Android (lm)

Android is a 1982 science ction lm directed by Aaron

Lipstadt and starring Don Keith Opper and Klaus Kinski.
The lm follows the story of a scientist and his assistant
who are working on an illegal android programfromtheir
lab on a space station in orbit of the Earth.
[1]
The lm was voted Best Science Fiction Film in 1983
by The Age, but has received a somewhat mixed reaction
from critics.
1 Plot
In the year 2036 a human-looking android named Max
404 (Don Keith Opper), and his creator, Doctor Daniel
(Klaus Kinski), reside aboard a remote space station. Al-
though Max is a machine, he has growing interest in
all things human, especially sex and is caught by Daniel
watching a sexual instruction video. After Daniel rebukes
him, Max eavesdrops on the doctors report that Maxs
growing insubordinate behavior could lead to mutiny in
a similar incident back on Earth known as the Munich
Revolution after which androids were outlawed. It is
then revealed that Daniel is illegally working on another
android, Cassandra One (Kendra Kirchner), a female
who he believes will be a superior machine.
Next Max receives a distress call from a ship that seeks
repairs. Upon hearing the pilots female voice, he excit-
edly permits them to land, not realising that the ship is
a prison transport and the pilot, Maggie (Brie Howard),
and her associates, Keller (Norbert Weisser) and Mendes
(Crofton Hardester), the latter her lover, are escaped fugi-
tives. Once aboard the station, the convicts settle in pos-
ing as the transports crew whom were previously killed
during the break out. Daniel becomes infuriated when
he learns Max allowed the ship to land and demands they
leave immediately, but he quickly changes his mind when
he meets the attractive Maggie and invites her to have
dinner with him in his personal garden.
Maggie joins Daniel, but the dinner goes wrong when a
jealous Max pranks the doctor with some embarrassing
mischief like ball-bearings in the wine bottle and tam-
pering with the food. Daniel then pointedly asks Mag-
gie if she would link up with his female android in an
attempt to transfer sexual experiences to the machine.
Maggie learns she would need to be sexually stimulated
by the doctor during the procedure and she declines the
ludicrous oer. Daniel becomes frustrated and demands
Maggie help him, but she makes a hasty exit. Daniel re-
turns to the lab and angrily reports in his log, (again over-
heard by Max), that once Cassandra is ready he will be
deactivating Max.
While the convicts work on the ship, a TerraPol police
cruiser arrives having detected a still-active transponder
on their ship, and contacts Max to inform them of their
presence. Max denies that the criminals are on board
even though he checks the crews identity to conrms they
are indeed criminals. When the police demand permis-
sion to land, Max destroys their ship with a laser.
Max then tells Maggie that he knows of her plight but has
saved her from the police. He then asks that she take him
with her when she leaves the station. Maggie is unsure of
what to do, but later sneaks away fromMendes and meets
Max in the lab for an intimate encounter. The two are
however interrupted when Cassandra activates and Mag-
gie becomes horried when she learns that Max is also an
android.
Maggie returns to her quarters but she is confronted by a
furious Mendes who demands to knowwhere she sneaked
o to. When he notices her disheveled appearance and
unbuttoned shirt he begins to beat her. Keller enters
and tries to stop Mendes, but is knocked unconscious.
Mendes then strangles Maggie. Once Keller awakens he
goes after Mendes again, jumping him from behind, but
Mendes manages to kill him with a blow to the head.
Eventually Max arrives, suitcase in hand, to Maggies
quarters, but nds her dead. He sadly returns to Daniels
lab where the doctor has activated Cassandra. After ex-
plaining about Maggie, Daniel has Max sit in a chair and
opens a door on the back of his head to reprogram him.
Daniel tells Max that murder must be punished and sends
1
2 5 RECEPTION
Max out to kill Mendes. In the meantime, more police
ships arrive and when communications aren't established,
they forcefully board the station.
After having killed Mendez, Max returns to the lab
where Daniel prepares him for deactivation, but Cassan-
dra grabs Daniels armto stop him. After refusing to obey
his orders, Daniel begins to struggle with the two androids
and they rip his head o revealing that Daniel himself is
an android. Cassandra then disposes of Daniels head in
a trash chute and begins to reprogram Max.
