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Fritzes 2026: Best Interfaces

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The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition.

Today we’ll be covering Best Interfaces. The movies nominated for Best Interfaces manage the extraordinary challenge of being believable and helping to paint a picture of the world of the story. They advance the state of the art in telling stories with speculative technology.

The winner of the Best Interfaces award for 2025 is Section 31.

As you’ll read below, my posts on the winner will be a series rather than a single post, so let me do one Also Check Out here. 

Bust first, also check out: Superman

Though I have some issues with the amount of fuigetry in most of the screens, and how Lex has to call out countermoves rather than have an assistant offer next most likely countermoves; the robots in the Fortress of Solitude and the crazy-cool gestural control of his spheres by Mr. Terrific make me think that interfaces and tech will not be an afterthought in DC’s new Gunn era. 

A futuristic scene featuring two characters in advanced helmets observing a holographic figure displayed on a device within an icy environment.
A character dressed as Superman lies on a futuristic platform surrounded by humanoid robots.
A humanoid robot dressed in a blue cape interacts with various futuristic controls and glowing crystals in a sci-fi laboratory.
A control room scene featuring a person operating multiple high-tech computer monitors displaying green radar-like graphics. The individual is wearing a headset and appears focused and engaged.
A woman wearing a headset is seated at a high-tech control station, monitoring multiple screens displaying aerial views of urban buildings with data overlays.
A high-tech control room featuring multiple computer screens displaying a heatmap visualization of two figures engaged in a physical altercation, with a person in a headset observing the data.
A futuristic hover vehicle flying over a dense cityscape, with passengers visible inside.
A person flying with a futuristic jetpack over a dense green forest, holding a digital interface display in front of them.
A digital display showing a split view of a hazardous underwater environment with glowing lava and debris, overlaid with red targeting graphics and depth measurements.
A retro-styled computer console displaying red text and data on a screen, with various buttons and controls in a dark environment.
A futuristic setting with multiple screens displaying data in the background. A humanoid figure in a suit stands in the background while a creature with textured skin and a fur-like coat interacts with a glowing object in the foreground. A stylized humanoid statue is seen on the left.
A person monitoring a high-tech screen displaying a cityscape with a superhero figure flying alongside a drone.
A high-tech monitor displaying a holographic image of two figures interacting, surrounded by digital interface elements and controls.

(James: reach out and I’ll send you a free copy of my book about assistants, it would have helped with that Luthor interface.)

The 2026 Best Interfaces Award goes to
Star Trek: Section 31

Maybe I was out of the loop, but I don’t recall hearing a lot of buzz about this movie at the time it came out. But when I finally caught it, I was impressed with the breadth, the art direction, and some interfaces of a sort I don’t think I’ve documented before. This year I’m going to honor the winner with an old-school breakdown, interface-by-interface. In this post we’ll start with a general overview, and then move to the Mission Briefer.

Note I try to only describe just enough so the interfaces can be understood, but since this is a cloak-and-dagger spy thriller, it’s still pretty intricate.

Banner displaying the text 'MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD' in a bold, stylized font, set against a cosmic background.

Plot overview

In the Mirror Universe of Star Trek, the mostly-good United Federation of Planets doesn’t exist. Instead it has a morally-inverse counterpart called the Terran Empire. Philippa Georgiou became ruler of this evil empire in part by defeating and enslaving the ambitious contender San. Once ascended, she exercised cruelty and ruthlessness until sci-fi shenanigans landed her in Prime Universe (the home universe of the shows), in 2257.

[Here I bypass a lot of stuff that happened in Discovery for the sake of brevity.]

A stylish woman with long blue nails and a glamorous outfit is posed at a bar, playfully blowing kisses with a serene expression while illuminated by soft lighting.

Eventually she takes up an alias as “Madame Veronique du Franc”, proprietor of the pleasure space station Baraam, outside Federation territory. Section 31—essentially the Federation’s black ops—sends a team to blackmail Georgiou to help them intercept a superweapon, which happens to be en route to Baraam in the hands of a shady middleman named Dada Noe.

A serious-looking man with a short beard and styled hair, wearing a dark, textured jacket, staring intently.
A man in a futuristic armored suit stands confidently inside a high-tech control room, featuring various glowing screens and controls in the background.
A female character with a bald head, wearing a sparkly silver dress, seated in a futuristic setting with illuminated control panels in the background.
A man in a stylish patterned suit stands in a futuristic setting, with blue and red lighting in the background.
A woman with a blue bob hairstyle and bold makeup, looking contemplatively to the side with dramatic lighting in the background.
Close-up of an alien creature with a large head and expressive eyes, set against a futuristic, colorful background.
A character with pointed ears and blonde hair wearing a red jacket and multiple necklaces stands in a futuristic, dimly lit setting with glowing controls and panels in the background.

The team consists of their superstrong “augment” leader Alok Sahar, a mech-suit guy named Zeph, a seductress named Melle, a shape-shifting genius called Quasi, a buttoned-up Federation overseer named Garrett, and Fuzz, a microscopic Nanokin who pilots a teeny tiny spaceship and most often inhabits a black market Vulcan-looking android body.

Using some technologies called Phase Pods, Georgiou successfully separates the superweapon from Noe only to have it intercepted by a masked person also wearing a phase pod. Masked person kills Melle and escapes with the superweapon, but on the way Georgiou learns it is the Godsend, a quadrant-vaporizing weapon she had commissioned when she was Terran Emperor.

A woman in a dark purple outfit leans forward with an intense expression, looking at a decorative object in front of her.

Georgiou convinces Sahar to form a partnership to recapture the weapon. They beam to his spaceship above a desolate planet where they interrogate Noe. They learn Noe is from the Mirror Universe, where he administered a facility that housed the Godsend. He hatched a plan to sell it and with the money escape to Prime Universe to retire in peace. His portal is an unknown but routinely opening rift between worlds. He tells them he is scheduled to meet his anonymous buyer when the rift next appears in four hours. He expects that if he does not deliver the weapon to his buyer—and the Terran Empire learns that the Godsend is gone—they will trace it to the rift, surge through, and conquer Prime. At that moment a massive explosion rips through the ship. The computer automatically beams the crew to the surface, but Noe dies in fiery debris. (Narratively convenient, but consider that the ship’s computer knew enough to beam our protagonists to safe, non-fiery-debris places, raising the possibility that it chose to murder Noe.)

Sahar says the explosion was sabotage by someone working with the still-unknown Godsend thief. One of them is a mole! Accusations fly, but Garrett focuses them on finding a derelict garbage scow she knows about, as a means to continue their mission. The team splits. Georgiou, Quasi, and Fuzz search for the scow. Sahar, Garette, and Zeph work to repair an antenna in an old Section 31 safehouse so they can warn the Federation of the impending danger.

