Battle Royale: When Movie Robots Fight TV Robots

To celebrate Terminator Salvation rolling into cinemas, we've decided to bring together the baddest and saddest 'bots in movie and telly history for a big metal scrap.

These bad-ass bags of bolts can't wait to brawl - so we're going to step out of the way and toss the terrible twosomes into the ring, and see which metallic maniac makes it out operational...

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The most evolved Terminator is a lady – take that gender politics! She’s got a full ‘bot bag of tricks, including a plasma energy gun arm thing, a mouth modem, and the ability to make her boobs go bigger. Take that gender poli… oh.

Weapons that are part of her body score : 9

Looking like a robot score: 3

Boob factor: 9

Seven Of Nine (Star Trek: Voyager)

Terminatrix’s greatest telly foe is Seven Of Nine, who, as well as having a name that sounds a bit like the serial number on the back of a Terminator’s neck, also comes from a race of cyborgs that want to enslave / exterminate humanity.

But Nine doesn’t quite have the killer instinct of the Terminatrix, having gone all soppy as a result of flying around in space for too long.

So, despite an amusing incident in which the T-X tried to mimick Nine’s cup size and toppled over face first, the Cyberdyne psycho won the day by simply being a bigger bastard.

Weapons that are part of her body score: 2

Looking like a robot score: 1

Boob factor: 10

Next: R2D2, Inspector Gadget [page-break]

R2D2 (Star Wars)

Don’t be fooled by his chirpy, bleepy demeanour, R2 has a mean streak a mile wide.

So arrogant he can’t even be bothered to use his ability to fly to help his friends at any point from Episode III, D2 probably has a million more tricks up his sleeve he never bothered to share with us.

That makes him a dangerous foe.

Hidden gadgets score: 9

Looking like a robot score: 9

Twat factor: 10

Inspector Gadget

Gadget on the other extending hand can’t stop showing off all the idiotic tricks up his baggy sleeve.

Which is probably why, when he met R2D2 for the first time, his famed luck ran out.

While Gadget was slipping around all over the place on his Gadget skates accidentally solving about six crimes, R2 trundled over to him, slowly.

Despite his Gadget binoculars being fully operational, the Inspector was surprised by the sudden presence of the little droid, and attempted to use his Gadget copter to make his escape.

It was at this point that R2 chucked a spinning lightsaber out of his bonce, lopping off Inspector Gadget’s head like it was Luke Skywalker’s left limb.

Gadget’s head plopped to the floor, while his arms and legs extended in a silent tribute to the felled officer.

Hidden gadgets score: 10

Looking like a robot score: 7

Twat factor: 10

Next: ED-209, Metal Mickey [page-break]

ED-209 (RoboCop)

Looking like a cross between an American muscle car and a Vietnam helicopter, with a voice that sounds like a cougar growling backwards, and a face so mean it doesn’t even have eyes , the ED-209 would probably be king of the robots if it wasn’t so… stupid.

As it stands, it’d take a pretty rubbish robot to lose to this idiot.

Machine guns on arms: 3

External high-capacity ammo magazines: 3

Stupid great big ears: 0

Metal Mickey (Metal Mickey)

Looking like someone tried to fashion a fool out of a monkey, a tin opener and some moon boots, Metal Mickey is one of the crappest robots in sci-fi history. He’s so embarrassing even C3P0 shuns him at social events.

So, it should come as no surprise who wins this one.

Mickey is shoved into a room containing ED-209.

ED orders Mickey to surrender, who complies and affectionately calls 209 a little fruitbat, before offering him an Atomic Thunderburster.

ED-209 mistakes the sweet for a weapon, and opens fire on Mickey for a full five hours. Mickey is heard to utter one last boogie, boogie, boogie, before shutting down permanently forever. Literally no-one cares.

Machine guns on arms: 0

External high-capacity ammo magazines: 0

Stupid great big ears: 2

Next: Ravage, K-9 [page-break]

Ravage (Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen)

Ravage is a robot that looks like a jaguar one minute, and a cassette tape the next. One is slightly more scary than the other, but both are more terrifying than a dog made out of a shoebox.

