The Robot Costume From Bicentennial Man!

foreign [Music] hey everybody Adam Savage alongside Brandon allenger and Robin Williams we are here at Prop Store down at their warehouse in Los Angeles because you guys have a huge auction coming up we do yes June 28th to June 30th at the Peterson Automotive Museum right here in Los Angeles it's going to be a great three days a lot of great content including this piece which I'm excited to talk to you about because I understand you have a little bit of first-hand knowledge on this one this is one of the rare pieces that you are carrying at auction that I have a direct personal connection to okay so this is Robin Williams robot suit from the movie Bicentennial Man which is based on an Isaac Asimov story called positronic man and uh Isaac Asimov of course a legend of Science Fiction uh I actually worked on this film it's awesome I got hired in the Practical props Department in late sorry in early 1990 [Music] nine okay I remember this because I literally started work about a week after my twin Sons were born oh wow uh and I spent six months on that job making hand props and stuff for the walls and various things but it was the second Robin Williams film that I worked on and the first one in which I had a bunch of interactions with him what was the first one well the first one was Flubber I worked on I worked on okay Flubber and spent a few days on set on that one okay uh and you guys have probably carried a weebo or two we did have a weevo yes yeah that was a good one another good Robin Williams robot prop well so I I will tell you uh the story of this suit is that I saw pieces of the suit in the PAW Patrol Pro in the Practical props Department we didn't deal this was a totally separate unit right this is built by Steve Johnson's XFX yeah um and it is actually well first I'll tell you my Robin story and then I'll tell you what is totally unique I've understood about this uh is it one time I was in the bathroom uh while working in the model shop and I came back out of the bathroom and found Robin in this suit staring at my toolboxes now I had these crazy toolboxes that were on scissor lifts that like I could lift up to be at my height that were made out of metal so these were my my my toolboxes and they came out I found Robin in costume looking at the toolboxes and he said they told me these were yours tell me about these toolboxes and we had this lovely like 45 minute conversation where he told me about his grandfather was a tinkerer and that like these really were evocative to him and I was like well you look at the tools and I meanwhile grabbed his arm and I'm like I want to look at the suit because this suit is totally unique in film history and that it covers every inch of the actor's body there's not a joint there's not a underarm there's not an inside of the elbow or back of the knee that isn't covered by hard plastic and right rigid rigid hard passing yeah uh yeah it's it's a it's a great suit I mean a huge amount of engineering went into this as I understand it and it's interesting when it came in I was looking at the head because I believe they did some versions that had silicone faces well he goes through a progression of becoming more and more human getting more upgrades to look more human until he has Robin Williams actual face later on and that goes through a bunch of iterations and I think this is an early hard face where the mouth moves yeah but it's like the idea is an industrial robot from like 25 years from now right yeah look at the eyes I love the eyes because you can tell it's like a little mesh screen intended to him for him to actually look through I mean there's a lot going on with the subtleties of the suit some of the uh the the clear panels here on the sides and the detailing that's been placed underneath them the the shoulder rings I mean I imagine these are real bearings they are real Kate on bearings they are expensive as hell um like a spacesuit all of these all of these parts that look really like crazy shiny or it's actually uh from what I remember because I've actually talked to Steve Johnson about this suit a back painted p-e-t-g vacuum form plastic um and what is petg petg is uh basically it's soda bottle plastic with one extra a bit of chemistry going on so is it clear it's a clear plastic and when you paint it on the back you end up with this slightly dimensional finish right that is never going to go anywhere and these are all spheres yeah the amount of Engineering in this boggled my mind when I saw it up close and in person for the first time Robin had full range of movement really he can move well yeah and do you remember seeing multiple suits on set or just one side I only got to see that one on Set uh while Robin was wearing it they were bouncing around but like I said these we were two different departments so it wasn't like we got a lot of onset time okay that makes sense um it is it is an absolute Masterpiece uh and there's nothing else quite like it in film history honestly yeah it's even an armor making in general armor that covered the entirety of the wearer's body was super rare uh at the Tower of London they've got Henry VII's coronation armor and if I remember correctly Henry VII was only like 18. and