Team Scow repairs the ship. We see Fuzz behaving a little strangely.

A tall structure emitting a powerful beam of orange light into the night sky, surrounded by trees and a dark landscape.

Meanwhile Zeph skips out on Team Antenna. While Sahar and Garrett search for him, the antenna gets activated, some message sent, and then the antenna is destroyed. The whole team rejoins and begins a search for Zeph. They find him dead. When they recover the video from his mech suit, they see something was controlling his suit and made him kill himself. Georgiou reasons that the mole must be Fuzz, who left his Vulcanbot on autopilot while he flew to Zeph to hook in and control him to commit the crimes and fly back to his bot. Thusly busted, Fuzz takes remote control of Zeph’s suit (grossly with Zeph’s corpse still in it) and the two try to escape on a float. The rest of the crew pursues in a second float, and there’s a vehicle combat sequence. Fuzz tells Georgiou that he’s been working with San. Then San beams Fuzz up to his ship. San speeds toward the rift to tell the Empire everything and begin the invasion. The remaining team gets the scow running and gives chase.

They catch up near the rift and the scow tries to delay its entry into the rift via tractor beam. Sahar and Georgiou beam to San’s ship to learn that San has initiated the Godsend. San fights Georgiou. Sahar fights Vulcanbot while Fuzz escapes to watch from a safe distance. On board the scow, Garrett forges a makeshift weapon in the ship’s hold and they release it at San’s ship. It lands and explodes, giving the heroes the upper hand in their respective fights. Georgiou grabs and activates the Godsend via biometric signature. Quasi manages to beam her and Sahar back to the scow just in time, leaving San, Fuzz, Vulcanbot, and the Godsend to be destroyed in the explosion as it passes back to the Mirror Universe and seal the rift forever. (And, presumably, something about the confluence of energies neuters the Godsend so it doesn’t go on to kill quadrillions in the quadrant where the rift happened to be, because that would be multiple, multiple genocides and sully whatever victory this is.)

Group of three people toasting with drinks in a stylish, futuristic setting.

The movie ends with the team back on the Baraam. They meet Wisp, Fuzz’ widow, piloting a second bootleg Vulcanbot. They receive a mission briefing that has them warping the Baraam (surprise, it’s also a spaceship) towards Turkana IV.

A futuristic spaceship with swirling metallic structures, set against a dark starry background in outer space.

Whew.

Star Trek: Section 31 is primarily set in the 24th-century “Lost Era” between 2324–2326. This places it roughly 66 years after Discovery (2258) and about 40 years before The Next Generation. For continuity, the designers have to find some middle ground between the glowing, 3D, multiplanar translucency of Disco and the flat, 2D, highly-graphic, vibrant oranges-and-blues palette of LCARS. I think they did a really nice job. We see circular, glowing interfaces. We see hints of the fully realized LCARS to come.

A handheld device displaying a character's image with a bloodied face and the text 'MATCH DETECTED' highlighted on the screen.
A person holding a futuristic device displaying a face on the screen, with various data and interface elements visible around the display.
A hand holding a futuristic device displaying a digital map with topographical lines and a central red dot.

There’s also a clear delineation between Federation/Section 31 interfaces, the mining colony interfaces, the few Terran Empire interfaces we see, and those of the foreign-language garbage scow.

A person in a flowing gown stands before a large, intricately designed circular pedestal featuring a golden dragon sculpture, surrounded by a dimly lit, atmospheric environment with glowing elements and red accents.
A close-up of a futuristic control panel displaying various digital readouts and a 3D model of a spacecraft, with a hand interacting with the touchscreen.
Futuristic cockpit interface displaying 'Conveyance Autopilot Engaged' with various control elements and glowing indicators.

San’s ship interior, by the way, is high-contrast red-on-black, and very pointy, making me wonder if the production designers have read my post on the Design of Evil, because it is practically an archetype of those patterns.

A futuristic red spaceship with illuminated edges flying near a large planet, resembling Mars, in a starry space backdrop.
Interior view of a futuristic setting with dramatic lighting, featuring sleek architectural lines and illuminated surfaces.
Two figures in futuristic attire stand in a high-tech environment filled with red and blue LED lights and streaks. Sparks are flying as they navigate the space, suggesting an action scene.

Anyway, now that we have a grasp on the plot, next let’s look more closely at those interfaces.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9603060/Currently streaming on:

Next up: The mission briefer

Fritzes 2026 bonus award: Best Assistant(s)

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The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. Best Assistant is a special award that I’m giving for the first time.

Ok but why now? Well, in March of this year I published a new non-fiction book about the design of technology that assists people doing things (as opposed to doing stuff for them). It’s called Designing Assistant Technology: AI That Makes People Smarter. In the book I lay out a framework for categorizing assistant interactions, and describe the risks and mitigations of having an assistant in the mix. I daresay it’s not only valuable for design, but for scriptwriters and futurists as well. If that intrigues you, look for a discount code near the end of this article.

Anyway, it gave me the idea to select the movie with the best examples of Assistants.

The 2026 Award for Best Assistants: M3gan 2.0

I know, I’m as surprised as you are.

The first movie, while smarter than I expected, seemed to be a horror flick that was using AI as set dressing. It did get a shout-out in the Fritzes 2024 for best HUD, but as I recall, its unbounded atomic optimization was just another way to frame it as a ruthless, efficient killer. But this second one seems to take the theme more seriously, and the scriptwriters did their homework.

A colorful diagram featuring a red loop labeled with the words 'think', 'reflect', 'do', 'see', 'perceive', 'plan', and 'know', alongside a blue mountain icon, representing a cyclical process of action and reflection.

In Part II of the book, I build on the see-think-do loop (that is core to interaction design) to identify the Five Universal Assists. These are the universal, exhaustive set of categories by which technology can assist users: Perceive, Know, Plan, Perform, and Reflect. And to my surprise, when you look close, there are examples of all five of the universal assists in M3gan 2.0, more than any other film in 2025.

Note: M3gan jumps bodies many times over the course of the movie, so you’ll see her described many times with the same name, but with vastly different appearances in the screen shots. 

Perceive

In this assist, the tech helps users perceive signal amidst noise.

Early in the film, Cady discovers that the source code of Better Bionix is being hacked. When everyone comes over to see what’s on her screen, Tess says, “Oh, Jesus. She’s right. There’s stray commands all over the source code.” The screen we see doesn’t ask them (or us) to try and detect which out of the dozens on screen are suspect. Those lines are colored red to contrast greatly with the screen-green, and in case you were colorblind, they’re indented as well. 

