SNAPSHOT
“It has been three years since the robot invasion of earth. Sean Flynn has never given up hope that his missing father might still be alive. All humans have been fitted with transmitters to ensure they obey the cardinal rule of the robot empire — that they stay indoors at all times or be incinerated. An accident at home leads to one of the transmitters short-circuiting, allowing Sean and his friends the opportunity to infiltrate their alien adversaries. They may even get a shot at freeing themselves once and for all, but it’s not going to be easy.” (synopsis via Teaser-Trailer)
If humanity was to ever suffer from a collective bout of low self-esteem – unlikely given the whole dominant species on the planet thing we have going on but you never know – it need only look to the never-ending queue of aliens, organic and otherwise, lining up to invade us to reassure itself about its reasonably in-demand place in the universe.
Every creepy-crawly, blue-skinned beastie in the galaxy seems intent on claiming our blue planet as their own, which leads me to muse once again on the idea that somewhere out beyond the Kuiper Belt, there’s an orderly though impatiently jostling line of alien fleets waiting to try their hand at subduing humanity.
None of them will succeed of course as everything from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Independence Day, Signs and Falling Skies, to name just four, has clearly shown, but that doesn’t seem to be dissuading them from trying.
The latest aliens to come romping in, according a new British film Robot Overlords, are a robot empire who enslave humanity before we can say “R2D2”, suppressing dissent by keeping people imprisoned with their own homes, unable to associate with others to form any kind of resistance.
As we all know that won’t stop humanity for long and sure enough one young man, Sean Flynn, begins to demonstrate an astonishing ability to mess with the robots, immediately marking him as enemy number 1 of the robot regime, who, naturally enough, have a fair share of human collaborators doing their bidding.
Quite how it will all play out is anyone’s guess – although I am willing to place a bet on the humans coming out on top – since it’s a British film, and the Brits,refreshingly as not as addicted to happily-ever-after endings like their Hollywood cousins, but it’s a fair bet it will be entertaining to see what happens when it’s the British fighting for humanity.
While the trailer does look a little B-grade in parts, Robot Overlords nevertheless feels like an interesting new take on what happens when the latest aliens, in a very long line of aliens, try to conquer Earth come up against “The One” and humanity’s general unwillingness to unquestioningly do as they’re told.
Robot Overlords opens in UK on 19 March 2015 (no international dates are available at this time).