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[ChairmanPoo]

I'd argue that two legs can be an advantage or not, depending on the situation.

[Strife26]

Why have legs when you can gave wheels?! Or tracks? Or anti gravity thingees. Why were all the robots bipedal? Wheels and tracks are almost always better.  Especially when you've made the entire city based on robots.

Why did the robots go through the trouble of cutting the one POWAHMECHA open with a high power  laser so they could tear the guy inside apart? Why not go straight through with the laser? Don't they value efficiency?

Why the bloody hell are the humans using mecha? Dual wielding chaingun firing single person mecha? Less mobile, more moving parts. Less firepower. They pretty much suck when compared to even a current day Abrams (there wasn't enough armor anywhere to have enough width to feature something to disrupt a shaped charge).

If the robots are resistant to nukes for some gawdawful reason, why can't humans make tanks that are resistant to everything up to a nuke as well? How the hell are the robots resistant to a 'nuclear bombardment?' Radiation, okay. EMP, sure hand-wave it. Temperature? Errr, we'll give it up (the robots are all made up of Bauxite alloy? Pressure waves? Did they have a giant fan or something?

How does the human farm get power from a closed system with a load? It kinda defies thermodynamics and stuff.

Said system would certainly be parasitic if anything, not symbiotic.

If human became so anti-robot, why the hell did they let them get the infastructure to build up an army the BEATS THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE?!

What happened to the effects of nuclear pulses (EMP's, overstated as they are would really mess up a robot army)?

Where are the tanks? Robots are clearly shown as being able to take small arm and the DUAL WIELDING SINGLE PERSON CHAIN GUN MECHA fire, why isn't anyone popping off 120 mm HEAT?

What happened to the four laws? Didn't SOMEONE think that listening to Asimov would be a good idea?

What idiot made the servant bots strong enough to tear apart the robots in the first place?

I don't buy the whole anti-robot stuff in the first place, but okay.

The army isn't going to go through the trouble of making sure that they get the job done right? Why is 01 allowed to live in the first place?

Is no one genre savvy through the entire history?

Why was that one bot carrying a pistol in a digited hand? Aren't they smart enough to change that? You know, built in and stuff? Why just a pistol for that matter?

Is there a weapon system MORE inefficient than giant tentacles? I can't actually think of one.

After the Dark Storm gets unleashed, why would we attack? Isn't the point of it to let them run out of power?

What's with the lack of armor, especially helmets on the infantry?

Why aren't we using remote control or limited robot infantry (especially when you consider that the servo-robots were cheap enough for there to be a lot of them)?

We'll just assume that the artillery wasn't involved, okay?

Why are the combatants getting into melee range? That doesn't happen when you have two armies lined up and attacking each other.

If melee is being used, why not use the gravity towers as giant hammers?

Were planes using an overfly bombing system? Those aren't used for ANYTHING even today. No reason to make the jet go directly overhead. We have newton's first law.

Rocket launchers?

I'll have to get the movie to find more. Entertaining though. I need my own review thread!

Mind you, I'm still happy that I watched them. They led me back to a couple of songs that I've been trying to remember for a VERY long time (amaranth and Requiem for a dream, although I'm still looking for a lyricless amaranth).

[cowofdoom78963]

Why have legs when you can gave wheels?! Or tracks? Or anti gravity thingees. Why were all the robots bipedal? Wheels and tracks are almost always better.  Especially when you've made the entire city based on robots.

Why did the robots go through the trouble of cutting the one POWAHMECHA open with a high power  laser so they could tear the guy inside apart? Why not go straight through with the laser? Don't they value efficiency?

Why the bloody hell are the humans using mecha? Dual wielding chaingun firing single person mecha? Less mobile, more moving parts. Less firepower. They pretty much suck when compared to even a current day Abrams (there wasn't enough armor anywhere to have enough width to feature something to disrupt a shaped charge).

