phew. i have, look you see, some 40 pictures here that i am going to share. be patient with my writing, then. although i would imagine the pictures will be of interest just on their own.
to Kirkleatham Museum, we went, then. well, me and the boys did. it's school holidays time here in England (and other corners of the UK), so one needs to fill the time. i believed that a visit to a museum near us would be educational and informative for them.
and it just so happened that they had a boss, smart, totes excellent exhibition of robots on the go.
for those in a rush, the Kirkleatham Museum robots exhibition is on the go until September 10 of this very year, 2017. admission is £3.50 for adults, £1.50 for under 16s and i think a family ticket was £8.50 if there's 2 adults and 2 kids. it is well worth going to, should you be in the area and quite like space robots and such, mostly from movies.
if you are unable to get to it, or simply have no need to travel around yet wish to see some of the exhibits at the exhibition, then here you go. a stack of pictures, put together in categories as best i can, for your viewing pleasure. yes, i feature in one, so you have been warned.
here we go then....
THE BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SECTION
yes, as in "proper" Battlestar Galactica off of the 1970s, and not that remake / re-imagined version. which i am sure is good, going on the reviews, but i could just not get into it and elected to keep my childhood memories.
this was a surprise to me, really. in the promotional stuff i had seen no mention of any Battlestar Galactica stuff it was then a delight to see the main ship from the show on the go!
in the past i have, somewhat infamously, been accused of "not being a proper fan" of the proper Battlestar Galactica off of the 1970s. one can but hope that my inclusion of two images of Battlestar Galactica out of Battlestar Galactica here does something to serve a final dismissal of such base claims.
THE TERMINATOR SECTION
of if you like the The Terminator section. indeed, the T2 : Judgement Day section, for the two items on display were off of this rather popular sequel to the original.
indeed that is Arnold Schwarzenegger, or rather a cast or mask or oh hang on it says below bust of him.
whilst i have every confidence in your ability to use the internet - you had the skill to get here to this page, after all - for those who need advice, click on the below. it should make it somewhat larger, and thus easier to read what this bust is all about. after reading, click the "x" what appears near it, or otherwise press the "Esc" key on your keyboard (if using a computer) and you should be whisked back here.
to be honest i was never much of a fan of T2. make no mistake, i love the original film, also, i think the third is far better than many make out. the second one is, however, a fan favourite, and i've never been at all sure why.
other than a couple of outstanding set pieces, there's not much. Edward Furlong is whiny and annoying in his part. politics and the cultivation of an image, rather than a sensible plot, meant that Arnold had to play a "good guy Terminator". i appreciate that i am in the minority, but for me T2 was a pretty good action film, an outstanding display of special effects but not a proper Terminator film.
anyway, let me distract you from the above disappointment in me with something shiny.
yes, the skull off of a T-800 endoskeleton for you. and if you are disappointed in the distance shot above, relax, for you will love the next image, which is far closer.
no, absolutely not, i did not care for Salvation at all, and Genesys was just rubbish. perhaps it is high time they left Terminator well alone at the cinema. either that, or just do what they do with all other "franchises" and reboot it. the insistence on including Arnold in each film might just be the factor what is holding them back.
THE ROBOCOP SECTION
oh yes, dear reader. it was the fact that i saw that they had one of them there proper RoboCop outfits on display that inspired me to decide to take the boys to see the exhibition. i love RoboCop, to be sure. well, the first film and just about all of the second.
and there's the classic outfit. the one which is iconic and brilliant, and the one which those fools who did the recent remake discarded entirely.
the provenance of this is below in one of them clickable to make bigger images. in short, though, this is an official reproduction, made to stand at a cinema holding a premiere screening of this most magnificent of films. on one school trip down to London a cinema was holding such a premiere and we went and looked at the displays with interest. it was an 18 and there was no way we could get in to watch it. but, who knows, perhaps this is the 2nd time in 30 years that i have seen this very same statue type RoboCop structure.
a really nice bonus was the presence, on display, of a model of an ED-209. sadly it is one off of that ghastly remake they did, but there's no such thing as a bad ED-209. no, that doesn't sound right. all ED-209 robots would appear to be bad, or at the least grumpy. certainly trigger happy.
