a B Movie that got some attention because of the then use of Kirk Douglas and Farah Fawcett, it could have been a great film, but as it is, it is not horrible, the science is believable, the effects typical but not great, the resolution not perfect but satisfying. The story could have been fleshed out a bit more, but as it is, the robot Hector, I remembered that Robot, when I saw Terminator I thought of Hector, when I saw Aliens I thought of Hector, there were a lot of possibilities for that character, this was not just an "Evil Robot" but a robot that became evil because of the way it was "taught” - Much like people in that respect. And that cylinder that held "Hectors Brain" - was creepy, any brain that is 4 times the size of a human brain, well you just have to say "Why is that a BAD IDEA?"
6-15-11
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