I’ve received a wave of positive responses from my last article, which 1) makes me very happy to share my story with Mad Monster and 2) had me thinking about how great robots are. I never put stickers on my computer, but I recently ordered a perfect sticker for my MacBook, which has pushed me towards the decision to put together a countdown of the top 15 best robots. Also, ranking these from least favorite to favorite was fuckin’ hard on me cause I frankly want all of them on a poster together…
Honorable mention: Tube-Man (from Psycho Goreman) – When I first saw this movie a few months back, I thought, “Hey! I gotta write a review of that.” Now the odds are very high that you heard of Psycho Goreman, and to that, I say watch it if you haven’t already. If GWAR produced a Marvel movie, this would be the result. Every single creature in this movie is eye candy, and Tube-Man, in particular, was what got me. He came as quickly as he went, but the use of puppetry to bring him to life in contrast with the rest of the Gigax Council made me realize how incredible the rest of this movie was going to be. Also worth noting the PG Twitter page tweeted a title for a potential sequel called PG-13
15) Tik Tok (from Return to Oz) – The idea of making well-known kid’s stories dark and twisted did not cross my mind until my mom let me subject myself to Return to Oz! The collection of characters on the VHS box intrigued me into checking it out, but I was mainly in it for the bronze-and-mustached robot Tik Tok. The mixture of the practical effects and having a windup key for everything (movement, speech, etc) adds complexity that Tin-Man lacks.
Maybe if the app of the same name had Tik Tok’s face as the logo, I’d have an account on it.
14) Mechagodzilla – Godzilla is hands down the best kaiju there is, and a big reason why I think so is that they’ve developed a really impressive (almost Spiderman like) rogues gallery for him throughout the last 67 years. Among them was the human race’s metallic 50 meter last resort, Mechagodzilla. If Godzilla had an ironman suit that could shoot missiles from the fingers, this is what you’d get!
Play Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, and you’ll understand
13) Anything from Bionicle – The generation before mine had Transformers, and we had Lego’s immortal Bionicle line. To sum it up as simply as possible, think Avatar: The Last Airbender only all the characters are robots. So it’s basically perfect… The heroes (Toa) each encompass 6 of our world’s major elements, such as fire, water, air, earth, stone, and ice. Together they fight Makuta (which is literal darkness/shadow). If the kits didn’t hook you, then maybe the movie and video game Bionicle: Mask of Light did.
This line was discontinued as of 2017, but Lego recently put out a fan poll on their 90th anniversary of what to bring back, and Bionicle won the poll hands down! So the odds are high for a much-needed return…
12) Terminator – If you say the words’ 80s’ and ‘robot’ together, odds are high that the first thing to come to mind is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 34 years and counting performance as the Terminator. Between the original movie of the same name and the DLC in Mortal Kombat 11, the Austrian death machine has served as a cautionary tale for our real world progression towards smarter AI. A cautionary tale that continues to satisfy our bloodlust as fans of horror to this day.
11) Megas (from Megas XLR) – Beyond my insatiable desire for a Cybertruck, I am not or ever will be a car guy. But if you take a giant robot built to save the universe and outfit the cockpit to be a muscle car with video game controllers, I am suddenly a car guy. Titmouse is known by many for Big Mouth, Midnight Gospel, and others, but they were on the map for me with Megas XLR. Two nerdy grease monkeys and a warrior from another universe fighting alien baddies in their badass giant robot. What else do you need?
*jingles keys* Bruce Campbell channels Ash hardcore as one of the baddies on the show
10) Gunmen (from Gurren Lagann) – If we’re talking about the scale of power and size in universes depicted in television and film, few match/surpass Gurren Lagann. The Gunmen are big-headed robots created to battle Antispirals (death), and each gunman’s power is determined by their pilot. The power and the scale can escalate as much as being able to throw entire galaxies at your enemy. If you think Star Wars or Star Trek are as big as it gets, you (lovingly) don’t know shit till you see Gurren Lagann.
9) Robocop – Opposite to #10, sometimes less is a hell of a lot more. From the moment those market doors flew open and the slow hydraulic feet stomp down the aisle, you knew shit was gonna go down in this movie of the same name. The slowness of Robocop’s movement paired with his voice make for this cyberpunk Clint Eastwood thing that I didn’t know I needed till I got it! While I find the message of scary smart AI from Terminator important, there’s just something about Robocop’s message of corporations fueling war that has never not been prevalent. Also, the gore in this movie is out of this world good.
8) Cyborg (from Teen Titans 2004) – HBO Max’s inclusion of the Cartoon Network library has allowed me to blaze through Teen Titans again and it holds the fuck up. Cyborg in particular is very well written and has some of the best arcs on the show! The episode where he gets taken in by Fixit is more or less Jordan Peele’s Get Out. The Val-Yor episode handles the subject of racism very well and has a scene that’s pretty well known among fans today… You cannot say the phrase “Booyah” without the thoughts of this series’ depiction of Cyborg going through your head.
7) Iron Giant – “You are who you choose to be.” “-Superman.” Anybody who has seen this movie has and will get chills or brought to tears when that scene plays. This movie is wholesome and has been getting long overdue recognition, but The Iron Giant itself is insanely overpowered. Lasers on every limb that can destroy any earth based noun you can think of. Being able to put itself back together dealing any kind of damage you can throw. If the iron giant wasn’t such a big softie, it could destroy this entire planet. Which as it turns out in the extended edition was the idea as there was AN ARMY of iron giants. Every robot on this countdown (except #10) would be fucked.