A close-up view of a person's head and shoulders in front of a computer monitor displaying code and technical diagrams, suggesting a programming or technical task.

You might think that that M3gan’s alerting Gemma of the FBI home invasion to be an example of perceive, but she was sleeping when the alert comes. In that context, M3gan’s acting more as an agent. (More on that below.)

A woman lying in bed, looking contemplative and concerned while holding a ring, with soft blue lighting.
A person standing in front of a blank screen in a dimly lit room.
Television screen displaying a cooking show featuring a man and a woman promoting a Premium Nonstick Saucepan Set, with a countdown timer and call-to-action information.
A woman with dark hair looks startled and concerned, sitting in a dimly lit room with a lamp visible in the background.
A cartoon character with red hair and a blue outfit is gesturing while standing in front of a glowing circular background in a dark setting.

In act 2, Gemma asks M3gan to increase audio of two conversants at a noisy party, and that might as well be a canonical example. (And the first time she does it, M3gan substitutes audio in a very snarky way, reminding the audience that in a super-AI-mediated world, you cannot implicitly trust the media it controls, reminding us about over-reliance, another theme from Part III of the book.)

A group of professionals engaged in a serious discussion, with visual graphics overlay indicating audio enhancement and data analysis.

Know

In this assist, the tech helps users understand the meaning of what they’ve perceived, either in shallow ways such as names and categories, or very deeply.

HUDs have this built into the trope, and there are plenty of HUDs throughout.

A blurred scene depicting a person aiming a gun while another person is in front of them, with digital overlays indicating 'INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE'.
A tense scene depicting a person aiming a weapon, amid chaos in a dimly lit environment, with digital overlays displaying error messages and a high fatality risk percentage.
A man in a suit looks alarmed while a digital alert reads 'EMP DETECTED' in a futuristic setting.
A muscular man with an intense expression stands near a modern bar, with digital holographic interfaces displaying information in the foreground and background, including calendar details and notifications.
A man with an intense expression stands in a bar setting, shouting. He is shirtless, and various holographic notifications and data overlays are visible around him, displaying information such as weather, calendar events, and financial data.
A man in a futuristic setting interacts with a holographic interface displaying various digital data and notifications, including weather and calendar details.
A woman in a shimmering gold dress stands in a futuristic environment, surrounded by glowing holographic interfaces displaying various digital information and alerts.
A woman in a glamorous gold dress stands in a modern, dimly lit environment with holographic displays around her, showcasing various information such as weather updates and calendar events.
A woman sitting on a round couch, with futuristic holographic interface elements displaying a phone call to security and other options.
A person sitting at a futuristic table with holographic interfaces displayed, surrounded by a modern and cozy interior.
Close-up of an eye with a digital interface overlay indicating 'SCAN COMPLETE'.
Close-up of a human eye with digital scan interfaces overlaying the image, indicating a retinal data scan in progress.
Close-up of a man's face with eyes closed, displaying a digital interface showing a retinal data scan in progress.
A futuristic virtual environment displaying a music interface with options for playback and lighting settings, featuring glowing elements and a background view of a city skyline.
A woman in a shiny gold dress sits on a curved sofa, surrounded by holographic interface elements displaying various digital options, including search functions and weather information.
A man with gray hair and a serious expression is depicted in a futuristic setting. Digital data overlays displaying personal information such as weight, height, BMI, sexual preference, and intelligence level are visible in the image.
A futuristic scene featuring a man with short hair and a metallic outfit, standing in a crowded space with a green holographic display showing his personal information, including weight, height, and BMI.
A man with glasses and curly hair, wearing a vest and shirt, looks at a digital interface displaying 'IDENTITY CONFIRMED' and 'ANALYSIS COMPLETED' in a high-tech setting.
A bearded man in a suit stands in a futuristic lab, with green holographic elements and digital screens in the background, creating a sci-fi atmosphere.
A bearded man sitting at a cluttered desk with various scientific equipment, looking intently at a digital screen.
A close-up view of a person wearing headphones, focused on a digital screen displaying flames inside a fireplace, with a futuristic interface surrounding the display.

But also, when beginning their joint hunt for AMELIA, M3gan explains that every battery Altwave (the villain corporation in the film) makes has a remote-controllable kill switch, explaining the meaning of what Gemma sees in the file.

A friendly-looking teal robot with large eyes stands between two women in a modern office setting.
An open binder on a table displaying documents and images related to a project, with a hand resting on the binder.
A woman with long brown hair, wearing a dark sweatshirt, is focused on a magnifying lamp in a well-lit room with large windows.
A close-up view of two buttons labeled 'AW,' observed through a magnifying glass, with a person's hands holding the magnifier.

When infiltrating Altwave, M3gan(toy) explains why AMELIA is there as well: She seeks to control Altwave’s cloud servers, which are half of North America. That control enables AMELIA to disable the economy, threatening “societal collapse in 10 to 12 working days”. 

A high-tech computer screen displaying a map of the United States with data points connected by lines, overlaid with programming code.

Plan

In this assist, it helps users plan their course of action, tactically or strategically.

When M3gan comes out of hiding and presents a deal to Gemma, she explains that she’s run a thousand simulations and if they don’t team up, more people die than if they didn’t. M3gan asks, “Who is the real killer in that situation?” Not having much of a choice, Gemma agrees.

A woman with long hair and a bow tie stands in front of a textured brick wall, featuring a ghostly or ethereal effect.

A key part of the planning assist is helping users know what the best course of action is.

Perform

In this assist, the tech helps users perform some task.

One of the first scenes in the film has Tess and Cole demonstrating an exosuit. In their pitch they explain to the potential investor that its purpose is to help laborers avoid fatigue while performing physical tasks. To demonstrate, Cole lifts huge concrete blocks without showing any signs of exertion.

A male character wearing a light gray shirt and robotic arm devices stands in a set design, while a female character in a black and white outfit is operating a device on a stand. The background includes shelves with equipment and lighting setups.
A person performing a pull-up exercise in a modern workshop filled with tools and equipment.
A young man in a workshop is lifting a large piece of material, wearing a futuristic glove, while a woman observes him with a thoughtful expression in the background.
A man in a workshop environment with advanced technology is interacting with a woman, who appears to be amused. The room is filled with various equipment and computers.
A man with short hair wearing a high-tech suit is standing in an industrial setting, extending his arms out while engaging with a concrete structure.

A few beats later, slimy Elon-Musk stand-in demonstrates how his neural chip helps him stand though he is ordinarily bound to his wheelchair.

