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Robot Wars returns!

Did you know Takeshi's Castle was originally from the Early 80's? It was like their Fort Boyard / Crystal Maze. The version we saw was only a 25 minute edit of people failing, but the real show was a full hour and supposedly even made sense!

I'm very anti reboot in general. But the nature of RW is that the robots themselves are the stars. With Gladiators, it was the show itself, with the gladiator stars, huge live crowd, the big sets etc that made it. Take away the arena and put it in a studio, and it lost all sense of being a "blood sport"... thus the reboot failed.
At it's peak Robot Wars would fill the George Lucas stage at Elstree Film Studios. Even then, the arena was huge enough to limit the available space for audience. So as long as RW still has some live crowd, and the contestants are good, I think it will work.

Dara will make a fine host, he's a true geek.

Now, please excuse me, I'm off to find out who I have to blow to get on the crew.....
 
There was a feature about Robot Wars on The One Show last night, and I really enjoyed it. They had the House Robots outside Broadcasting House, and you kinda forget just how big they are! Of the four that have been brought back, it's fair to say that in terms of aesthetics, Sir Killalot's changed the most. I'm still looking forward to Sunday night when the twelve year wait for a new series is finally over. :)
 
It's going to be hard getting used to the new arena having been used to the grungy look of the previous series.

The house robots look great for the most part, but Sir Killalot doesn't look right for some reason. I'm just glad it's finally back, it's a real shame they've decided to film it at the opposite side of the UK though as I fancied going to see it!
 
Take it from me (my second date with @Kelpie was to a recording of Robot Wars Extreme), Like most TV shows, being in the live audience sucks. You can bearly see anything as you are miles from the arena, you only see your own reflection in the Makrolon safety glass, and end up just looking at a screen if you want to know what's happening.

Plus we were the only people there over the age of 12 that were't parents.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Take it from me (my second date with @Kelpie was to a recording of Robot Wars Extreme), Like most TV shows, being in the live audience sucks. You can bearly see anything as you are miles from the arena, you only see your own reflection in the Makrolon safety glass, and end up just looking at a screen if you want to know what's happening.

Plus we were the only people there over the age of 12 that were't parents.
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TBH, Robot Wars always had a pretty poor audience. The battle with Chaos 2 and Pussycat, while still an epic confrontation in it's broadcast form, feels rather hollow with the audience being quiet most of the time, never mind JP's commentary which really adds to it.


In all fairness regarding the audience, I don't really blame the BBC trying to add more audience SFX in post-production, though you can notice this in repeated viewing and Especially during the third season when you can hear one practically audience member scream that is repeated on nearly every damn match. Hell, I wouldn't dare challenge on a drinking game on it as it is that noticeable throughout!
 
I thought it was quite good. A bit too much talking from the presenters, though - it did feel like they were trying to pad it out to an hour at times. Not too sure about the head-to-heads after the first round battles, but other than that, I was pretty happy with it. Of course, it's just the first episode, and it's entirely possible that there'll be changes made for any future series if they get the go-ahead for more. Looking forward to the rest of the series now! :)
 
Slow burner to begin with all the introductions and that, though it picked up in the second half. What I didn't like was the edited camera looks which kind of throw me off at times and the battles were missing the music which did add that extra touch. Of course with the return of any show, it's going to be different so I know I have to keep an open mind over things, that all said I'm mostly satisfied with the first impressions.

I think we can all safely say though that it is far better than the disastrous Top Gear reboot and after all the debacle surrounding it, RW seems to have nothing to lose now.
 
On the whole I'm pretty impressed, the show has a very different feel to it now - less gladiatorial and with a stronger engineering focus but the actual battles are at least as good as they always were. It was nice to see some continuity with 3 returning robots whilst Nuts reminded me of team Nemesis/Doitoir for their cheerfulness in the face of overwhelming odds.

I do have a few issues with some of the format changes. The combination of a knockout and a league format doesn't really work, and means the final will always be a rematch of a previous battle, there's also a risk of a match where both teams have nothing to play for. The new voice effect on the announcer will get annoying very quickly and the arena floor flipper looks pretty rubbish compared with the old one which was often spectacular.

