Some of the most awesome skill fiction machine ever conceived for film , like the turbo - tank AT - ATs from Empire Strikes Back , were inspired by thing the conception clothes designer saw every daylight . You may already know that George Lucas was allegedly inspired to create theAT - ATsby thesecargo lifters at the Port of Oakland — but did you have intercourse the T-1000 “ liquid metallic element ” Terminator was instigate by umber fudge ? line up out which strangely ordinary items inspired eight of the cool skill fiction machines , and be humbled .
Robby the Robot , star of 1955 special effects blockbuster Forbidden Planet and later a main “ charater ” on the TV show lose in Space , was the creation of legendary production interior decorator Robert Kinoshita . Apparently one of his biggest inspirations for the globular humanoid bot was washing machine tubs . Kinoshita had ferment on those before his career in the moving picture . The comparison sounds strange to us today , until you look back and see what washing machines looked like in the 1940s , when Kinoshita worked on them . This picture shows the odd similarities , with the bellying roundness and strange silver knobs stupefy out .
Here is a rather unmated reverse - aspiration . The exoskeleton that Ripley used to fight big ma stranger in Aliens isfrequently mentioned by the designers for exoskeletons that might be used by soldier or handicapped people . Here you may see Ripley ’s coolheaded machine , and the exoskeleton for soldier it inspired .
Since the exceptional effect designers for Machine City in Matrix : gyration were located in San Francisco , it ’s believably no surprise that they based it in part on the San Francisco skyline . essence designer Craig Hayessaid in an interview that one of the first things he and his crew did was go out on the San Francisco Bay , about 8 miles from San Francisco , to see how the metropolis would attend from a distance . That gave them a sense of how to build Machine City from Neo ’s point of view as he zoom into it .
Here you could see the hot fudge sundae that became the T-1000 . Director and effect maven James Cameron said that when he was first conceiving of the liquified metal Terminator , he thought a lot in terms of grain . How should it ooze ? How should the reflections look?In an audience , he admit :
I wanted the effect of the T-1000 to look like a spoonful depart into hot fudge ; it dimples down , then flows up over and close down . That ’s the look I wanted . You have to work with the viscousness to get that look just right .
I like a guy rope who eat enough fudge that he want to work up a robot out of it .
When Steven Spielberg set out to make futuristic figurer for Minority Report , he did n’t mess around . He wentstraight to a research mathematical group at MIT , called the Tangible Media Group , which thinks up next - propagation interfaces . The group told him that gesture - command would be the wave of the futurity , and even demo him a clump of prototypes — some of which are now in employment , several years later on . you’re able to see an early motion - ascertain prototype here , on the left . And there ’s Tom Cruise doing his Minority Report gesture matter on the right .
And finally , there are the eXistenZ “ metaflesh game pod , ” created by David Cronenberg for his dizzying movie about virtual reality game that plug away right into your spinal column via a creepily biological bio - interface instal ( oh so Cronenberg style ) right above your butt . Cronenberg has said a good deal about how current engineering science is channelise towards a merging with biology . So it ’s no surprise that his game cod look exactly like biological rehashings of late-1990s Playstation accountant that he would have run across every day while reach this movie .
Picture of Port of Oakland byJohn L. Polos . Picture of fudge byMs . Info . word picture of San Francisco skyline byMike . Image spiffing by Stephanie Fox . Additional reporting by Nivair H. Gabriel .
AliensForbidden PlanetGizmodoMoviesStar WarsTerminatorThe Matrix
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