Syfy Reality Show Will Feature Giant Boxing Robots

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the next generation of 'Battle Bots' is here: 'Syfy has greenlit and shot the first season of a new show where eight-foot-tall state-of-the-art humanoid robots will rock 'em and sock 'em in a boxing cage until one is defeated. The future-shock new series is called Robot Combat League and the project has been kept under wraps until today. The action resembles a real-life version of last year's hit movie Real Steel, with large menacing robots pounding away at each other in a satisfying shower of sparks and gushing hydraulic fluid.' Pictures are included with the story."

Comments

Direct like to the video

[93 Escort Wagon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTC334bVFbk

I know this is supposed to be cool...

[Polo]

But really, Syfy should do Science Fiction (or even fantasy) instead.

To me, I could find all this kind of stuff on youtube.

Sorry, imho.

Syfy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Syfy? What's that? Sisyphus? Syphilis? Almost sounds like it could be referring to science fiction, like that old Sci-fi channel, but it's spelled much more like that newer wrestling, horror and infomercial channel.

Oh - that's it, isn't it? It's that horrible cable channel that metastasized from the ruin of a science fiction channel. Well, nice to know they're still busy poisoning the very concept of imagination and entertainment in the name of ambiguous shareholder value.

Re:Syfy?

[Master Moose]

At least they had the decency to change their name. History, National Geographic, I'm looking at you..

Re:Syfy?

[CRCulver]

In retrospect, the fate of the Science-Fiction Channel/Sci-Fi/Syfy was inevitable. Attractive science fiction television is expensive to produce and there's no way a channel could have all its programming at the level of even a ST: TNG. What the channel ended up showing were science-fiction shows and television movies with shoestring budgets that often drew disgust. It's no suprise that the channel started moving to more sensationalistic fare that might have drawn it away from science-fiction, but drew it towards greater profitability.

Yes, good science-fiction can be made with low production values. Tarkovsky's Stalker is, among other things, one of the greatest science-fiction achievements in cinema, yet it shows no intricate machinery or massive on-screen violation of the laws of physics. But when scaled to a channel's entire programming, that sort of thing cannot grab and hold on to an audience.

wait a minute...

[slashmydots]

But why is it being hosted by a Troll doll dressed as a douche?

Re:You don't get to design your robot

[harperska]

The best part of Robot Wars/BattleBots was the fact that the teams designed and built their own robots. It was a competition of ingenuity as well as skill. If the competitors don't get to design their robots, this is nothing more than a gimmick, and will probably (hopefully) flop.

Re:Yes, but...

[TWX]

Heh. More like they'll turn it into a reality show where there's 38 minutes of annoying hosts, watching the teams struggle with the design and construction of their bots, yelling at each other, making the token girl on the team cry, trash-talking about their opponents, and fighting at the last minute with control system problems, followed by about three minutes of actual robots in the ring, one minute of actual robot-on-robot attack.

Oh, and nineteen minutes of commercials.

So, in other words, that motorcycle-building show with some intentional, rather than all accidental, occasional mechanical carnage.

yay

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I had mod points so I stepped in to see if there were any corporate shills I could mod down, but as it should be SyFy is still a laughingstock and generally regarded as one of the dumbest channels on pay tv.

It's also the channel that got me to cut the cord.

Piss off and die SyFy. the nitwits that went for reality TV and wrestling to make more cash should be put up against a wall, shot, Duct Taped back on the wall, shot again and finally be staked in effigy to warn off others from being total douche-bags and emulating the way you destroyed a perfectly good SCI-FI channel.

If that isn't clear enough - SyFy Sucks!

The photos were informative

[Grayhand]

Apparently they get them to fight by shoving a pole up their asses.

Re:You don't get to design your robot

[chroma]

I've been involved with robot fighting for over 15 years.

You're incorrect. Autonomous robots aren't as fun to watch as human controlled ones for at least 2 reasons:

1. The current state of the art just isn't good enough.
2. It's hard to root for a soulless lump of metal, whereas you can vicariously experience the competition through the human competitors.

Also, every robot fighting competition I've ever competed in has allowed autonomous competitors, as long as they have fail-safe remote control. So you're welcome to build your own autonomous fighting robot.

Great News

[chroma]

The best thing I've heard about this is that Mark Setrakian is involved. Competitors and real fans of robot fighting know him as one of the great geniuses of the sport.

He won the first Robot Wars with The Master. His later machines, Mechadon and Snake, were far less competitive, but were much more interesting.

Here's a video of Mechadon in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El8ne4zSCY0