If the robots are resistant to nukes for some gawdawful reason, why can't humans make tanks that are resistant to everything up to a nuke as well? How the hell are the robots resistant to a 'nuclear bombardment?' Radiation, okay. EMP, sure hand-wave it. Temperature? Errr, we'll give it up (the robots are all made up of Bauxite alloy? Pressure waves? Did they have a giant fan or something?

How does the human farm get power from a closed system with a load? It kinda defies thermodynamics and stuff.

Said system would certainly be parasitic if anything, not symbiotic.

If human became so anti-robot, why the hell did they let them get the infastructure to build up an army the BEATS THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE?!

What happened to the effects of nuclear pulses (EMP's, overstated as they are would really mess up a robot army)?

Where are the tanks? Robots are clearly shown as being able to take small arm and the DUAL WIELDING SINGLE PERSON CHAIN GUN MECHA fire, why isn't anyone popping off 120 mm HEAT?

What happened to the four laws? Didn't SOMEONE think that listening to Asimov would be a good idea?

What idiot made the servant bots strong enough to tear apart the robots in the first place?

I don't buy the whole anti-robot stuff in the first place, but okay.

The army isn't going to go through the trouble of making sure that they get the job done right? Why is 01 allowed to live in the first place?

Is no one genre savvy through the entire history?

Why was that one bot carrying a pistol in a digited hand? Aren't they smart enough to change that? You know, built in and stuff? Why just a pistol for that matter?

Is there a weapon system MORE inefficient than giant tentacles? I can't actually think of one.

After the Dark Storm gets unleashed, why would we attack? Isn't the point of it to let them run out of power?

What's with the lack of armor, especially helmets on the infantry?

Why aren't we using remote control or limited robot infantry (especially when you consider that the servo-robots were cheap enough for there to be a lot of them)?

We'll just assume that the artillery wasn't involved, okay?

Why are the combatants getting into melee range? That doesn't happen when you have two armies lined up and attacking each other.

If melee is being used, why not use the gravity towers as giant hammers?

Were planes using an overfly bombing system? Those aren't used for ANYTHING even today. No reason to make the jet go directly overhead. We have newton's first law.

Rocket launchers?

Rule of cool

[ac31]

actually wheels are extremely limited as a form of transportation

try climbing a tree with roller skates

[Strife26]

Try getting a robot to walk on uneven ground with legs. Then try with wheels.

[ac31]

do a bit of research before you throw out legs in favour of wheels, many small inventors and large companies are experimenting with a walking action, nasa included, this is because for crossing rough terrain, legs are infinitely more capable of traversing it

let me repeat this: wheels are not the most effective way to travel. speed doesnt equal success, the advantage of legs is mobility, and wheels CANNOT replicate this in the same way that legs can, particularly 2 legs. Whenever an engineer designs something, if its in the interest of efficiency they go by what you find naturally, teardrop shapes are best for reducing drag, aerofoils generate lift best, and bipedal lifeforms are most able to succeed. Of the species to switch to two legs, all have dominated the age in which they did so, early dinosaurs, birds, humans to name the three most prolific.

theres actually a lot of research into bipedal robots, some of which is extremely successful

the only problem with bipedal robots at the moment is one of cost-effectiveness, current technology makes accurate and powerful motors difficult to produce, cheaper models are less effective; servo motors for example are cheap but often too slow to allow for the often quick adjustments to avoid falling over.

[Armok]

Bipedals aren't actually faster or better at navigating rough terrain. It's advantages (compared to a quadruped) lie in energy efficiency (half as many to grow and power, and you can use a few Newtonian tricks you cant whit more legs) and the fact that they leave the front pair of limbs free to specialize in other things like clawing (dinosaurs), flying (birds), or tool use. The last one is the largest benefit as such structures are VERY useful and it's close to impossible to evolve another set of limbs.

