Hush, little Cyberdyne, don't you cry
February 26, 2017 6:48 PM   Subscribe

Millenium FX is a U.K. special effects company that creates work for film, television, commercials, music promos, theatre and corporate projects. Also terrifying animatronic babies.

Their YouTube channels (here and here) have more, including a grisly and fascinating medical reel for the Sky One drama Critical.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (13 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Animatronic baby? Has Mr. Lincoln been fooling around with the red-headed wench from the pirate ride?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:51 PM on February 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


There's an animatronic baby coming soon to Disney's Hall of Presidents.
posted by davebush at 7:13 PM on February 26, 2017 [9 favorites]


That animatronic baby (skinless) is featured in the title sequence of Humans.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:22 PM on February 26, 2017


Thanks for the link - I have to say I love vfx videos, particularly the ones where you see the actors on a green stage and then the world just drops in around them. Such amazing work by the artists creating the digital environments and the actors as well. Here's a recent article and highlights vid by the vfx shop that does the work on the Man in the High Castle.
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:33 PM on February 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


So were those babies for a gig or just for giggles. Also, context. Stick a robot in an incubator and I look for a baby.
posted by Stanczyk at 7:56 PM on February 26, 2017


Because real babies aren't terrifying enough?
posted by klanawa at 7:56 PM on February 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Babies don't move or act in quite the same fashion adults do, of course: I am not sure why, but looking at this brings to mind two words: "uncanny ditch."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:57 PM on February 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


The blank stare. The mechanical clockwork like movement. Nope. This ain't even close to how a baby looks or moves. Fail.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:12 PM on February 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


njohnson23: "The blank stare. The mechanical clockwork like movement. Nope. This ain't even close to how a baby looks or moves. Fail."

Blame it on the puppeteers, methinks.
posted by Samizdata at 10:27 PM on February 26, 2017


"Why do you awaken me without skin?" (context)
posted by kurumi at 10:58 PM on February 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


davebush: "There's an animatronic baby coming soon to Disney's Hall of Presidents."

Oh god, you just made me realize some poor imagineer team is going to actually have to recreate Donald Trump and put him on the same stage as Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt.

...in fact, a quick search shows the exhibit is currently closed until June for renovations -- and that they'll be reskinning and repurposing the more advanced animatronic model used in the existing Obama figure. That's a pleasant mental image.

Speaking of which, here's Wonkette's blog post on the original installation of the Obamabot, which is still one of my favorites from them:
The techno-fascist wizards at Walt Disney’s cryogenic laboratories have designed an android Barack Obama “frighteningly evocative of the real one,” so that the global entertainment corporation can indoctrinate a generation of gullible summer-vacationing children in the ways of our Socialist African Demon King when they just wanted to see the Jonas Bros.-Hannah Montana robot fuck show.

The Obama Simulacrum has been programmed to perform a oratorical waltz with that other robotic president of Disney, Abraham Lincoln. Both will read the Gettysburg Address from million-watt laser teleprompters inside their crystal skulls.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:49 PM on February 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


...in fact, a quick search shows the exhibit is currently closed until June for renovations -- and that they'll be reskinning and repurposing the more advanced animatronic model used in the existing Obama figure. That's a pleasant mental image.

To be clear, this is not done in the fashion of Predator where an elite team of mercenaries is dropped into the Hall of Presidents while the robots pick them off one by one, and instead of the robots being reskinned that the Presidents re-skin them...

Paging Disney... or maybe the Bill and Ted 3 script writers...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:18 AM on February 27, 2017


Blame it on the puppeteers, methinks.

Sure, blame the defenseless guy that probably doesn't even get a movie credit.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:50 AM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


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