THE CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS (1962)

THE CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS (1962)

Tagline: Never Has the Screen Brought You A More *Shocking* Revelation!

(Sci-Fi, Robots, I'll Be Your Freakazoid, C'mon and Wind Me Up) [PG]

Note: This movie was never given an MPAA rating. I think it would have gotten a PG if it came out these days. 

We tried. But the shock of dying, and being resurrected as a robot, was too severe: they Re-Died.

In this one, the world has endured a nuclear war and the world is basically a wasteland. Man’s only chance of survival is to create cyborgs that help in rebuilding civilization. The cyborgs greatly outnumber the humans and the “Order of Flesh and Blood” decides to try and stop specific series of cyborg in the series 21-70 variety, because they believe the prime directive, “do not murder” has been violated. Meanwhile the wife of Capt. Kenneth Cragis's sister Esme Cragis Milos has fallen in love with Pax, one of the cyborgs. What the crap?

Okay, for this one you are going to have to put your brain on hold for a few sequences. All the weirdness you feel in the romance section of the movie ends up getting explained, except for the fact that Esme loves Pax. That is just really damn weird. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t about 30 minutes of nonsense dialog in this flick. There are a few parts where I honestly just wanted to turn it off. That’s pretty rare for me. After all, I sat all the way through the first part of DUNE and that was so boring it almost slowed my heart so much that I was close to being clinically dead. 

I guess it’s possible that some of the ideas in this movie influenced THE TERMINATOR, but the questions they ask in this movie are pretty interesting so I will dive into it a little. One of the questions I thought might come up in this movie actually did. Does a robot have a soul? Is a robot or cyborg automatically godless? The answer in the movie seems to be that if you think you have one you do. Basically, the bit of memory that thinks God exists can be transplanted to the robot, so it presents the idea that we “think” God into existence and “choose Him”. This exposition relies on the idea that we are not talking about just any God, but the God of the bible. Theologically this is a much deeper question, but keeping this review short, we don’t “think” God into existence. He is outside of space, time and matter and is completely independent in and of Himself. The next idea in the movie is that if you think you have a soul, then you do. So no, robots can have a soul the way it is defined in the film. Biblically this is impossible since God breathes life into us (nishmat ruach chayyim meaning “breath of life” in Hebrew). Life from God has a soul made up of the mind, will, and emotion. Because God breathed life into your soul, you can never die, even if you go to hell (Mark 3:29 in contrast to John 3:16). This also introduces a whole new set of issues for things like artificial baby farms and all that stuff. 

Anyway, the movie's final analysis is that ultimately the psyche of human nature is the need to reproduce so how do we get to that? The film kind of leaves us hanging as to who does what and what happens after these ideas and questions are introduced. Acting wise Don Megowan (THE WEREWOLF) as Capt. Kenneth Craigs is solid in this as is Frances McCann who plays Esme. This ended up being the only feature film she was ever in. Erica Elliott is also good as Maxine but also had a very short career in Hollywood with only 4 acting credits. 

The score is slightly annoying, but it’s definitely not the worst of the era. 

Ultimately this movie is a disappointment for me just because it’s not trying to give us any conclusions or real answers. It kind of tells us where it’s going, but the setup kind of makes you think it may not end up the way it’s spelled out. That isn’t the only reason though. It ends up playing out like a 75-minute “what if” that could have been asked in the first few minutes, then we’d get to see things play out. 

This is a pretty rough one and it gets a 2 out of 7. I enjoyed the projection and questions, but all of it seems to feel like a rejected Twilight Zone episode.

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