Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #03554
To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Jean auBois aubois@trail.com
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 22:31:38 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Rollerbots (was: Star Wars Ep1...)
At 8:00 AM -0000 5/22/99, Dave Hrynkiw wrote:
:At 01:10 AM 5/22/1999 , Jean auBois wrote:
:>Presuming the trailer is anything like the movie, I'd say that the concept
:>is precisely the same, even though the details are somewhat different. A
:>device that alternates between walking a rolling, yes?
:
:Actually, I don't recall it ever walking. Just rolling, then stopping on
:tripod legs and firing.
Having seen the movie tonight (no lines! what a thought!) and watching in
particular for the rollerbots, I'd like to make a number of comments:
1) Once they've unrolled they are on a sort of tripod arrangement as you
note, but they DO begin "walking". All told, their weight distribution is
awful -- nearly all of it is at the back. Their rate of progress is
extremely slow (about the speed of a two-year old child.) Their mode of
walking is humorously awkward -- they remind me of a duck with a really bad
case of constipation.
2) While they are rolling, they have neither offensive nor defensive
capabilities. If they shoot their "weapons" (whether projectile or beam or
whatever -- remember, we are discussing scifi here) they'd end up shooting
themselves to pieces, something that reminds me of the problem that the
first warplanes had before an effective synchronizing interrupter was
developed. One supposes that if they had their shields up while rolling
that they'd have no control over direction, speed, etc.
3) There is no indication given as to WHY they'd be able to roll -- no
jets, no shifting mass, etc. For that matter, there is no indication how
they'd navigate.
Now, having said that, the effect in the movie is pretty cool.
Nonetheless, I don't think they'd make particularly effective adversaries.
Furthermore, whether or not pillbugs are robots or not is irrelevant -- by
the same argument, one could say that Mark Tilden's finding inspiration in
the biological world is equally valueless. I, for one, am not willing to
make that argument.
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