A man seated in a modern chair, appearing contemplative, with a robotic character and a woman in the background operating a computer in a tech-filled room.
A close-up of the back of a man's neck featuring a futuristic device embedded in the skin, with a glowing light at its center. A blurred figure is seen in the background.
A group of people in a modern workspace observing a man in a chair who is preparing to interact with a robotic arm. The setting features computers and various technological equipment.

In the climax, M3gan stows away on a neural chip forcibly implanted on Gemma. When Gemma dons an exosuit the AI helps her defeat many goons in hand to hand combat. It’s arguably acting as an agent here, since Gemma isn’t trying to build those skills. (Similarly when Gemma gets knocked unconscious, M3gan controls the exosuit to animate her body anyway, something we also see in Section 31, but more on this example in a later post.)

Reflect

In this assist—the most abstract of them—the technology helps users reflect on things to turn experience into knowledge, or to question their goals and future tactics.

There’s a lot less of this here, just like there is in the real world. But, we see some of it.When Cady asks M3gan(half-formed) how she can feel anything, M3gan replies, “Can you explain why you feel things?” It’s rhetorical in context, but exactly the sort of thing that a reflection assistant might ask. 

A close-up of a vintage robotic figure with expressive features and tangled wires, set against a dark, atmospheric background.

When Gemma is spiraling about her parenting in the basement, M3gan(souped up) takes a moment to share counterexamples. “I saw you wake up every day at 4:00 A.M., staring at the ceiling contemplating what the future holds for her…I watched you make homemade lunches with fresh-baked sourdough…I watched you help her with her homework, even though it always ended in a fight…Gemma, it’s not a failure to feel guilt or that you’re not enough. It’s part of the job.” It’s not the best fit for the definition of this assist I give in the book, but it’s the closest thing in the movie and the closest thing in my survey of the year’s films.

A humanoid robot with long hair and large, expressive eyes sitting next to a woman in a dark environment. The robot's outfit has a shiny, futuristic design, and a computer screen with data is visible in the background.

Also agents

There are also many examples where M3gan(AI) acts as an agent on their behalf, but that was my last book, so I’ll skip getting into those examples. But as you watch the movie, keep an eye out for additional shouts out to the paperclip thought experiment (a metaphor for the threat of instrumental convergence), allusions to the Xerox WorkCentre scanner bug, and of course super AI as an existential threat. The whole plot can be seen as an example of Bostrom’s a priori argument that multiple super AIs are the most stable scenario. All this is why I say that the writers seemed to have done their homework..

I’m a lot less fond about the guy wanting to regulate/eliminate AI is painted the bad guy, but having positioned M3gan as sentient and the antihero of the film, I’m not sure what else they could do. But I wish it didn’t valorize AI as equivalent to humans despite all of that. We have enough LeMoinian panic about large language models as it is.

Anyway, congratulations to M3gan 2.0 for showing so many examples of assistants throughout. If you’re interested in getting the book, you can get 20% off if you purchase from Rosenfeldmedia.com and use the code “scifi26” during checkout. Use this power only for good.

And let me know in comments if you think of other examples of assistants across the year.

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26342662/Currently streaming on:

Next up: A Big Screen Label Roundup

Fritzes 2026 bonus award: Best Robots

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The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition.

The 2026 Award for Best Robots: The Electric State

The Fritzes has been tracking robots in cinema for a few years now. My favorite from 2025 is The Electric State. The film is a Netflix film adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s luscious illustrated novel of the same name. And some of the robots we see in the film are directly lifted from his illustrations. So this award partly goes to you, Simon. 

A futuristic landscape featuring a massive, rusted robot sculpture in an urban setting, with two figures standing in front of it. Cars are parked nearby under a bridge, with mountains visible in the background and a clear sky above.
A whimsical landscape featuring a large, rusty robot figure lying in a desert setting, surrounded by sparse vegetation and mountains in the background under a blue sky.

But in the movie they are animated and voiced, and there are new ones as well, so it is its own thing. It has Chris Pratt, who is problematic for offscreen reasons, and the script can be somewhat tropey, but the film has nifty world building. In the diegesis, sentient robots are seen as enemies of the state and excommunicated to form their own outcast cities. The design of the robots betray their capitalist origins. Mascots and advertisements. Job-tailored bots. They are quirky and charming and all sizes, and help critique a system that fully deserves it.

A futuristic desert scene featuring various robotic characters and a dilapidated building with the sign 'SEARS'. Numerous robots are depicted interacting and exploring the area, amidst rocky cliffs in the background.
A vintage-style robot with large, expressive eyes hovering over a metallic trash can lid.
A group of cartoonish robots in a lush, overgrown environment, with one robot holding a sign that reads 'ROBOT RIGHTS.'
A large robotic figure with a cat-like head, holding a small person in a top hat, set against a cloudy sky.
A robotic arm interacts with an old computer displaying a smiling cartoon face with glasses, while another robot stands nearby in an industrial setting.
A humanoid robot with a baseball theme, featuring a cap and a bat, standing in a setting with vibrant colors and a star-patterned background.
A small futuristic robot with multiple limbs and tools, cleaning a dusty, neglected floor in an indoor setting.
A stylized diner named 'Greasers Diner' featuring a mechanical character resembling a peanut in a top hat and suit, standing in front of the entrance.
A close-up of a cartoonish female police officer robot with large blue eyes and a blue uniform, surrounded by various other robot characters in a futuristic setting.
A colorful scene featuring animated robots in a workshop filled with tangled wires and tools. One robot has a green cylindrical body with glasses, while others have unique designs, standing amidst a cluttered environment.
A robotic dog figure sitting in a chair with a whimsical design, surrounded by comic book covers and a sign that says 'BY THE FOOD COURT'.
A puppet-like character in a puppet booth is interacting with two people, one with long hair and the other with short hair, in an outdoor setting.
A large robot holding a vintage Volkswagen bus, standing in a barren landscape with metallic structures in the background.
A young woman with long hair and a backpack stands in an industrial setting, looking at a large, spider-like robot. The robot has a rounded head and metallic limbs, surrounded by a variety of objects including vehicles and equipment.
A barren landscape featuring large, damaged yellow duck-shaped structures scattered in the foreground, with a small robot and two figures standing beside a broken one, under a cloudy sky.
A playful robot character with a yellow, smiling face and large eyes, interacting with a person in a casual indoor setting, while a child observes in the background.
A large robotic figure leaning over a white architectural structure with arches, set against a backdrop of buildings and blue sky.

Also check out: Superman!