When the police arrive at the lab, Cassandra thanks them
for coming to their rescue. She takes Max, now dressed
in a lab coat and posing as Dr. Daniel, by the arm and
the two are escorted out by the police who say they will
be taking them back to Earth.
2 Cast
In the closing credits, Max 404 plays himself, and the
technical credits maintain the conceit that the lm char-
acter Max 404 is played by an actual android called Max
404.
3 Production
The movie was completely lmed in four weeks and
edited in a further three weeks. The original version was
80 minutes long and none of the original content was re-
moved before release.
The lm cost less than $1 million to make.
[2]
David Elliott wrote, This movie was done on a scrawny
budget for the Roger Corman schlock shop. Its makers
believed in the lm so much that they up-scaled it from
pure schlock, and Corman -- a producer who believes
in talent but even more in a buck -- lost interest after
early bookings failed to come up green. Corman felt the
lm was not 'exploitable,' and so Barry Opper (brother of
Don) and initiating producer Rupert Harvey bought the
rights. Android became one of those budding cult movies
that may never thrive in big money terms but which refuse
to play dead.
[3]
The Miami Herald reviewer Bill Cosford would write in
1984, after the movies tour of the festival circuit in 1982
and 1983, extquotedblAndroid has gained something of
a cult reputation already, largely on the strength of its
success on a shoestring budget. Set in the year 2036,
the lm uses space-station sets and quasi-futuristic props
crafted of leftovers from Roger Cormans B-movie back-
room(theres a bit of Forbidden World here, some Galaxy
of Terror there).
[4]
4 Release
Joseph Bensoua said that, in 1982, Corman began test
marketing Android in cities such as Tucson, Spokane and
Las Vegas, but met unsatisfactory results. Producers Ru-
pert Harvey and Barry Opper bought the lm rights back
from Corman in 1983. They opened the lm in London,
where The Observer called it the sleeper of the year.
[5]
5 Reception
The lm received a mixed response, being praised in Eu-
rope but receiving a less positive reaction in the United
States. It was described by Cinefantastique as a typical
New World production that opens nice, but soon short-
circuits with all the clichs of the genre. However, this
can be contrasted with the views of leading science c-
tion author David Wingrove, who describes the reviewby
Cinefastique as witless: Rot! Android stays rmly nice
fromstart to nish. He particularly praises the work done
on such a lowbudget, saying that you can't buy or budget
love. When money is sparse, invention is all. George Lu-
cas said that he personally thought the lm to be smart
and relevant.
David Elliott wrote in a celebratory review, Max 404,
the hero of Android, adds esh to the tradition of cute
robots that goes back to Robby the Robot in Forbidden
Planet, Huey, Dewey and Louie in Silent Running and
the metallic darlings R2D2 and C3PO in Star Wars. As
played by Don Opper, he looks perfectly human. The fun
comes from watching Max discover just how human he
is... This is a jewel in the rough, and roughness (along
with wit) is what gives it a shine. There are shadowy,
sub-slick sets (partly lifted fromold Cormanoids like Bat-
tle Beyond the Stars), and the plot features three grubby
space outlaws -- two varmints and a vamp -- played with
lots of slumming gusto by Brie Howard, Norbert Weisser
and Crofton Hardester... Max is a bit of a wimp, but
brainy, and with a heart of computerized gold. He is
keen on self-programming, and he studies old, 20th cen-
3
tury movies and gently bones up on the human styles of
Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart... After the villains
break in, Max gures out that being human means that
you get to bend the rules. The plot turns, and theres
a neat, tricky resolution... You can hardly fail to enjoy
it.
[3]
Bill Cosford praised the lms wit and the performances,
such as Klaus Kinski, in another surpassingly creepy per-
formance and Oppers Max as a nebbishy Woody Allen
type. Cosford said that the lmmakers have laced their
story with clever touches. Its not just the old movies and
the music and the giggles over Maxs impossible puberty.