Ability to transform into a dead media score: 10

Frequency of being confused with a dog score: 9

Capacity to bully a kid in a wheelchair: 10

K-9 (Doctor Who)

Yep, Doctor Who’s mate may have a laser on his nose and the ability to explode at will, but he’s still no match for Soundwave’s favourite pet.

K-9 stumbles onto Ravage who’s hiding in some shadows listening in on someone else’s conversation, for a change.

When K-9 accidentally draws attention to him – “Are you my master?” - Ravage totally loses his temper and bites K-9’s face right off.

Soundwave turns up and stamps on K-9’s crippled head, Ravage transforms into a cassette and they record the sound of K-9’s gurgling final howls. They listen back to it a couple of days later, and wonder what they’re doing with their lives.

Ability to transform into a dead media score: 0

Frequency of being confused with a dog score: 5

Capacity to bully a kid in a wheelchair: 0

Next: T-1000, Number Six [page-break]

T-1000 (Terminator 2: Judgement Day)

It might not be as tricked-out as the T-X model, but the T-1000 just seems so much cooler somehow.

Perhaps because it’s because he's the only ‘bot we’ve ever seen that doesn’t appear to be made from clock parts and oven foil, perhaps it’s because he can turn his arm into a massive milk-carton killing knife, or perhaps it’s simply because Terminator 3 was rubbish.

Whatever, the T-1000 is one of our favourite ever liquid metal men, and he’s so tough he’d even be able to defeat one of our favourite ever metal ladies.

Ability to ooze body between prison bars score: 10

Ability to invade other people’s movies score: 10

Ability to give fanboys wet dreams score: 5

Number Six (Battlestar Galactica)

So sexy she makes the T-X look like a Z-X (Spectrum), Six would be our favourite for this fight, if she didn’t rely on her looks to get her through the galaxy.

As it stands, she’d walk into a fight with the T-1000 wearing a tight red dress, flutter her eyelids a bit and expect him to turn to jelly.

Instead, the T-1000 would turn his arm into a giant kitchen knife and use it to stab Number Six straight to the nearest resurrection ship. So don’t worry BSG boys, she’ll be back.

Ability to ooze body between prison bars score: 0

Ability to invade other people’s movies score: 0

Ability to give fanboys wet dreams score: 10

Next: Optimus Prime, Hypnodisc [page-break]

Optimus Prime (Transformers)

So righteous we’re pretty sure he stomped around Cybertron before the war ordering teenage Transformers to pick up their used oil cans and throw them into Trashimus Bin, Prime will do almost anything to uphold justice.

He’s only ever lost one fight, and that one killed him, so you can hardly accuse him of backing down from a ruck.

Self-righteousness score: 10

Free will score: 10

Percentage of body made from cardboard: 0%

Hypnodisc (Robot Wars)

Watch the video above. Looks rubbish, right? But startlingly, when Hypnodisc met Optimus Prime, there was only one winner. And it wasn’t the metal bloke who relaxes by being a truck.

Hypnodisc was trundling along the M5 on his way to a Robot Wars roadshow, when Prime started tailgating him, beeping.

This annoyed Hypnodisc, so he turned around awkwardly, and started smashing his front disc against Optimus’ left elbow (his bumper).

Prime transformed, and demanded that Hypnodisc do the same.

When Hypno didn’t respond, Prime asked: “Why are you ignoring me?

When Hypno still didn’t respond, Prime fell into an instant depression and shoved his own sword straight into his Matrix Of Leadership, dying immediately.

Hypnodisc nudged Prime’s corpse for a full ten minutes after his death, mainly because his remote control had stopped working.

Self-righteousness score: 0

Free will score: 0

Percentage of body made from cardboard: 95.9%

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Sam Ashurst is a London-based film maker, journalist, and podcast host. He's the director of Frankenstein's Creature, A Little More Flesh + A Little More Flesh 2, and co-hosts the Arrow Podcast. His words have appeared on HuffPost, MSN, The Independent, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, and many more, as well as of course for us here at GamesRadar+.