R.O.T.O.R.

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R.O.T.O.R.
Directed by	Cullen Blaine
Produced by	Cullen Blaine Richard Gesswein Budd Lewis
Written by	Cullen Blaine Budd Lewis
Starring	Richard Gesswein, Jayne Smith, James Cole
Distributed by	Imperial Entertainment
Release date(s)	1989
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
Budget	$2
IMDb profile

For other uses, see R.O.T.O.R. (disambiguation).

R.O.T.O.R. is a 1989 science fiction/action movie starring Richard Gesswein as Coldyron, Jayne Smith as Dr. Steele and James Cole as Greg Hutchins.

R.O.T.O.R. is a prototype robot created to combat crime which escapes from the development lab and relentlessly tries to kill a woman who was a passenger in a speeding car.

The film is known as silly and amateurish. Like other low-budget science-fiction and horror films, R.O.T.O.R. has developed somewhat of a cult following. R.O.T.O.R. fans, unlike, say, zombie movie fanatics, tend to be cerebral and uncompromising, usually coming from a background in cinema or literature.

It spawned a short-lived TV detective show titled "Coldyron & Steele".

The film is based on a short story by William Faulkner, whose dystopian story "The Cowboy Scientist Cop Whom Builds A Mighty And Terrible Robot" imagines a future in which a cowboy scientist cop builds a robot who turns out to be both mighty and terrible.

A complete review of this amazing trip into the psyche of a cowboy scientist cop can be found here: Jabootu's R.O.T.O.R. review

While nominated for eleven Academy Awards, R.O.T.O.R. won only for Best Sound Editing, for the amazing voice-over work.

Cullen Blaine has often cited D.W. Griffith as his biggest inspiration for filmmaking, and wrote much of the scipt for R.O.T.O.R. whilst in an opium induced haze, floating down the Tigre river from Ecuador into Peru. On this same trip, he persuaded Werner Herzog to shoot a script Blaine had written earlier, Fitzcarraldo.

Richard Gesswein went on to star as the titular character in the 2005 remake of King Kong.

After the box office returns were official, the offices of Imperial Entertainment burned to the ground in the middle of the night. This was ostensibly done for insurance money.

Many postmodern philosophers hypothesize that Dr. Steele's skunk colored mullet is a nod to the duality of the human soul.

Close inspection of the footage of the ATF siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, shows agents projecting R.O.T.O.R. onto a large screen directly in front of the compound. Many speculate that this was done to break the will of the Branch Davidians, but may have inadvertently led to them setting their compound on fire.

Displaying his famous dry Swedish humor, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden invited Cullen Blaine to his homeland to accept a Nobel Peace Prize. Upon arriving at the Swedish airport, Blaine's wallet, passport, and luggage were stolen by the Swiss guard. Blaine had to hitchhike across most of Europe until arriving in Mozambique, where he entered into a period of indentured servitude to fund his trip back across the Atlantic. To this day, King Carl XVI Gustaf still howls with laughter when asked about the elaborate prank.

Upon completing the editing for this film, Cullen Blaine was heard to utter "I am become death, destroyer of worlds."

Burt Reynolds turned down the lead role, saying "Omg, no lol."

The basis for the Dan Brown book: "R.O.T.O.R.: Science Fiction, or Science FACT?!"

If viewers start playing the Boz Scaggs album Hits! when Richard Gesswein says the words "prognosticators of the future", the film and album do not match up at all.

The scenes featuring R.O.T.O.R. trying to grab the woman inside the car are almost shot-for-shot recreations of the interior scenes from Das Boot. This is perhaps what explains the extreme intensity of the scenes.

R.O.T.O.R.'s ability to see past events for any given place inspired an entire generation of "plot devices that make absolutely no sense in any way".