"False Maria" robot from 1927 silent film "Metropolis"

hellnbak · 11 Apr 2015, 16:22

Although I referred to her as "False Maria" in the title of this post, I shouldn't have. I did so only because a majority of people, for whatever reason, refer to her that way. I do not feel it is an accurate description of the robot.

The way I look at it, until the "essence" of Maria is copied to the robot, it is just a robot. It's only after the essence is copied, and she takes on the physical form of Maria, that she becomes the False Maria.

To me, it's sort of like calling an empty glass a glass of milk before the milk is poured in.

It just bothers me.

Actually, the robot was never supposed to become the False Maria. Rotwang built her with the intention of somehow infusing her with the spirit of his long-dead love Hel, but Joh Frederson, fearful of the real Maria's efforts to instill an uprising among the workers, convinces him to turn the robot into a False Maria to undo all her efforts.

Now, if someone can explain to me why I bothered explaining all that, I would really appreciate it

Yesterday I finally received my copy of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a very large and thick hardcover book that is supposedly the definitive resource for all things Metropolis. Well, I'll never know, it's all written in German. Sadly, it's going back

JQL · 11 Apr 2015, 19:44

@hellnbak said:

Now, if someone can explain to me why I bothered explaining all that, I would really appreciate it

Couldn't explain it, but can understand...

Daniel · 14 Apr 2015, 13:40

Rotwang, the robot's inventor, refers to it a maschinenmensch, which translates to "machine-human." A lot of people (myself included) probably find "Maria" easier to remember and pronounce. It's been ages since I saw the film is school - you make me want to see it again.

Are you going to texture it?

dtrarch · 14 Apr 2015, 16:35

Hellnback

MY copy of the film has music (later version re-created and patched)
An amazing vocal by Pat Benatar.
PM me for source if you want.
Any chance for your super model to be available.?
I will beg.

dtr

hellnbak · 16 Apr 2015, 00:04

Sorry, I've been super busy, will post some more as soon as possible.

omiKron · 22 Apr 2015, 11:39

Fascinating. I really like the designs of that age... 1920's to 1940's. It's been a big impact to the people of that times, such a concept, never seen before. Thus, some parts of those concepts are surrounding us atm.

amazing modeling, looks a bit b/w clay model.

Richard · 28 Oct 2015, 02:10

Wow! TOTALLY impressed. Weirdly enough I recently did a logo for a company who used the movie title as part of their company name!

hellnbak · 28 Oct 2015, 02:28

Thanks, Richard.

I've done some more work on her since my last post, been meaning to post some photos.

Nice logo

ken28875 · 13 Dec 2015, 17:38

Awesome model, Steve!

Cheers!

_KN

ric323 · 4 Jan 2016, 21:23

@hellnbak said:

...
Was going to include a bunch of background stuff but that seems to bore some people. I might include some stuff later on, as the model progresses.

+1 for more background!

hellnbak · 18 Jan 2016, 03:02

Much appreciated, Ken.

@ric323 said:

@hellnbak said:

...
Was going to include a bunch of background stuff but that seems to bore some people. I might include some stuff later on, as the model progresses.

+1 for more background!

Thanks Richard. Yeah, I will include some background stuff eventually. Lots of good info to pass along.

You're really using a pre-6 version of SU? Just curious as to why.

Anyhow, been playing around with this, thought I would post a few photos.

First, the robot on her "chair".

Difficult in the respect that few shots show it, and of those that do the vast majority of them are from a distance and show very little useable detail.
An interesting fact -- The seat of the chair was set at angle because the "suit" did not allow Ms Helm to sit all the way down. But even with that an apparatus had to be rigged so that someone pulling on a lever behind the chair slowly tilted the seat forward until she could stand on her own.

Also took a stab at Maria on the lab table, just prior to her 'essence' being transferred to the robot

Still a lot to do, about 600 miles of cable and wiring to add, a lot of electronic doo-dads, this, that and 'tother. Gonna try to make the face look like Brigitte Helm, now that should be fun.

Both of these scenes proved very frustraing because of SU's inability to work realistically with 'glass' or transparent surfaces. Go below a certain amount of transparency and no shadows are cast or received, along with other problems. Drove me nuts, finally just gave up.

So much to do, so little time.

pbacot · 18 Jan 2016, 06:22

Wow. Did you model Maria too? This is wild. No one gets such results from pure SketchUp rendering.

Mike Amos · 18 Jan 2016, 11:27

Steve definitely DOES get those sketchup results, the question is how.......

pbacot · 3 Jun 2020, 04:25

Came across this on another forum. Totally forgot... What a great subject and execution. Just really inspiring. I would like to see the geometry.

HornOxx · 3 Jun 2020, 06:15

I missed this contribution in 2016, so thanks for digging out this great work

@pbacot said:

...I would like to see the geometry.
Yes!

Bryan K · 3 Jun 2020, 06:23

Yeah, that is one excellent model.

hellnbak · 3 Jun 2020, 12:52

Wow, this is so weird - hadn't thought about this model for a long time, then just a couple of days ago I came across it and have been working on it since then. Then I received an email saying that someone had replied to this topic, after more than four years. Really strange.

Anyhow, thanks for the nice words, much appreciated as always.

First off, in reply to pbacot's question from back in 2016
@pbacot said:

Did you model Maria too?

No, it was a model that I got from the warehouse. Had to heavily modify her, broke her neck, her arms at the shoulders, elbow and wrists, and her legs at the knees and ankles. (I know, it sounds like I need some serious therapy, and I probably do, for a number of reasons). All in all, it was probably more trouble than just making her from scratch.

I will post some shots of the geometry later this morning.

Been working on her face, still cannot get it right. Very frustrating. I actually did start work on a full-size bust of her to hopefully help me with this, but set it aside upstairs for a while and then discovered that it had fallen off the table and had separated from the armature in a number of pieces (a homebuilt armature, not as stable as it should have been). There's just no way to get something like that back on the armature, so I threw in the towel on that little project. Very disappointing.

I'm looking forward to posting some of the background on Metropolis, this movie has such an unbelievable history.

hellnbak · 3 Jun 2020, 22:55

Sorry, had to get some sleep. Like a lot of people nowdays, my sleep schedule is pretty much out the window, so I sleep when I can.

Anyhow, here are some shots showing the geometry.

some closer shots showing the head, since it shows up as pretty much a black blob in the full figure shots.

If anyone would like some closer shots of some of the model, just let me know.

Bryan K · 3 Jun 2020, 23:14

Incredible geometry. Thanks for the wire frame close ups!

That would cripple my computer.

tuna1957 · 3 Jun 2020, 23:38

hellinbak , This is just freaking epic !!!!! Can't think of how many times of wondered about "Maria" since your first posted images. Glad your back with her.

I'm a HUGE fan of the old movies. Found "Metropolis" on DVD last year. Have watched it innumerable times. The results they were able to achieve with the technology of the era is astounding.