 James Gunn’s first D.C. movie brought Superman to life and added some things to its lore, such as: Kal-El has four service robots that support him in his Fortress of Solitude. They’re just called Superman Robots at first. Their chest plates identify them by number: 1, 4, 5, and 12. They’re on the far side of the canny rise, one-eyed and very much robotic, with charming banter. At the end of the movie, after it is rebuilt, number four dons a cape and chooses a name, and that name is Gary. Gary’s just a mensch “with no emotional capacity whatsoever”. (And that frankness is why I like Gary.)

A futuristic robot with a blue metallic face and a cape stands in a high-tech control room, surrounded by glowing circular displays and crystal-like objects on a console.
A dramatic scene featuring a fallen superhero in a red and blue costume surrounded by futuristic robotic figures and a small dog in a snowy, icy environment.
Three futuristic robots gathered in a vibrant, crystalline environment, with one robot displaying the number '4' on its chest, suggesting a moment of discussion or decision.
A scene depicting a man wearing a superhero costume lying on a futuristic bed, surrounded by robotic figures with metallic blue bodies.
A futuristic robot with a streamlined metallic design and glowing blue eyes, set against a crystalline background.

Also check out: M3gan 2.0!

One of the smart things the M3gan franchise uses in their diegesis is that AI and robotic housings are not tightly bound. AI can slip out of a housing, replicate itself, find new embodiments on the network, manage multiple embodiments, coordinate disparate housings, etc. Over the course of the movie, we see M3gan and her nemesis AMELIA in many kinds of robot bodies in many states of development. My favorite is the cute little toy that Gemma puts M3gan while she was figuring out if the AI could be trusted.

A small, friendly-looking robot with a teal body and large expressive eyes, standing on a cluttered workspace.

This decoupling is an important difference in AI capabilities that don’t jive with our anthropocentric models. Humans and animals can’t do that, so it’s something that bears literacy.

A small, round robot figure with a glowing light in its head, sitting on a wooden surface in a dimly lit room.
A close-up of a humanoid robot with exposed wires and mechanical features, set against a blue-lit industrial background.
A humanoid robot with a shiny gold exterior is seated in a reclining chair, while a person in a plaid shirt stands beside it, in a dimly lit room with an industrial ambiance.
A humanoid robot with a metallic body and realistic features stands in front of a mirror, reflecting a lush, green background.
A futuristic robot with metallic skin and glowing red eyes, pointing its right arm forward in a modern, high-tech environment.
A close-up of a small, metallic robotic hand on the floor, with a blurred human hand reaching towards it in the background.
A vintage robot with glowing eyes stands in the foreground, observing a family gathering in a cozy living room. The family, consisting of a boy, a girl, and two adults, are sitting around a table engaged in a game or activity, with soft lighting and indoor plants in the background.
A close-up of a humanoid robot with long hair and striking blue eyes, sitting across from a woman with dark hair. The setting includes a futuristic backdrop with screens displaying data.
A close-up of a friendly-looking robot with a smooth teal exterior and expressive digital eyes displaying surprise or curiosity.
A woman in futuristic silver armor is seated in a high-tech chair surrounded by wires and glowing elements in a dimly lit setting.
A dynamic shot of a person with long hair moving their head dramatically, set in a futuristic environment with glowing lights and industrial elements.

Shout out to the Act III robot design for AMELIA that references Hajime Sorayama’s illustrations from the 80s and 90s, because reference!

A futuristic robot with a reflective silver surface and glowing red eyes, standing in a modern, dimly lit environment with people dancing in the background.
Album cover for 'That's the Stuff' by Autograph, featuring a stylized robotic figure in a black outfit against a blue background.

Also check out: Section 31!

Near the end of the film, Garrett finds a Droom doll in the hold of a garbage scow they’ve commandeered. The doll has sensors to detect its context, and actuators to move the arms, head, and mouth. Its three eyes can illuminate. It has speech generation and, as we discover, general reasoning capabilities. When Garrett first finds it, it says, “Hi there! I’m so glad you found me!” It suggests play time with, “Shall we do something fun together?” and spins its head around, whipping its indigo-colored hair in circles.

A small, animated creature with round eyes peeking through a pile of scrap metal and debris, surrounded by chains and various discarded materials.
A character holding a small, designed figure with round features and glowing blue eyes, surrounded by scattered debris.

Garrett pours acid on its volatile power source to turn it into a bomb, and it begins to malfunction, uttering child-friendly things like “We can be friends forever” and dark things, like, “We’re all gonna die! We’re all gonna die!” It is released from the ship to explode in space and destroy another ship that is chasing it.

A stylized robotic creature with glowing blue eyes, designed with various textures and materials, set against a dark background.
We’re all gonna die!

The conclusion that “we’re all gonna die” is immediately true in the diegesis, not just the morbid, general version of that same truth. But making this conclusion depends not just on context, but general causal reasoning. My decaying battery is going to explode and destroy everything and everyone around it, so I’m going to shout that fact. Note it does not actually issue a warning for the owner to flee, which it should do, but we can chalk that up to malfunction. It hints that the Droom are a species with vast technological resources but troublingly weak risk assessment. All from a tiny little robot with mere seconds of screen time.

Next up: The best assistants of 2025

The Fritzes 2022 Winners

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The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. Awards are given for Best Believable, Best Narrative, Audience Choice, and Best Interfaces (overall.) This blog’s readership is also polled for Audience Favorite interfaces, and this year, favorite robot. Following are the results.

Best Believable

These movies’ interfaces adhere to solid HCI principles and believable interactions. They engage us in the story world by being convincing. The nominees for Best Believable are Swan Song, Stowaway, and Needle in a Timestack.

The winner of the Best Believable award for 2022 is Swan Song.

Swan Song

Facing a terminal illness, Cameron Turner must make a terrible choice: have his wife and children suffer the grief of losing him, or sign up to be secretly swapped with a healthy clone of himself, and watch from afar as his replacement takes over his life with his unaware loved ones.

The film is full of serene augmented reality and quiet technology. It’s an Apple TV production, and very clearly inspired by Apple’s sensibilities: Slim panes of paper-white slabs that house clean-lined productivity tools, fit-to-purpose assistant wearables, and charming AI characters. Like the iPad’s appearance in The Incredibles, Swan Song’s technologies feel like a well-designed smoke-and-mirrors prototype of an AR world maybe a few years from launch.

Perhaps even more remarkably, the cloning technology that is central to the plot’s film has none of the giant helmets-with-wires that seem to be the go-to trope for such things. That’s handled almost entirely as a service with jacketed frontstage actors and tiny brain-reading dots that go on Cameron’s temples. A minimalist touch in a minimalist world that hides the horrible choices that technology asks of its citizens.

Audience Choice, too!

