by: Austin Welch source: Io9
I revel in the coming wave of robot-themed productions.
Hot on the heels of the report that Steven Spielberg will direct an adaptation of writer Daniel H. Wilson’s yet-to-be-published novel Robopocalypse comes the news that another work of Wilson’s, the comedic How To Survive A Robot Uprising, has been optioned by Jack Black. In fact, this news happened the same day, but I was away at mecha camp all weekend (no joke), and this apparently slipped by my fellow staff, who are admittedly not as droid-obsessed as yours truly. But I just couldn’t pass this tidbit up.
Io9 has it that Black, in association with director Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine), snatched up the rights to the project after a previous version written by The State/Reno 911! comedian Thomas Lennon and involving Mike Meyers ran out of steam. Io9′s source says it could end up being the Dr. Strangelove of automaton-themed sci-fi. Sounds to me like it will be more like a robot version of Zombieland, which detailed a zombie apocalypse survivor’s rules for staying alive.
For someone like myself, who’s had his fill of vampires, and is on the verge of getting sick and tired of zombies, this is fantastic news. While not all robot fiction need be of the apocalyptic variety, I’ll take what I can get, and it’s high time someone took a comedic look at the subject matter.
We are truly on the cusp of a robot/mecha cinema revolution, with a myriad of projects in the pipeline. This pair of Wilson adaptations is but the tip of an iceberg that will also bring us Voltron, Robotech, Gaiking, and hopefully, and eventual Transformers reboot, among others. Heck, I may not have been ecstatic about Michael Bay’s take on my favorite franchise, but the upside is, it’s proven to Hollywood that movies about robots will put asses in the seats.
I’d definitely recommend anyone seeing for more of a “complete” experience, find out until perhaps episode 39 and embrace the rest as an OVA type format. And yes it’s sure that the series wasn’t finished because of the “final arc” (which the novel was released by now…but no word from them wanting to extend the anime at all = )