8 Soviet movies about robots that you can watch for free online

‘Loss of Sensation’, 1935

Idealist engineer Jim Ripple dreams of easing the labor of workers and creates a "machine that can do almost everything", capable of working without rest and sleep. Capitalists, of course, are delighted with his invention and want to replace people with machines. And then, they turn them into a killing squad to be used against the protesting workers. In this black-and-white movie, robots appear for the first time in the history of Soviet cinema. Interestingly, they have the letters ‘RUR’ on their chests: the inventor deciphers it as "Universal Ripple Worker", but it's also an "Easter egg" for those in the know. After all, this was the name of Karel Capek’s play, in which the word ‘robot’ was first used.

‘The Formula of Rainbow’, 1966

Scientist Bantikov is a sort of Soviet Sheldon Cooper, who can't be distracted from his important research for the sake of some stupid administrative meetings. In order to get them to leave him alone, he creates a robot doppelganger he calls ‘Yasha’. As luck would have it, he turns out to be too efficient and even manages to label humanity as defeatist. After all, people "get sick, love, sleep 480 minutes a day". This comedy about artificial intelligence contains the most famous stereotypes about robots: ‘Yasha’ is defeated, because a living person cannot be replaced by a machine, even if it is very smart.

‘His Name Was Robert’, 1967

The robot ‘RB-235’ is sent into the big world, having been given the name ‘Robert’ by its inventor. The machine, designed for deep space exploration, in everyday life, suddenly falls in love with a girl named Tanya. For her, he is ready for literally anything: Robert tries to "re-humanize" his creator, scientist Sergei Sergeevich, who created his exact copy. With only one difference: the machine becomes much more emotional and responsive than the original, devoid of simple human feelings.

The movie is also notable for the fact that it features the famous French mime Marcel Marceau, who conveyed the whole spectrum of human feelings without words.

‘Inquest of Pilot Pirx’, 1978

During a spaceship’s flight to the rings of Saturn, a pilot named Pirx must find out who among the crew is an android. An atmospheric and eerie adaptation of Stanislav Lem's novel about whether artificial intelligence is capable of surpassinghumans and why robots are made indistinguishable from humans. A definite plus of the movie is Arvo Pärt’s cosmic music, which makes the plot even more dramatic.

‘The Adventures of Electronic’, 1979

Android ‘Electronic’ looks like a teenager and has outstanding mental and physical abilities. One day, he runs away from his inventor and meets Seryozha Syroezhkin, whose appearance was used to create him. In his place, he goes to school, gets straight As, sings in the choir and makes friends with everyone. He even creates ‘Rassie’ - a robot dog.

This children's film became a cult movie in its time and the popularity of Airdale terriers (the breed that played ‘Rassie’) skyrocketed. ‘The Adventures of Electronic’ is worth watching to find the answer to the question of whether a robot canreally become a human.

‘Orion's Loop’, 1980

A crew consisting of humans and androids is sent from Earth to investigate powerful radiation that is killing space explorers. The machines are externally doubles of the flight participants. It turns out that the inhabitants of one of the planets of the solar system are trying to protect the Earth from a terrible virus - for this, a special barrier needs to be created around the planet - the Orion loop. But, one of the robots does not believe the aliens and tries to destroy the earthlings' ship. Something between ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Stargate’, the movie looks a little naive - what gives it special charm is the characters' belief that somewhere out there are brothers in mind, who are ready to save our planet.

‘Guest from the Future’, 1984

Schoolboy Kolya Gerasimov finds himself in the future: in the corridors of the Institute of Time, he meets a robotnamed ‘Werther’, a local administrator in love with researcher Polina. Dressed in a silver suit, ‘Werther’ continuously grumbles under his nose that it's time for him to retire, writes poetry, tells Kolya about robot guitar competitions and, finally, saves him from space pirates at the cost of his life.

The movie for teenagers also became cult film after its release and almost every Soviet schoolboy was in love with the main character, Alisa Selezneva (played by Natalya Guseva).

‘Island of the Rusty General’, 1988

Ancient battle robots discovered during an excavation are not yet completely rusted and escape during transportation to conquer the world. Main character Alisa Selezneva accidentally finds herself on the set of a movie on an island next door to the aggressive machines. She has to save the world from destruction once again. A wide variety of robots can be seen in this movie: there’s an android nanny, red-haired ‘Kolya’, who cooks semolina porridge and constructs the dog ‘Bobik’, robot-actors ‘Baba Yaga’ and ‘Grey Wolf’, as well as "primitive machines" from the 20th century. A real clash between a bright future, where robots serve humans and a recent past, where they were feared and considered enemies.

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