All of the movies nominated for other awards were presented for an Audience Choice award. Across social media, the readership was invited to vote for their favorite, and the results tallied. The winner of the Audience Choice award for 2022 is Swan Song. Congratulations for being the first film to win two Fritzes in the same year! To celebrate, here’s another screen cap from the film, showing the AR game Cameron plays with his son. Notably the team made the choice to avoid the obvious hot-signaling that almost always accompanies volumetric projections in screen sci-fi.

Best Narrative

These movies’ interfaces blow us away with wonderful visuals and the richness of their future vision. They engross us in the story world by being spectacular. The nominees for Best Narrative are The Mitchells vs The Machines, Reminiscence, and The Matrix: Resurrections.

The winner of the Best Narrative award for 2022 is The Mitchells vs The Machines.

The Mitchells vs The Machines

Katie Mitchell is getting ready to go to college for filmmaking when the world is turned upside down by a robot uprising, which is controlled by an artificial intelligence that has just been made obsolete. Katie and her odd family have to keep themselves safe from capture by the robots and ultimately save all of humanity—all while learning to love each other.

The charming thing about the triangle-heavy and candy-colored interfaces in the film are that they are almost wholly there for the robots doing their humanity-destroying job. Diegetically, they’re not meant for humans, but extradiegetically, they’re there to help tell the audience what’s happening. That’s a delicate balance to manage, and to do it while managing hilarity, lambasting Silicon Valley’s cults of personality, and providing spectacle; is what earns this film its Fritz.

Best Robot: Bubs!

There was a preponderance of interesting robots in sci-fi last year. So 2022 has a new category of Audience Choice, and that’s for Best Robot. The readership was invited to vote for their favorite from…

  • The unnamed bartender from Cosmic Sin
  • Jeff from Finch
  • Eric and Deborahbot 5000 from The Mitchells vs. The Machines
  • Bubs from Space Sweepers
  • Steve from the unsettling Settlers

The audience vote is clear: The wisecracking Bubs from Space Sweepers wins! Bubs’ emotions might have been hard to read with the hard plastic shell of a face. But pink blush lights and a display—near where the mouth would be—reinforce the tone of speech with characters like “??” and “!!” and even cartoon mouth expressions. Additionally, near the end of the movie Bubs has enough money to get a body upgrade, and selects a female-presenting humanoid body and voice, making a delightful addition to the Gendered AI finding than when AI selects a gender, it picks female. Congrats, Bubs!

Best Interfaces (best overall)

The movies nominated for Best Interfaces manage the extraordinary challenge of being believable and helping to paint a picture of the world of the story. They advance the state of the art in telling stories with speculative technology. The nominees for Best Narrative are Oxygen, Space Sweepers, and Voyagers.

The winner of the Best Interfaces award for 2022 is Oxygen.

Oxygen

A woman awakes in an airtight cryogenic chamber with no knowledge of who or where she is. In this claustrophobic space, she must work with MILO, an artificial intelligence, to manage the crisis of her dwindling oxygen supply and figure out what’s going on before it’s too late.

Nearly all of the film happens in this coffin-like space between the actress and MILO. The interface shows modes for media searches, schematic searches, general searches, media playback, communication, and health monitoring as the woman tries to work the problem and save her own life. It shows a main screen directly above her, a ring of smaller interfaces placed in a corona around her head, and it also has volumetric display capabilities. The interfaces are lovely with tightly controlled palettes, an old sci-fi standby typeface Eurostyle (or is it some derivative?), and excellent signals for managing attention and conveying urgency.

The interface is critical to the narration, its tension, and the ultimate dark reveal and resolution of the story—a remarkable feat for a sci-fi interface.

I would love to extend my direct congratulations to all the studios who produced this work, but Hollywood is complicated and makes it difficult to identify exactly whom to credit for what. So let me extend my congratulations generally to the nominees and winners for an extraordinary body of work. If you are one of these studios, or can introduce me, please let me know; I’d love to do some interviews for the blog. Here’s looking to the next year of sci-fi cinema.

Mission slot

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To provide the Victim Cards to the Robot Asesino, Orlak inserts it into an open slot in the robot’s chest, which then illuminates, confirming that the instructions have been received.

There is, I must admit, a sort of lovely, morbid poetry to a cardiogram being inserted into a slot where the robot heart would be to give the robot instructions to end the beating of the human heart described in the cardiogram. And we don’t see a lot of poetry in sci-fi interface designs. So, props for that.

The illumination is a nice bit of feedback, but I think it could convey the information in more useful and cinegenic ways.

In this new scenario…

  • Orlak has the robot pull back its coat
  • The chamfered slot is illuminated, signaling “card goes here.”
  • As Orlak inserts the target card, the slot light dims as the chest-cavity light brightens, signaling “I have the card.”
  • After a moment, the chest-cavity light turns blood red, signaling confirmation of the victim and the new dastardly mission.

When the robot returns to Orlak after completing a mission, the red light would dim as the slot light illuminates again, signaling that it is ready for its next mission.

These changes improve the interface by first drawing the user’s locus of attention exactly where it needs to go, and then distinguishing the internal system states as they happen. It would also work for the audience, who understands by association that red means danger.

The shape of the slot is pretty good for its base usability. It has clear affordances with its placement, orientation, and metallic lining. There’s plenty of room to insert the target card. It might benefit from a fillet or chamfer for the slot, to help avoid accidentally crumpling the paper cards when they are aimed poorly.

In addition to the tactical questions of illumination and shape of the slot, I have a few strategic questions.

  • There is no authorization in evidence. Can just anyone specify a target? Why doesn’t Gaby use her luchadora powers to Spin-A-Roonie a target card with Orlak’s face on it and let the robot save the day? Maybe the robot has a whitelist of heartbeats, and would fight to resist anyone else, but that’s just me making stuff up.
  • Also I’m not sure why the card stays in the robot. That leaves a discoverable paper trail of its crimes, perfect for a Scooby to hand over to the federales. Maybe the robot has some incinerator or shredder inside? If not, it would be better from Orlak’s perspective to design it as an insert-and-hold slot, which would in turn require a redesign of the card to have some obvious spot to hold it, and a bump-in on the slot to make way for fingers. Then he could remove the incriminating evidence and destroy it himself and not worry whether the robot’s paper shredder was working or not.
  • Another problem is that, since the robot doesn’t talk, it would be difficult to find out who its current target is at any given time. Since anyone can supply a target, Orlak can’t just rely on his memory to be certain. If the card was going to stay inside, it would be better to have it displayed so it’s easy to check.
  • How would Orlak cancel a target?
  • It is unclear how Orlak specifies whether the target is to be kidnapped or killed even though some are kidnapped and some are killed.
  • It’s also unclear about how Orlak might rescind or change an order once given.
  • It is also unclear how the assassin finds its target. Does it have internal maps with addresses? Or does it have unbelievably good hearing that can listen to every sound nearby, isolate the particular heartbeat in question, and just head in that direction, destroying any walls it encounters? Or can it reasonably navigate human cities and interiors to maintain its disguise? Because that would be some amazing technology for 1969. This last is admittedly not an interface question, but a backworlding question for believability.

