Killbot
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This article may document a neologism in such a manner as to promote it. Please add more reliable sources to establish its current use and the impact the term has had on its field. Otherwise consider renaming or deleting the article. (May 2011) |
A Killbot is a generic term for a type of stereotypical fictional robot character, commonly appearing in works of science fiction. Killbots are usually large, menacing machines created to perpetrate murder or other damage.
In the science fiction slasher film Chopping Mall security guard robots are transformed into killbots when a rooftop computer is hit by lightning.[1] The movie was actually originally titled Killbots.[2]
The 1993 Full Moon Entertainment film Robot Wars features robots that have been referred to as "kill-bots".[3] Both Chopping Mall and Robot Wars had scream queen Barbara Crampton in them.[4]
The term also appears in satirical works, such as the TV series Futurama.[5] In the show, killbots were 'defeated' via their pre-programmed kill limit being met, or because of their tendency to fire whenever they hear someone say fire (or any violent-sounding words, such as when they were triggered after thinking someone said "Howitzer"; they really said "how it sur-[vived]"), even if they are facing each other, and that they do not stop firing, even when turning round to talk to each other. Predictably, they kill each other far more often than they kill their targets, as well as more often than the targets killing them. [6] Killbots were also featured in the 2005 production of Killbot: An American Hero.
An August 18, 2008 Boston Globe article mentioned a MIT student named Zack Anderson who had apparently invented a real life radio controlled robot called a Killbot, which had an attached spotlight, bullhorn and drill.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ "Chopping Mall B-Movie Review"
- ^ IMDB - Trivia - Chopping Mall
- ^ The Cavalcade of Schlock - Robot Wars (1993)
- ^ Allmovie - Barbara Crampton - Filmography
- ^ TV.com - Futurama Episode Guide - "Obsoletely Fabulous"
- ^ Futurama Wiki - "Love's Labours Lost in Space"
- ^ The Boston Globe - "T hacking exposes a deeper clash"
[edit] See also
- List of basic robotics topics
- Foster-Miller TALON machine-gun equipped military robot
- Robot combat
- Mecha
- Military robot
- Cybernetic revolt
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