…when I realized I won’t be a washed-up pugulist driving cross-country to enter ROBOT BOXING with my plucky sidekick.

Truth be told, this is really what I looked like after watching the latest robot beat-em-up Real Steel. Heck, is there any other robot beat-em-up? No. Transformers do not count. Well, there’s Robot Jox, but the last time I saw that movie, I recall squirming in my chair. So that doesn’t count either. Unless they remake it with better special effects.

My love affair with robots is a deep and lasting one, spanning decades. I love robots. I also love monsters. And there’s nothing I love more than robots vs monsters. And the bigger they are, the happier I am. Unfortunately, Real Steel doesn’t have monsters. But it has a ton of robots. And by golly, weren’t they oh so prettay.

However, the funny thing is that although I love robots I’ve stubbornly avoided watching Real Steel for the longest tiem. In fact, the first time I saw the trailer I was incredibly dumbstricken.  Outraged, even. Why? Because I thought it was way too similar to this little webcomic called Automatic that I used to do for Wirepop.com back in 2003-2006 about robot fighting. Heck, they even used controllers.

Even the synopsis I did when I pitched the project is pretty similar:

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Marco hasn’t won a single mecha battle in his life.  However, when he happened to chance upon a mysterious engine in the scrapyard, his luck is about to take an unusual turn.  Powering his old beat-up mecha with the engine, he starts to win one streetfight after another until his victories lead him to fame, the global arena, and under the eyes of a shadow organization.

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 Who’s smiling now, you little shmuck? Definitely not you…

But I got over that anyway. Considering that I soon found out that they loosely based Real Steel from a short story written by Richard Matheson in 1956 that did shut me up for a bit. And before anybody accuses me of accusing them of stealing my idea. No, that’s not what I’m upset about. The concept of robots punching robots is as old as time itself. I’m more upset that someone did a better story. And boy was I depressed for the longest time. I really do love robots that much. Delusions of grandeur, my friends. Delusions. It’s not healthy for you.

I haven’t read the story Steel from where the movie is based from so I have no real opinion about it. Although a little bird told me that they changed a lot of things. But hey, this is Hollyweird we’re talking about. It’s a miracle if they don’t change things completely. I bet they would age up Ender in the upcoming Ender’s Game movie and make Bean his rival in a heated love triangle with Petra Arkanian…. and there will be vampires!

(OMG. I hope Orson Scott Card doesn’t see this and fire me from Laddertop. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ I’m working my butt off on volume 2 and it will be great so please don’t fire me!)

Anyway, Real Steel turned out to be quite a treat. A dash of father-son drama, some shiny robot bashing, and a bunch of really sweet music. Oh, and the one thing I love the most about the movie is that despite it’s a futuristic movie (futuristic in the sense that it’s set in 2020), there’s nothing futuristic about it aside from the robots.  It’s like now. Except that there are robots punching each other to smithereens. I like that. I love that.

I’m pretty sure that to everyone who’s read Laddertop and actually paid attention has realized that it’s what I’m striving for in the art. Speculative fiction is not always about spaceships and floating cars and hoverboards. A lot of times just dropping in something extraordinary in an ordinary setting is more than enough but people unfortunately miss that. And that is a tragedy.

So do I recommend Real Steel? You bet I do. If you are nostalgic about good old Americana and a pretty solid story about fighting for the ones you love with fists of steel, then yes. But if you’d rather sit through a movie with nothing but explosions for two hours, well there’s Transformers for you.

And to end this post, I’ll be leaving you, my plucky sidekicks, with a couple of pages I did as part of my pitch proposal back in 2003 for Automatic because tears are delicious and I never run out of them.