He’s big; he’s angry; he’s also a bad guy, but not necessarily that smart (if you’re the bad guys do you really call yourselves ‘Decepticons’? That’s just asking for trouble!) This week, Alasdair Stuart tells of one of the towering greats.

Angry Robot of the Week
Week Three
Megatron

Let’s talk about Megatron, the universe’s favorite bucket-headed robo-fascist. I’m in my early 30s, so he, along with the Anthony Ainley master, Darth Vader and the 1980s Tory party are basically the epitome of evil for me. Megatron even wins out over the others, largely because whilst the Master was evil he had an unhealthy love for velour jackets and hating the Tory party was less a conscious decision and more an unofficial tenth GCSE.

My name’s Ben Elton, thank you and goodnight. Just kidding. Or am I?

Yes.

OR AM I?

YES.

Anyway, Megatron will be forever known to me as the Nazi-headed Decepticon leader who transformed into a gun. He was big, he was loud, he killed things and Frank Welker voiced him. He’s a classic, iconic villain, Claudius with a fusion cannon, a transformable Ghengis Khan. He killed Optimus Prime, attempted to enslave Earth, survived death, served a planet-eating transformer and continues to stride across the worlds of Transformers canon with fire in his eyes and a burning need for conquest in his heart, even today.

He’s not this week’s Angry Robot though. Well, not really.   Read More→

Well, last week’s season premiere was greeted with many a kind word, which was probably largely due to Bender threatening everyone if they didn’t say nice things about him.

This week, Alasdair Stuart tells us about a very different kind of Angry Robot:

Angry Robot of the Week
Week Two
John Cavil

Let’s talk about Tommy Westphall. Tommy is a character that, chances are, you won’t be aware of. Tommy is the autistic son of one of the main characters of St Elsewhere. Tommy is an autistic boy who, it’s revealed in the last scene of the last episode, has imagined the entire series. It’s a fantastic, audacious piece of storytelling and whilst it incensed some fans it fascinated others.

Except Tommy wasn’t done. Read More→

It seems crazy that we’ve never run this feature before, so when Alasdair Stuart (Editor of Hub Magazine and host of Pseudopod) suggested he write it for us, there wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation before we said “yes”.

When we sign a new author we send them an author questionnaire so we can get to know them a little bit more, and one of the questions asks for their personal favourite Angry Robot. Futurama‘s Bender is by far the robot most often listed, and so, without further ado, we present:

Angry Robot of the Week
Week One
Bender Bending Rodriguez

Peter Venkman, one of the 20th Century’s premier fictional parapsychologists once pointed out that the problem with aliens is that they’re just so inconsistent. Sometimes you get nice ones, like Starman, and sometimes, he points out, they’re just some big lizard. Aliens are different, new, scary and frequently want to eat us, use us as hosts for their larvae, biological Lego for their hives or at the very least convince us that the best possible thing to do is join their army of human clones because there’s no one like us left.

Aliens, let’s face it, suck.

Robots though, robots are at least consistent. Their metal shells speak of constancy, reliability and, often, a telling lack of buoyancy. A robot is our plastic pal who’s fun to be with, our trusty sidekick that we can explain the plot to or, more often, explains the plot to us. Robots are smartphones with vocal chords, iPads with death rays; robots are our friends, right?

Wrong. Read More→