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Silent Screamers: |
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he workers’ city, far below the surface of the earth, houses countless bowed human laborers. Each is dressed in a drab gray jumpsuit, each is a broken spirit, each carries on a life of drudgery. They are all slaves serving the machines that provide for the elite class who inhabit skyscraper canyons in the city above, people whose lives of luxury are possible only due to the efforts of the downtrodden masses miles below.
Maria, the daughter of a worker, encourages peaceful revolt. John Fredersen, ruler of the city, instructs his scientist, Rotwang, to adapt his new invention into a mechanical imposter of Maria with the intent of discrediting the girl by inciting a more violent revolt, which soon results in the loss of many lives. Rotwang has constructed his robot from metal, with an outer living skin which resembles Maria exactly.
This all happened in 1926, 22 years before George Orwell published his dystopic classic, 1984, though the bleakness and the hopelessness of the settings are nearly identical. This was the vision of Fritz Lang, director of the movie Metropolis, based on the novel by Thea von Harbou. Production values were stunning, and in their scope rivaled later efforts such as Star Wars.
Since then, Maria has been the most recognizable symbol of science fiction ever produced. She defined the humanoid android, and to this day most science-fiction robots are heavily influenced by her design, including Star Wars’ own C-3P0.
This symbol now comes to you from Mezco Toyz in the form of a 7.5-inch action figure. Mezco’s "Silent Screamers" collection is an interpretation and an exaggeration of well-known silent-era film characters, including Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu's vampire.
Maria comes with her power station, a chair on a tiered platform, connected by a series of plastic fibers to some unknown power source.
A newer robot isn't always better
Comparing Mezco’s Maria to the original may not be fair, since the scope of this action figure line is to deconstruct the original and create a new vision, but comparison is invited by the very fact that the figure is titled "Maria from Metropolis" and the packaging ties closely to the movie.
And in this comparison she falls short. Instead of resembling the beautiful but pragmatic form of the 1926 Maria, with her straight-legged angular design, this figure instead resembles images of early 3-D computer-graphic female robots as seen in video collections such as the Mind’s Eye series.
While her head and face somewhat resemble the 1926 robot, her body is anything but an accurate replica. She is stretched impossibly tall and is ridiculously lithe. She is much more curvaceous, and her feet are wearing ultra-high-tech platform shoes. The bodily embellishments are certainly more an indication of current robotic ideals than an homage to the past.
Maria is advertised as a "highly articulated robotic woman" but her articulation is in fact rather limited. Her simple hip movement splays her legs out far too much when she is sitting. She barely fits in her own chair. Her knees pivot and rotate, but her ankles have no articulation at all. Her head does a simple spin, and while her shoulders rotate quite freely, her elbows do not move. Her wrists have a simple rotation. Not exactly a "highly articulated" figure at all, especially when she is compared to similar figures on the market today.
Mezco’s Maria is unfortunately disproportioned, which may be due to the advancements man has made using silica-based materials since 1926, but are more likely influenced by the surgical enhancements common among today's female film stars.
This figure shares very little resemblance with her source model, a true symbol of the genre.
Collectors can find several different models of the original Maria if they are willing to do a little searching, and though they tend to be much more expensive, they are fairly accurate replicas of this classic symbol of science fiction. -- Sean
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