6) L3-37 (from Solo: A Star Wars Story) – In the days that I saw the news headlines of Disney buying Star Wars and Marvel I was so happy it was stupid. They’ve had Star Wars for 9 years now and they have not created one single thing with the license that is more important to the franchise than L3-37. Take away her incredible design and you still have the most three dimensional woman to have come from the Disney Canon. She pairs activism with action in an appealing way, talks about her sexual preferences, and still manages to make you feel bad when she ultimately dies (too early imo). L3 accomplished in 30ish minutes of screen time what Disney constantly attempts to do with every female character in their filmography in over a decade. For that she truly is L337.
5) Optimus Prime – My introduction to the world of Transformers was the Michael Bay film in 2007. The swelling of Steve Jablonski’s beautiful score as an 18 wheeler emerges from the mist to become the leader of the autobots gives me goosebumps every single time without fail. Optimus Prime’s look is iconic no matter what the adaption, and Peter Cullen was put on this earth to BE Optimus. Even in the early days of Toonami when Peter was the announcer of the schedule I couldn’t hear him without hearing Optimus. Optimus is a leader, a fatherly figure, and has undeniably left a bigger print on pop culture than any other 80’s robot.
Gotta lastly say, that opening fight sequence in Bumblebee was so perfect and I’m ready for more of that..
4) Octus (from Sym-Bionic Titan) – I’m aiming to keep this one short due to my last article which you can check out anytime. If you want to see what Kaiju battles look like through a Samurai Jack lens then Sym-Bionic Titan is for you. It shares something in common with Megas XLR in that both were cancelled criminally early on. If anyone with HBO Max reads this, give us a proper ending to one or both shows…
3) Robotman (from Doom Patrol) – Ever since I saw The Mummy and Monkeybone, I have been an unreasonable fan of Branden Frazier. Since as long as I can remember I’ve been a fan of comic books and saying the word “fuck”. In recent years I’ve been a fan of mental health awareness, queerness, and wearing leather jackets. Robotman combines ALL of that in the 2 (going on 3) season series Doom Patrol. Even though the only part of him that’s living is his brain, that does not stop him from wrestling alligators, punching nazi clones, and just destroying anything in his way. If the Tin-Man was big into punk, this is what you get.
Also worth noting, he was the sticker I got for my MacBook
2) Daft Punk – My number one choice has certainly gotten a lot of mileage throughout their career, but Daft Punk takes the idea of robots being among us to an entirely untouchable level. DJs Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo officially started to dawn their iconic robot personas as of their 2001 magazine photoshoot. Very soon after this would be followed by their anime film collaboration with legend Leiji Matsumoto, Interstella 5555. Most any article you will find on Daft Punk from then on, they are almost exclusively referred to as “the robots”. If I had the power to go to any concert at any point in history it would be their record/mind breaking performance at Coachella 2006 which I could write an entire article about just on that (but there’s already a Daft documentary that follows this concert very closely). In that same year Daft Punk released a feature length film called Electroma and I find it to be an intreaging slow burn with an undiniable queer message to it. 4 years later they would score and be featured in Tron Legacy which I will still say was the last really good IMAX 3D movie I ever seen. Add ‘Stronger’ and helping produce Yeezus onto that, and Daft Punk became this cultural focal point for people to obsessively speculate on what they’re going to do next. From that time everyone thought they were going to play at the Texas Capitol for SXSW, to the time everyone thought they were going to score Dario Argento’s upcoming movie, to just today of The Weekend’s “leaked playlist” for the upcoming Super Bowl; Daft Punk constantly receives a rumor mill that rivals Hollywood movie studios. Among industries dominated by humans, I await the robots next move.
1) Buckethead – The first album of Bucket’s I ever heard was Welcome to Bucketheadland and a lot went through my mind when I listened to it. The first thing was “Who is this guy?”. Anything officially released from him tells you that he is anything but a guy. He is a robot. A robot that has created over 1000 songs as of 2019. That’s more than 10 times larger of a discography than Daft Punk, and he’s still putting out albums/videos to this day. He played with Guns N’ Roses on Chinese Democracy, he did collaborations with Lord of the Rings cast members, worked with Bill’ Chop Top’ Mosley multiple times (including playing Leatherface in the unreleased All American Massacre), and scored Mortal Kombat just to name a few things. Through EVERY single thing he has ever done as Bucket, he maintains being a robot. Iconic guitarists will drop his name in their own interviews citing how mind blowing Buckethead’s playing is. The only time I have seen John Carpenter smile sincerely in anything was during Bucket’s recording session on Ghosts of Mars. You cannot and will not find an interview of him as Brian Carroll except for a few photos here and there. Every Buckethead interview or interaction you will ever find is fascinatingly bizarre and only adds to the mythos he has created for himself. He has no known love interest or children which makes me as a gray ace fan wonder if he himself is ace. His songs are almost exclusively instrumental and I love the idea of instrumental songs or films with no dialogue. When you don’t associate your art with any known language you in turn make your art a universal language that the world is capable of understanding. For these reasons and more, he is debatably my favorite robot of all.