yes, they did have the outfit (if you can call it that) from the RoboCop remake, but no i decided not to lower the tone by showing off such folly here.
moving on, then, here's that click to make bigger section for you, giving the provenance of the statue on display.
whereas there were lots of politely worded signs requesting that you refrain from touching the items on display there are a good many photo opportunities. applause, then, for the organizers who have spaced everything nicely, allowing for pictures such as this one.
no, the boys have not seen RoboCop as their Mum, or if you like my (considerably) better half, does not consider it a suitable film for family viewing. yes, they are aware that Dad really, really likes whatever a RoboCop is, and so agreed to pose for this picture.
as and when they are of an age where they are allowed to watch that most magnificent film, well, who knows, perhaps they shall give retrospective thanks for having me take the above picture.
yes, of course i took a selfie of moi, with RoboCop, for you to have a look at if you so wish.
i would indeed have considered being able to take the above picture as a matter that made the entrance fee worthwhile in itself. there were, however, many other fine things to see.
such as, or if you like for instance,
THE BLACK HOLE SECTION
yes! nice one! a quite pleasant surprise, this. behold, a scale model of V.I.N.Cent off of a film that i am an avid fan of, and i suspect others are. it has something of a cult following, i believe.
no, i know that this is not the right colours for the smart flying robots off of The Black Hole. in the film they were a smart silver and red. i think somewhere in passing it was determined that these models should be Tron inspired. decided, presumably, by someone down at marketing at Disney.
a most splendid offshoot of this display was that all of a sudden my children were interested in seeing the film, something which i had been trying to convince them of. well, 50%. William and i watched it on the very next day after we had been to the exhibition. in truth he found it a little boring, but never mind that i enjoyed watching it again.
no, that's the end of this section. on the one side you could say "disappointing" that but just one thing off of The Black Hole and then not the right colours. i, however, was as mentioned just happy to see something at all when i expected nowt.
THE DOCTOR WHO SECTION
again, no i was unaware that they would have stuff off of Doctor Who there, but also yes, this was a most pleasant surprise. and a quite interesting one, for the one clear robot off of Doctor Who that i would have thought would be there was, alas, not.
but let us for now worry about what was there. like, for instance, this smart Davros model, along with a shiny gold model of a Dalek.
yes they did indeed have what must be quite close to "life size" versions of the Daleks too, as you can see in the below. sort of. the focus, for me, i think, was trying to get a picture of the boys together.
what's that they boys are holding? clipboards. the type? red. with it being school holidays and all, and as this exhibition was aimed mostly at children if not families entire, the hosts at Kirkleatham had put together ten questions about the exhibition to answer. well, nine and then a last one about what your favourite robot is.
quite good it is too, the quiz. both boys enjoyed doing it, and all the other kids running around, or if you like strolling about at an accelerated pace, were seemingly having fun too. but hey, you want some more Doctor Who stuff, i will wager.
yes, indeed, they had a TARDIS. well done William, the lover of all things Doctor Who, on respecting the red rope barrier at the door of it. sure he was tempted to go into it, but every now and then he can follow the rules set out.
TARDIS is one of them acronym things, with the letters standing for Time something something Dimension/s something Space. i think.
indeed, the sleek, black and yet still quite shiny Dalek from the exhibition is what you can see above. quite smart, it is.
should that TV show Family Fortunes, which i believe is rather aggressively called Family Feuds in America, had a survey question of "name a robot out of Doctor Who" i would wager that the top answer would be the smart RoboDog, K-9. alas, no, no sign of K-9 at the exhibition. strange, but then again they can only show off what they have access to.
to finish off this section, then, with what they have, there's William before the uber shiny gold Dalek. i think he's casting a worried look in the general direction of the black one.