Their tone is a gentle but sophisticated ribbing of the con-
ventions of science-ction lms from Metropolis to Star
Wars, with just enough inside references to the form to
make watching fun, but not so many as to turn Android
into a feature-length skit. There is even room for some
philosophical musing here, for those so inclined. But it
is not necessary. The director, Aaron Lipstadt, has made
the kind of rst lm, like George Lucas THX 1138 and
John Carpenters Dark Star, that suggests a creative intel-
ligence behind even the rough spots.
[4]
Joe Baltake wrote that the movie is a kind of SciFi ver-
sion of Rebel Without a Cause, a game fantasy about chil-
dren rebelling against their parents. In this case, the chil-
dren (Don Opper and Kendra Kirchner) are androids,
robots, and the parent (Klaus Kinski, of all people, in
a fright wig) is a mad scientist... Android pays tribute
to Fritz Langs Metropolis ... Having been emotionally
locked into puberty by Daniel, Max does what most chil-
dren do - plays video games, watches old movies (such
as Metropolis) and, of course, has a keen interest in S-E-
X. With nothing to interfere with the way hes been pro-
grammed by Daniel, Max pretty much lives in a retarded
state - that is, until a trio of criminal fugitives - two men,
one woman - stow away inside Daniels space lab... The
vicious stowaways are on hand merely to inspire Maxs
rebellion against his parental gure. The lms real llip
comes when Cassandra, the female android, turns out to
be Maxs accomplice, rather than his competitor, and is
hot to join him in his plan. In fact, she takes charge: We
are not meant to be governed by the whims of men, the
blonde, stoic Cassandra says matter-of-factly, but with a
comic, ambitious edge to her voice. Android is small,
very small and, whats more, its human. In an odd way,
it succeeds in being what The Pope of Greenwich Village
never comes close to accomplishing.
[6]
Joseph Bensoua called it slow-moving space junk... Its
81-minute length, economical (make that cheap) sets and
talky script give it a texture thats more akin to a Twilight
Zone episode -- only not as good.
[5]
Rick Lyman, simi-
larly, described the movie as a lazy, whimsical sci-er,
while sympathizing with Max, an outer-space Holden
Cauleld - young, confused, yearning to get away from
his strict surroundings and cut loose in the big city (in this
case, the planet Earth). His performance is the best thing
about the movie. His Max is hopelessly sweet and nave,
way too trusting for his own good. Hes the only charac-
ter in the movie exhibiting the least bit of compassion or
tenderness.
[7]
6 References
[1] Nathaniel Thompson, ed. (July 2006). DVD Delirium:
The International Guide to Weird and Wonderful Films on
DVD 3. FAB Press. pp. 2526. ISBN 1-903254-40-X.
[2] Elliott, David (June 28, 1984). extquotedblAndroid Role
Opens Bright New Path for Don Opper. San Diego
Union. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
[3] Elliott, David (June 28, 1984). Nice Little Robot Fleshes
out the Schlock. San Diego Union. p. A22. Retrieved
April 11, 2013.
[4] Cosford, Bill (September 7, 1984). Androids Have All
the Fun. The Miami Herald. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
[5] Bensoua, Joseph (April 27, 1984). extquotedblAndroid
Fails to Break Free. Daily Breeze (Torrance, California).
Retrieved April 12, 2013.
[6] Baltake, Joe (July 6, 1984). ON FILM, IT LOOKS
LIKE A LONG, HOT SUMMER. Philadelphia Daily
News. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
[7] Lyman, Rick (July 6, 1984). FILM: ANDROID MIXES
MARXISM, SEX AND SCI-FI. The Philadelphia In-
quirer. Retrieved April 12, 2013.
6.1 Bibliography
Wingrove, David. Science Fiction Film Source Book
(Longman Group Limited, 1985)
7 External links
cyberpunkReview.com: Android
4 7 EXTERNAL LINKS
Android at the Internet Movie Database
Android at AllMovie
5
8 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
8.1 Text
Android (lm) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(film)?oldid=626932197 Contributors: Cyberia23, Lucky 6.9, Gyrofrog,
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8.2 Images
8.3 Content license
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0