A science fiction flop from a director of Harry Potter put Robin Williams in a strange costume

Chris Columbus was an ideal choice to start the “Harry Potter” franchise because he had directed another family fantasy “Bintennial Man” two years earlier. Although it is more science fiction, he also tells a story of someone with extraordinary abilities trying to integrate. The majority of Chris Columbus’s films are sentimental and warm, using great humor or a favorite melodrama to celebrate fantastic events that can take place even in the ordinary suburbs.

Located in the future, “Bicentennial Man” is part of the comedy and weekend about Andrew, a robot servant who is closer to the family for which he cooks, cleaned and babysitting. Like any robot that has a sensitivity, he wants to be more than a machine and become a human man. He embarked on a 200 -year trip to do so, pleading for rights as a new robot that has become human and questions the ideals of conscience, immortality and technological ethics. All this seems particularly premonitory in the light of the takeover of today’s AI. Andrew wants to be a “complete” human being, and that understands falling in love and having sex. He experiences it with Portia, the granddaughter of its original owner, making romance completely in May-December. Their quirky love story has one of the strangest kisses in the history of science fiction, given their narrow family ties and the clumsy innocence of Andrew.

Since “Bicentennial Man” was manufactured in 1999, shortly before the characters entirely CGI no longer became omnipresent on the screen, the practical design of the robot was carried out by special effects Steve Johnson. He made a whole silver body, as well as a plastic -based headset formed under vacuum and foam rubber, sculpted to strangely resemble the Robin Williams star (via heritage auctions). Apparently, Robin Williams fully embraced this heavy and strange costume he had to wear.

Although it could have been someone under the blocking costume, Robin Williams insisted to wear it, saying to Las Vegas Sun: “It had to be me, or the public would have noticed that he did not act or did not move like me – you know that the stronghold of the bow. I had to wear this post -armor costume, and they adjusted all engineering.” No special computerized effect could recreate the intimacy of having Robin Williams really present for the scenes or to witness the human spark inside Andrew reinforcing.

The costumes influence the way the actors move, think and emotional. Robin Williams relied on his Juilliard training to live in heavy costume without peripheral vision. The limited movement, he explained, helped him feel the technological functioning and curiosity of Andrew in his body, as well as to immerse himself in the mechanical way of Andrew to perceive the world:

“You start to learn how a robot will follow a room before moving around. You stand, then scan, then, boom, you go. This is what it does when you look at the search for the robotic movement. What they do is map the territory, the search for obstacles, make a representation in 3D, and then move around. Now, all they need to do is to think about it – what is scientific to think about it is not to work. Far off. “

More than 25 years later, the Tesla robots are somehow our own versions of Andrew. Will they end up fighting to become more than our domestic subordinate? “Bintennial Man” is certainly not the best film by Robin Williams (it was also a box-office flop), but that demonstrates how the power of Williams stars is so large that it offers touching performance with a lot of heart and humor even behind a cold metal shell.