THE PETER GILL OUT OF FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD SECTION
yes, this probably should be called The Omnibot Section, but all will be clear after this first picture. should, for some reason, you not be a Frankie Fan and thus are unaware of the reference.
the Omnibot was an early to mid 80s toy. one with what looks like a cassette deck built into it, as you can surely see above and/or below. you could program it to do some rudimentary stuff - things that seem quite basic now but were a revelation back then.
i never had much interest in the toy, truth be told. the selling point was that it walked around and had a tape deck in it. for this kind of entertainment we had a cat and i had a most excellent stag of a stereo to play vibes on.
but Peter Gill out of Frankie Goes To Hollywood wanted one. on the b-side of the 12" single of The Power Of Love, the song that undoubtedly would have been Christmas Number 1 1984 had it not been for Band Aid (although maybe Last Christmas off of Wham! might have been), select members of the band give their Christmas wishes. Ped, as was his want and as is his way, gave a list of presents that "true Frankie fans" would get him. an Omnibot featured quite prominently on that list.
a solemn vow that i took and intend to honour was that should i ever actually get an awful lot of money then i would buy the Frankies the things they asked for on that Christmas message. the bill will be quite steep as Paul Rutherford at one stage mentions they all want Jaguar XJ6s, whatever they are. some sort of car, i imagine. but still, one day when i grow up maybe i will have enough money to buy Ped his Omnibot, his paddling pool and indeed his Action Man. or Girl.
yes, of course i listen to that Christmas message every Christmas. perhaps a perpetual will to live in the past with such things prevents me from going forward, but it's tradition now.
THE STAR WARS SECTION
quite a surprise that Kirkleatham has not attracted a whole gang of them rabid "fanboy" types to protest the fact that stuff off of Star Wars has been included with "robots" when, according to the mythology and the folklore of the force, they are "droids". perhaps they have all learned to chill and relax somewhat, or maybe they're just taking to the internet to comment.
for the sake of ease of reference, then, let us just call them "robots" here if i make any such reference, but yes, Star Wars loyalists and acolytes, they are of course "droids".
that there would be the most famous of the Star Wars robots in the form of R2-D2 (the small blue and dirty white one) and C3PO (the homosexualist tall shiny gild one). if i remember right they are the only two characters to have appeared in all eight "official" or if you like "canon" Star Wars films thus far. but so far as i am aware they did not appear in the two "official" films that fans tend to overlook, being them two with kids on the Ewok planet.
speaking of films that fans tend to overlook....
yes, a "battle droid" or "roger roger robot" as we call them in our house, taken from the hugely celebrated and greatly enjoyed prequel trilogy.
many people of my age got all worked up and upset about the prequels for the Star Wars films. several, as point of fact, couldn't understand just why George Lucas couldn't have dropped by their Momma's basement to see the scripts they had been working on for them for, oh, 30 years. i get why some fans from my generation didn't like them, but they missed the point of the films. the target audience was another generation. hence my boys, and millions of other children around the world, discovering and loving Star Wars as a direct result of the prequel films.
not a robot as such, but here's a glance at a model of the Millennium Falcon on display, just one one picture, so as not to imply i am giving it equal footing to Battlestar Galactica, so as i may enjoy a life free of further accusations of not being a "proper fan".
you can't really see in the above, but it is a super smart model. there's a little Leia and Han in the cockpit too, assuming that's the right word for the flight control deck of the Falcon. if i had made the model, yes, of course, it would have been Lando at the controls.
family and friends around the world reading this are quite possibly getting bored with my memories and the general sci-fi robot stuff. to this end, then, here are some pics of the boys with the robots or if you will droids out of Star Wars.
indeed yes, as per the above, both of them do love all this Star Wars stuff. they tend to prefer the prequels over the original trilogy, but were most enthusiastic about Episode VII : Mission To Moscow and Renegade 10. i imagine this means that we will be off to the cinema in four or so months to see the latest adventure.
oh yes, the robot you think you can see in the background of the above picture is that robot. fear not, relax, we will get to him just now.
no, i did not prompt, teach or otherwise encourage James to make the classic "Spock" sign out of Star Trek before the Star Wars section. he came up with it himself, or possibly saw it on one of them "you tube" video things. i am sure fans of both franchises will appreciate the subtle attempt at unification between the two here.
speaking of Star Trek, on to the next section. care to guess what it is?