The new house robots will also take a bit of getting used to - Matlida and Dead Metal are basically the same but Shunt and Killalot in particular are very different, and I'm not entirely sold on their designs yet. If more house robots were to come in for a later series, I'd quite like to see Growler return over any of the others that haven't yet been revived.
 
Personally I wasn't a fan of starting with four robots per battle in the first rounds. It doesn't really let you get an impression of what a robot is fully capable of. Other than that I thought it was pretty good. It was disappointing that Razer or Behemoth didn't go through, but Carbide seems like a very impressive machine and a worthy finalist!
 
John said:
The new house robots will also take a bit of getting used to - Matlida and Dead Metal are basically the same but Shunt and Killalot in particular are very different, and I'm not entirely sold on their designs yet. If more house robots were to come in for a later series, I'd quite like to see Growler return over any of the others that haven't yet been revived.
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I would love to see the Sgt make a return, Growler I wouldn't mind but Psycho and Cassius Chrome were rubbish IMO, the latter especially.
 
Seems to be a good start. The head to head is good fun to watch. There is a bit of padding by the presenters, however i am enjoying the redheaded presenter
 
mmmm redheaded presenter, she is pretty alright.
They've done a good job and it seems to be pretty popular with other people on social media
 
I was overall impressed. The robots are visibly nippier, more powerful and better engineered than before. What a machine Carbide is! It was dealing out Hypno-Disc levels of destruction to robots that are supposed to be armored against spinning weapons. It was a shame to see Razer out of the competition so early but at the end of the day, they did drive into the pit.

Minor negative points: There is a little too much padding between fights and for whatever reason, the new arena looks a lot smaller on TV than the old one. It's supposed to be bigger and I'm sure it is, but whether it's the larger house robots, the higher walls or the pared back set design, it definitely looks a lot more poky.

The general presentation of the show is quite different. It's a lot less theatrical and more laid back. There's a lot more emphasis on the goings on in the pits between bouts. I haven't made my mind up on whether I'd prefer this or more fights but we'll see in the next few weeks.
 
I used to love Robot Wars back in the day so was eagerly anticipating last night's reboot. Overall I enjoyed it; there are noticeable differences in the format and tone of the show but at the end of the day the battles (which it is all about) are the same and still very enjoyable. I was very impressed with Carbide, a heck of a machine that inflicted rather a lot of damage to other robots. I was rather shocked that Razer didn't make it out of the group at least, a shame that such an iconic robot put in a pretty pathetic showing.

Anyway, a few things that I noticed:
  • Was it just me that missed the old theme music?
  • The arena looked quite a bit smaller than it was before and things like the flipper were nowhere near as impressive. If the series is a success I hope there will be more of a budget to build a more impressive arena.
  • Not sure what I made of the "padding out" between fights as it were, I get what they were trying to do but unsure whether it really worked. I thought the whole production felt a little more amateur than it did before.
I'll have to try and watch an old episode on YouTube to compare as I'm not sure how many of my thoughts are 'correct' or how many are because it's been over 12 years since I last saw the show and I'm rather a lot older now!

Looking forward to seeing how the series progresses!

:)
 
I'm pretty sure the arena was actually bigger than the old one in terms of area... but not as tall. The robots looked tiny in it. The pit is definately bigger.

Not sure I like the "minimalist" style of the new show. It looks so cheap compared to the old set. It's as if someone said "remember that one asthetic the old show was known for, caution stripes? Let's not have any just to be different."
And no music?
The director needs a slap, almost every shot was too wide or too close to see the action.

As for the presenters, Dara is fine, although I get the feeling he wasn't quite settled in. But why is he wearing a suit‽ I don't expect him to wear Craig Charles style leather, but he looked like a teacher that got lost. Angela is great though. With the red hair and the tight jumpsuit, she reminded me of April O'Neal from TNMT :p

Fight wise, as soon as they showed us Carbide's weapon in the pits, I knew it would be good. That 'bot is going to go far. Like everyone else, shocked to see Razer fail.

Have they changed the rules on "clusterbots" then? In the old show, with Gemini, the rule was that if any one of them was trashed the whole 'bot was out. Really not sure what the rules are now with Nuts and their pointless little .... things.
 
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