Saturn 3: A So-Bad-It's-Good Look at the SCARY Uncanny Valley

Hector, played by Harvey Keitel, is one of the creepiest robots ever- providing a great STEM opportunity to discuss robot design, the Uncanny Valley, and brain-machine interfaces-- or just to watch and throw popcorn at the TV screen.

The 1980 scifi horror movie starts with on the lam psycho Harvey Keitel, not exactly a stretch role for him, arriving on a backwater space station on Saturn 3 where he promptly uses a brain-machine interface to download his twisted brain into Hector the robot. Hector the robot then joins pretty much every male in the US in 1980 by becoming obsessed with Farrah Fawcett. A well-preserved Kirk Douglas is killed and chase scenes result, with the audience eventually rooting for Hector to finally find Fawcett and finish her off just to end the movie. It is a so-bad-it’s-good and Hector has to rank among the creepiest robots ever, falling headlong into the Uncanny Valley.