THE STAR TREK SECTION
yes, in the interests of balance and keeping peace between the more extreme wings of fans, they had some Star Trek stuff on the go.
here you go, a most magnificent likeness of Jean Luc Picard, who is way cooler than the Frenchie name suggests he should be, when he got all done up as one of them "borg" things off of Star Trek The Next Generation.
indeed i am a fan of both Star Trek and Star Wars. on the whole, though, i would say that for me Star Trek is Shatner. he's awesome, man. he is the name to be trusted for computer advice, and he is a musical genius. smart and amazing that he took the time to dabble in acting, too.
that said, i really did rather enjoy that whole The Next Generation series, even if they films they made of them were somewhat poor. so, it was splendid to see this.
much like Doctor Who, i would speculate that the most famous robot out of Star Trek was absent. unless someone can tell me different, i would have thought that Data was the most readily named robot from the series.
the lack of Data is amply made up for with the above. i had absolutely no idea at all who this character was before reading the sign you can see below. let me have a look at this Voyager series, then, to see if it is any good.
yes, i know that i put more pictures off of Star Wars than i did Star Trek, but who is counting? if you are, deal with it. had they put on a Shatner exhibition then i promise you that you'd be looking at thousands of Star Trek pictures. but, they didn't.
THE DANGER WILL ROBINSON SECTION
yay! as you got a sneak preview of, there was much merriment on my side when i saw that they had a Robby The Robot there. and no, the boys had no idea why Daddy was so excited and interested in what, by current standards, is a crap looking robot.
the most famous appearance of Robby The Robot was in the film Forbidden Planet, which is now the name of a shop selling cult film and tv merchandise. it starred a certain Leslie Nielsen in the days when he was not a comedy actor.
Robby turned up in an episode of Lost In Space and fought the more regular robot in the show. that robot was called, and this signifies the heights which 60s creativity reached, Robot.
THE SPECIES SECTION
no, me neither. but anyway, here's what they had on display.
Species is a film i really, really enjoyed. so did a lot of people. it's got "b-movie" written all over it, but it is superb entertainment. quality like Alfred Molina, Michael Madsen and (now Sir) Ben Kingsley are in it for a start.
from what i recall of the film, though, it was about a half alien, half human creation, and the problem with her / it getting out into the world. i have absolutely no memory of any robots or such being involved in the film.
THE IRON MAN SECTION
with, yes, a look at Jean Luc Picard and Robby The Robot behind Iron Man.
i would agree that Iron Man is more "man in robotic suit" than robot, android or cyborg sort of thing. but, you know, so what? Iron Man is most smart, and this is a most excellent statue of him.
so excellent, as point of fact, that here you go with another two pictures of him / it. yes, patient family and friends, one each with the boys.
perhaps i am mistaken, but from what i remember William was, in the above picture, staring at that most excellent Terminator skull as this picture was taken. i would be pretty sure he was thinking that looks smart, and further was wondering if Mummy & Daddy would let him watch it. the answer to that, from the controlling 50% of his parenting team which is to say not me, is no.
James tends not to be as bothered about the many Marvel superheroes as his brother is, preferring instead Batman and, generally, sports. but still, who could resist a picture with the smart Iron Man statue? me, apparently, as i did not think to take one.
THE MARS ATTACKS! SECTION
my main recollection of the film Mars Attacks! was that it was a load of confusing, monotonous rubbish which could have been a great, entertaining "b-movie" in the hands of someone else. but no, Tim Burton made it and decidedly Tim Burtoned it out of entertainment.
whereas i cannot recall the film in all that much detail beyond the above, i don't really remember anything "robot" in it, least of all the invading, or if you like attacking, skeletal massive brained ones out of Mars. perhaps it is that their invader / attacking space suits are all robotic, hence them being on display.
anyway, the boys weren't all that interested, but agreed to a picture anyway.
wahey, we are at the end!
in the above the boys are sat - in some posh, splendid cinema style seats - watching a nice little montage of suitable for family scenes of robots in famous films. the montage included some of my favourites, in particular 2001, Blade Runner and WALL E. another favourite of mine was on display in the form of Weird Science. i recall many things about Kelly LeBrock in the film, but not her being a robot as such. also, the Femme Bots (Fembots?) out of Austin Powers were shown too, but not that bit when Austin strips down to his ultra sexy Union Jack / Flag undies.
and so that's that. as ever many thanks for reading, and hopefully some if not all of the above has been of interest to those who have dropped by!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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