so we have this very rare record of exactly what Henry VII's physical body shape was because that armor covered every every centimeter of him and it's known to be a masterpiece of its craft I think Steve Johnson's work here should should be heralded at that level and do you think is the whole thing back form or is this like a fiberglass piece I think that much of it is vacuum formed but I'm not sure I think it's possible that these pieces could be yeah they look like they're more dimensional and it's hard to keep dimensionality with vacuum forms that large there's also I mean I want to take a look at the back here because they also did all of this translucent stuff right look at that where you can see pieces through it and I mean and this is sort of harking to a a a prognosticated industrial design right like what what would our service robots be like this is pregnant right I believe it is yeah oh my gosh oh very cool and that's all dressing that's all dressed I think absolutely yeah no and probably never intended to be seen like this just seen through the translucent panel right yeah um and they literally had to lock him into this suit it's lit it's covering every inch his butt like so I can see these little uh yeah I was looking at this yeah even the back of the knees yeah they have made a little bit of a compromise and there's some Bellows between the hard Parts on the back some fabric creeping in there some tiny amounts but most of it like these elbow joints here that's all rigid Lobster plates rigid Lobster plates that are spherical I yeah every single piece of this would take one person weeks to do like every last joint here yeah I'm sure it was a massive engineering project and probably a huge budget I hope so they made a whole bunch of these I mean the film features Robin in this and he is wearing the suit from what I remember for the entirety of the film you mean him him not him stunt performer that's correct Robin Williams is I mean he's doing it yeah he is actually working well it's probably like C-3PO where you don't get the right mannerisms you don't get the right body language unless it's the real guy right I'll tell you this one other story so on Bicentennial Man I'm at craft Services one morning getting a bagel and there's Robin on the other side of the table getting a bagel so we start chatting and that morning there was a news story about a boat having foundered off the coast of Florida with like two tons of cocaine in it and Robin just starts to do impressions of the kind of people who might show up to help so I was doing all these like folks showing up to be like I can help you get that cocaine out of the ocean if you want and this devolves after about 10 minutes into Robin doing impressions of coked up Dolphins which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen and then I'm starting to get nervous because my supervisor is waiting for me to be on time that morning and I'm seeing that the clock is ticking and I did something that young me never would have imagined could be possible in which I said Robin I have to go to work now and I had to stop like the funniest man alive from doing a comedy routine for me alone right so I could not get fired yeah and he probably would have happily carried on oh no I I met him several times since then and every interaction was just that lovely because it's super generous yeah lovely guy and also watch your performer I will tell you on set I did get to watch him do takes on set a few times and it was always amazing because he get the one that they needed in the Canon and he'd be like can I cut loose and he would do honestly several times I watched him do 30 versions of a funny line wow and each one was different and each one was hilarious and the crew trying harder and harder to hold on to their equipment without laughing that when he finally finishes it over and just breaks into Applause it was pretty special I wonder if he found it restrictive of Personality like that to be put inside this Tin Can you know this suit where it's that much harder to engage with people yeah that's a great question I would have loved to ask him that it is an amazing piece I I have seen replicas of these that have shown up over time some of these molds got reused but this is from the film this is actually yeah this is an original suit head to toe I mean you can see like the the gloves here were clearly cast and foam latex we've got some deterioration but most of it because it is rigid you know fiberglass back form Etc it's held up really well and it presents beautifully it really really does an incredible incredible piece I'm so delighted to see it again and I'm glad that you are here to share some stories as someone who was there firsthand amazing Brendan oh this head stuff is so perfect

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 248,642

Keywords: tested, bicentennial man, robin williams, bicentennial man (film), bicentennial man 1999, chris columbus, bicentennial man trailer, costume, robot, android, adam savage, adam savage prop store, prop store auction, prop store adam savage, adam savage bicentennial man, adam savage robin williams, adam savage costumes

Id: I_T4SccQckw

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023