A machine would get the Newtonian advantages (but most current biped robots are not programmed for them), and while 2 biped legs are currently more expensive than 4 quadruped ones, this might change whit better tech. However, as you can more or less just slap on any amount of extra limbs you want, the largest benefit that made it to evolve in animals has been rendered irrelevant.
No, the big advantage in biped robots, is the psychological factor in interacting whit humans, something that is extremely important in areas such as caring for handicapped and elderly, or any other role where we have to interact whit you meatbags really, as evident by the big prevalence in fiction. As the move put it "Man created machine in his image", he didn't really care if it was the most efficient form.

[Strife26]

Walking and running are described as continually interrupted tripping. It takes a heck of a lot of different muscles for our legs to move. Then you have to have an entire stabilization system to make minute corrections to keep standing. Plus, you have the problem of "I've fallen and can't get up"

A wheeled or tracked system is faster, less complex, generally more stable, cheaper to build, more energy efficient, and better able to handle most terrain.

[Armok]

The "continually interrupted tripping" is actually the Newtonian advances I was talking abaut, it actually saves energy, and it's lots more predictable and easier to control than the description "continually interrupted tripping" make you believe: you do it every time you walk or run. What is meant whit robots being to slow to do it well isn't that the computer is to slow, nor really the sensors or actuators, but as I understood it the part that messes up is translating between the computers digital signal and the sensor/actuator/real worlds analogue signals. This is a simplification but it works as a general explanation.

A wheeled or tracked system is faster, less complex etc. whit current technology, but if pulling type actuators (like muscles) get cheaper than spinning type ones (like servos), then the situation changes, this is the situation in biology, and it might be whit technology as well soon whit new materials like artificial muscles. Beyond that, wheels and legs both have many advantages and disadvantages, mostly depending on type of terrain.

[Zironic]

I love the historical allusions in the imagery. Very disturbing.

Isn't it just a great allegory? I thought it got good when they thought it was a good idea to block out the sun. It seems so like military leaders of today and the past - the Nuke'm philosophy.

I also think it's quite interesting how the robots invent better weapons faster.

[ac31]

communication is the path to both understanding and enlightenment, and the robots have much more flexibility in their methods of communication

imagine if your uni lectures were beamed into your head at petabit bandwidths, goddamn that would be so awesome

[Ampersand]

I was thinking more in terms of the allusions to Vietnam, the holocaust, and the Kent State massacre

[Zironic]

I was thinking more in terms of the allusions to Vietnam, the holocaust, and the Kent State massacre

Ehhh but those are referenced in every thing now days. We haven't had a nukem all philosophy in a while.

[Cthulhu]

I saw this when I was younger, and I remember seeing an episode of that Kids Next Door show(I don't know why I saw this episode, I didn't watch that show) that seemed like a parody of The Second Renaissance, does anyone know if I'm the only person who noticed that?

EDIT:  I looked it up, apparently it was intentional.

[Dakk]

Walking and running are described as continually interrupted tripping. It takes a heck of a lot of different muscles for our legs to move. Then you have to have an entire stabilization system to make minute corrections to keep standing. Plus, you have the problem of "I've fallen and can't get up"

A wheeled or tracked system is faster, less complex, generally more stable, cheaper to build, more energy efficient, and better able to handle most terrain.

Wheels are easier to implement and work nicely in normal situations, and they do work in rough terrain, to a degree, but don't do well in rougher terrain/complex tasks, try climbling steep wall with wheels. Of course, you could use a flying system for that, but then you'd need to design something that can effectively travel through rough terrain using its wheels when it isn't able to fly, and be able to take flight effectively when travelling through land isn't possible. Designing suck a thing is harder then it sounds.

The thing about arms and legs is that, while they're far more difficult to get to work right, when they do, they are far more versatile then wheels. Arms and legs can give something the ability to travel through any kind of rough terrain, and do the same in normal terrain, while you have to project specialized wheels for rough terrain, and these wound't be optimally efficient in normal terrain, not like normal wheels. Arms and legs have a chance of climbling walls, while a wheeled device would need an alternative system to complete the task.

TL;DR Wheels are better at the tasks they were designed for, but you need a different set for a different task, while arms and legs can complete all tasks any kind of wheel can, even if not as fast.