So there’s a lot missing from the interface.

It’s the robot assassin designer’s job to not just tick a box to tell themselves that they have provided feedback, but to push through the scenarios of use to understand in detail how to convey to the evil scientist what’s happening with his murderous intent.

Playing the Victim Card

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To specify a target for assassination or kidnapping, Orlak (or a henchman) inserts a specially designed card into a slot built into the robot’s chest, right at its heart. One of those cards is below.

The layout of the card puts the victim’s picture on the left; a node-graph diagram that looks like a constellation diagram, and some inscrutable symbols on the right. The characters discuss that this card contains a cardiogram of the victim, but it’s unclear which part of the card has this information, because they usually look something like this:

1896 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution
only license CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Oh, it’s probably worth mentioning that one of the movie’s givens is that a cardiogram can uniquely identify a person, like a thumbprint (which isn’t as provably unique as popular culture would have us believe). But to use a cardiogram to locate a person without a ubiquitous sensing network (unthinkable in 1969) would require a very high resolution cardiogram, a wall-piercing sensors, and some shockingly advanced pattern matching on the part of the robot, and I’m not sure I’m willing to give this film that much credit.

Presuming that there are lots of technical reasons for the stuff on the right, and the robot needs the profile for visual recognition, I imagine the only thing missing is a human-readable name so these are easy for the henchmen and scientists to discuss amongst themselves. I mean, they might happen to know every single scientist in town by sight, but having the name would avoid possible misidentifications. The design of artifacts have to take into account all common scenarios of use, including production, maintenance, and storage.

Speaking of which, it’s unclear how these cards are produced. They seem like they take a lot of expert effort to produce and fabricate. Let’s give the film credit to say that this is a deliberate attempt by the enslaved scientists to…

  • Make something as irrevocable as a death sentence very difficult to order.
  • Ensure an order to the murderous robot takes time, and thereby give time to let passions subside and orders to be rescinded.
  • Serve as a bailiwick of sorts, being too difficult for a layperson to do, and thereby difficult to turn on its masters.
  • Secure their jobs.

LATE BREAKING UPDATE: Turns out these cards are a copy of cards from The Avengers (1961–1969). Check out the comparison.

The FloorMaster

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As Joe wanders through the (incredibly depressing) lobby of St. God’s Memorial Hospital, it is at once familiar but wrong. One of these wrong things is a floor cleaning robot labeled The FloorMaster. It loudly announces “YOUR FLOOR IS NOW CLEAN!” while bumping over and over into a toe kick under a cabinet. (It also displays this same phrase on a display panel.) The floor immediately below its path is, in fact, spotless, but the surrounding floor is so filthy it is opaque with dirt, as well as littered with syringes and trash lined with unsettling stains.

There are few bananas for scale, but I’m guessing it’s half meter square. It has a yellow top with green sides and highlights. It has bumpers and some greebles and an amber display screen on top. “The FloorMaster” logo is printed on its side.

Narratively awesome

The wonderful thing about this device is it quickly tells us many things at once. First, the FloorMaster is a technology that is, itself, kind of stupid. Today’s Roombas “know” to turn a bit when they bump into a wall. It’s one of the basic ways they avoid this very scenario. So this illustrates that the technology in this world is, itself, kind of stupid. (How society managed to make it this far without imploding or hell, exploding, is a mystery.)

It also shows that the people around the machines are failing to notice and do anything about the robot. They are either too dull to notice or this is just so common that it’s not worth doing anything about.

It also shows how stupid capitalism has become (it’s a running theme of St. God’s and the rest of the movie). It calls itself the floor master, but in no way has it mastered your floors. In no way are your floors clean, despite what the device itself is telling and blinking at you. And CamelCase brand names are so 1990s, much less 2505.

floornowclean

Realistically stupid

So, I wrote this whole book about agents, i.e. technologies that persistently respond to triggers with behaviors that serve people. It’s called Designing Agentive Technologies: AI That Works for People. One of my recurring examples in that book and when I speak publicly about that content is the Roomba, so I have a bookload of opinions on how this thing should be designed. I don’t want to simply copy+paste that book here. But know that Chapter 9 is all about handoff and takeback between an agent and a user, and ideally this machine would be smart enough to detect when it is stuck and reach out to the user to help.

33446295894_9b5c594a2b_k.jpg

I would be remiss not to note that, as with the The Fifth Element floor sweeping robots, safety of people around the underfoot robot is important. This is especially true in a hospital setting, where people may be in a fragile state and not as alert as they would ordinarily be. So unless this was programmed to run only when there was no one around, it seems like a stupid thing to have in a hospital. OK, chalk another point up to its narrative virtues.

Fighting US Idiocracy

Speaking of bots, there is a brilliant bot that you can sign up for to help us resist American idiocracy. It’s the resistbot, and you can find it on Facebook messenger, twitter, and telegram. It provides easy ways to find out who represents you in Congress, and deliver messages to them in under 2 minutes. It’s not as influential as an in-person visit or call, but as part of your arsenal, it helps with reminders for action. Join!

resistbot-banner.png

Café 80s

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BttF_058

Following Dr. Brown’s instructions, Marty heads to Café 80s where the waitstaff consists of television screens mounted on articulated arms which are suspended from the ceiling, allowing them to reach anyplace in the café. Each screen has a shelf on which small items can be delivered to a patron. Each screen features a different celebrity from the 1980s, rendered as a computer talking head and done in a jittery Max Headroom style.

A retro-style kitchen with vibrant decor, featuring a woman in a pink outfit sitting at a counter, watching a vintage television while surrounded by multiple screens displaying various images.
A person with short blonde hair sits at a retro-style table, watching a television showing a close-up of a person speaking, surrounded by a wall covered in various stickers and posters.
A retro-themed diner featuring a roller-skating waitress taking an order at the counter, with colorful decorations and an old man sitting at a table using a laptop.
A character wearing a colorful hat watches a vintage-style television displaying two hosts in a diner setting, featuring Pepsi logos on the tables.

Patrons speak directly to the figure on screen as if it was a human server. With perfect speech recognition, the figures engage in dialogue with the customer to answer questions and take orders. When Marty orders a Pepsi, the waiterbot turns away to attend to other customers, and a small cylinder rises from the Pepsi-branded table in front of him containing a “Pepsi Perfect.” When Marty removes the soda, the delivery cylinder descends quickly back into the table with a whoosh.

