A few months ago, Rob McLellan put out an eight-minute slice of nightmare fuel called Abe. It’s about a robot who just wants somebody to love him, which sounds adorable and kiddie until you get to the part that he thinks he can “fix” people and make them love him. With bonesaws. And now it’ll be a feature length movie!
If you’ve got eight minutes, here’s the full short film. It’s worth watching. In daylight.
McLellan wrote, directed, edited, and engineered all the effects, which is pretty impressive in of itself, but all the more impressive now that he’s getting to expand this idea to feature length. Yes, finally, we will have creepy serial killer robots. Thanks, MGM. THANKS SO MUCH.
But, needless to say, the very concept of a robot being in “love” with its owners and feeling lost when it’s cast aside is science fiction, right? Uh, no, actually. In fact, many scientists believe that emotions are at least partially a survival response, a reaction to specific stimuli and a method of organizing your actions. If your mom is crying in the corner, you feel and thus react differently than you would if she was coming at you with a chainsaw. And being able to emote makes it easier for humans like your grandma to accept robots.
In other words, scientists feel that these can be useful tools for robots to help interact with humans and to keep from engaging in unauthorized behaviors. In other words, in the future a robot will love you with all the slavish devotion of a household pet, and then feel the pain of heartbreak when you toss it in the dumpster for next year’s model.
Except dogs can’t operate bonesaws, so… yeah. Maybe stick with a Roomba.