A remake of Short Circuit is a really good idea, as you can see from this quote by one of the producers:

We’re bringing Number 5 into the 21st Century and taking advantage of the improvements in robotics that are so massive that robots are now performing heart surgeries in hospitals,” Producer David Foster said. [Variety]

And in case you still had any doubts about a remake, don’t.  They hired the director of Paul Blart: Mall Cop to direct it.  He’s Sassy Ostrich’s favorite.

Dimension Films has signed Steve Carr to direct “Short Circuit,” the remake of the 1986 sci-fi pic. Carr is coming off the Kevin James hit “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”  Scripted by Dan Milano (“Robot Chicken”), the remake is a robot reboot that brings the iconic Johnny 5 into the 21st century. Built by the military to be a highly sophisticated weapon, Johnny 5 develops a conscience and personality after being hit by lightning. He befriends a lonely boy and his fractured family. [Variety]

Look, I have as fond of memories of Johnny 5 as the next guy, especially the time those Puerto Ricans taught him how to steal car stereos.  But calling Johnny 5 “iconic” is like saying The Noid is an American institution.

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As previously discussed, Real Steel is a futuristic film about robots that box, “but at its core a human story.” Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, from the director of Night at the Museum and Cheaper by the Dozen, it sounds like it could be either the greatest or lamest movie ever. The latest news is that Hugh Jackman is in talks to star.

Pic is a Rocky-esque tale of a fighter who has to reinvent himself when human boxing becomes obsolete, replaced by 2000 pound human-like robots. Jackman is negotiating to play the ex-fighter, who becomes a Robot Boxing promoter, but whose chances of success are hampered by his access to sub-standard robot parts. That is until he discovers a discarded robot that always seems to win. The ex-fighter has also discovered he’s the father of a 13-year old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top. [Variety]

So basically, it’s like Rocky meets Wall-E meets Three Men and a Baby.  Why didn’t I think of that? “You don’t undastand, Chahley! I coulda been a contenda!  It coulda been somebody!  Until dem no good robots come and gimme a one-way ticket ta palookaville.”  (*jazz hands*)

A lot of people are predicting Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 to be the sleeper hit of the summer, and now we’ve got a full-length trailer. (Trailer also available in HD at Yahoo)

Thirty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in Johannesburg, South Africa’s District 9 as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them. [Yahoo]

The film was shot documentary-style, and as you can see from the trailer, robots also seem to factor into the plot somehow.  Anyway, the humans fear the aliens, so they marginalize them from society and control their movements, and the aliens’ frustrations eventually makes them violent, which only proves to the humans they were right to stick them in ghettoes all along. Anyone else smell a parable for Palestinians, or some other ethnic minority group?  Then again, the director’s South African, so it might just be an allegory for how much he hates black people.  They can get away with that in South Africa.  Why?  Diplomatic immunity.
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^{Terrifying robot video after the jump}

Hey, guess which country is building terrifying humanoid robots!

The creators of the Child-robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, say it’s slowly developing social skills by interacting with humans and watching their facial expressions, mimicking a mother-baby relationship. The team is trying to teach the pint-sized android to think like a baby who evaluates its mother’s countless facial expressions and “clusters” them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness.

Professor Minoru Asada, also a member of the Japanese Society of Baby Science [Editor's Note: !!!!!], said the CB2 has taught itself how to walk with the aid of a human and can now move its body through a room quite smoothly, using 51 “muscles” driven by air pressure.

In coming decades, Asada expects science will come up with a “robo species” that has learning abilities somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee [hopefully without the chimp-like propensity to rip off your face and genitals].

Thousands of humanoids could be working alongside humans in a decade or so, if that is what society wants, said Fumio Miyazaki, engineering science professor at the Toyonaka Campus of Osaka University. “Robots have hearts,” said Kokoro planning department manager Yuko Yokota. “They don’t look human unless we put souls in them. When manufacturing a robot, there comes a moment when light flickers in its eyes. That’s when we know our work is done.”

Public opinion in Japan may be more open to robots than in the West, where dark science fiction visions from movies such as “Bladerunner” and “Terminator” have conjured images of robo-soldiers taking over the world. “Japanese people have a friendly image towards robots,” said Toshiba’s Yoshimi.

Asada said Japan’s indigenous animistic belief system may also have readied people to accept human-like robots with minds of their own.  “Everything has a mind — the mind of the lamp, the mind of the chair, the soul of the desk,” he said, pointing at objects in his office.  Therefore the machines should have their mind too. If we proceed in this study, machines may have something like a human mind or ‘robo-mind’,” he said. [Breitbart]

Say for the sake of argument I had them build me a beautiful sex-bot with the mind of a chimp and the lithe, nubile exoskeleton of a 15-year-old.  Theoretically, would that be wrong?  I mean, the heart wants what it wants, and what it wants is a monkey-brained rape machine.
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My internal monologue from 15 minutes ago:

Hmm, let’s see, what other stories should I cover today…
Nicole Kidman in the new Woody Allen movie? Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz signing on for a romantic comedy? Robert Pattinson’s next movie? Ron Howard maybe directing H.P. Lovecraft? Tough decisions, tough decisions.  …Then again, there’s always this robot swordfight clip from Exterminator City.  Dang, I better flip a coin…

[via iheartchaos - who have another NSFW scene from the same movie that I highly recommend]