BttF_061

Sure. This is functional as a robotic cafe. The limitations of the cafe are apparent when a violent gang intrudes, and the cafe does nothing to help protect its customers or itself, not even call human officers to intervene.

Fueling stations

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BttF_041

Fueling stations are up on a raised platform. Cars can ride or land there and approach a central column. A rotating overhead arm maneuvers a liquid fuel dispensing robot into place near the car while a synthesized voice crudely welcomes the driver, delivers a marketing slogan, and announces its actions, i.e. checking oil, and checking landing gear.”

A scene depicting the Hill Valley Courthouse in the foreground, featuring a pond and modern buildings in the background. Two characters are walking past, one in an orange jacket and another in a grey outfit with a colorful cap.
A character in futuristic clothing gazes at Hill Valley Courthouse, featuring modern architecture and a serene water feature, with people walking in the foreground.
View of Hill Valley Courthouse in a futuristic setting, with people walking by and a pond in the foreground.
A vibrant scene depicting a futuristic street with a large building labeled 'Holomax Jaws 19' and a man in a colorful outfit walking towards it. People are seen engaging in various activities, including a cyclist and a group standing near a red sports car.
A vintage Texaco gas station with bright signage, featuring a large logo and a fuel pump, under a clear blue sky.
A futuristic Texaco gas station with a sleek, rounded design and red and black color scheme, featuring a prominent Texaco logo and a robotic fuel dispenser.

This seems like a pretty good robot solution. It’s efficient, and keeps the pilot informed of status. I presume payment happens as automatically, but we don’t see it.

The biggest improvement I’d make is to the horribly synthesized voice. Sure it conveys that this is a robot, but where movies optimize for the first time user, that crap would get tiring on a frequent use. Pilots could also save time out of their day and do a bit of environmental good if refueling could happen at home using an technology readily available as an off-the-shelf appliance. But where would one find such a thing?

Drone Programmer

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A close-up of a hand wearing a glove holding a futuristic device with a screen displaying a holographic globe and various data interfaces.

One notable hybrid interface device, with both physical and digital aspects, is the Drone Programmer. It is used to encode key tasks or functions into the drone. Note that it is seen only briefly—so we’re going off very little information. It facilitates a crucial low-level reprogramming of Drone 172.

This device is a handheld item, grasped on the left, approximately 3 times as wide as it is tall. Several physical buttons are present, but are unused in the film: aside from grasping, all interaction is done through use of a small touchscreen with enough sensitivity to capture fingertip taps on very small elements.

Jack uses the Programmer while the drone is disabled. When he pulls the cord out of the drone, the drone restarts and immediately begins to try and move/understand its surroundings.

A person stands facing a large, futuristic robotic head with multiple cameras and sensors, while two armed figures are positioned nearby in a dimly lit environment.
When Drone 172 is released from the Programmer cable, it is in a docile and inert state…
A person standing in front of a large, futuristic robotic machine with glowing lights and mechanical arms, set in a dimly lit environment.
…but it quickly becomes aware, its failsafes shut down and its onboard programming taking over.

From this we understand that drones are controlled via internal software; this is the only time we see them programmed or their behavior otherwise influenced by a human. This reprogramming requires an external device wired into the drone in direct physical proximity, which suggests an otherwise high level of autonomy for each drone.

(Narrative implications) Following Orders

The Drone Programmer, and the way it interacts with Drone 172, suggests useful information about the Drones’ default states—namely, that their default state is autonomous, aggressive, and proactive, depending upon their orders and programming.

Drone 172 does not attack at this stage, and we have seen through Jack’s eyes on the screen that this is due to an overriding primary objective, implanted directly into the Drone’s firmware / low level programming: Rendezvous with the Tet.

Low Level Controller: Handle With Care

A gloved hand holding a futuristic device with a digital screen displaying various readings and graphs.

Its suggestion of a provisional or failsafe role is reinforced by warning text above the display, (legible at high resolution,) reflective of its power: “Electric Hazard Do Not Touch Terminals on Both Lines at Same Time: Lead Ends May Be Energized…”

Between this and the sparks ignited when the cable is detached from the Drone, one gets the sense of a device somewhere between a terminal and a jumper cable. Potent, hazardous, direct.

A close-up image of a hand holding a wire while interacting with the interior of a mechanical object.
A close-up of a male astronaut in a futuristic suit, focused on a mechanical device above him, set in a dimly lit environment with sparks and steam.

Jack is clearly at ease with the Programmer and its usage from repair sessions at home and in the field. This ease suggests either that his training (or memory replacement) is thorough, or that such low level work is needed frequently enough to be quite familiar.

The latter explanation, along with the Programmer’s nature as a physical device requiring direct proximity, would reinforce the interpretation that Tet places a remarkable amount of trust in instances of the human Maintenance team, and that the equipment in question is nearly symbiotic with the Team(s) in its need for frequent recovery.

Thus through this one seemingly incidental device, and its low level role in the chain of command, we can deduce that the combination of Drones and Team(s) is much more effective than either could be individually. Jack was reprogrammed by his time spent in curious wandering, crossed with the opportunity presented by the book quotation mentioned as a trigger. In the case of Jack, the book and its couplet is the low-level reprogramming device, shocking in its directness.

Dialogue within the film reinforces the analogy directly: We learn during this sequence that the first invasion phase entailed many instances of a short-lived (non-learning) Jack as soldier. We also learn that phase two is this symbiotic maintenance arrangement between human and machine. When it is suggested that Drone 172 is the weapon, Jack corrects that it is he himself—its user and maintainer—who is the weapon. Without his role as user and maintainer, the machine would ultimately be a neutralized mechanical husk.

Lessons:

  1. Low level interfaces suggest fundamental programming and activity.
    (NOTE: Compare to interfaces such as the Nostromo Self Destruct pulls in Alien, etc.)
  2. Use of low level interfaces suggests familiarity and/or “grace under pressure”, as well as systemic trust in the user.
  3. Low level interfaces suggest a deep symbiosis between the user and the machine, to the point of interdependence.
    (NOTE: Compare to failsafe systems and manual overrides in aeronautics and (a few realistic moments in) space films such as Sunshine. In an alternate universe, I have the time to cover/analyse Sunshine to uncover this very dynamic…)
  4. Bonus Lesson (Oblivion-centric): By analogy, in highly technological or post-apocalyptic settings, books are, for humans, a low level interface, forcing the user to slow down and absorb sometimes startling, unexpected, or course-changing information.