Movie poster.
Cybernetic Grandma (Kybernetica Babicka) is a 1962 stop-motion short film directed by Jiri Trnka. It tells the story of a young girl who lives a happy life with her grandmother until the two of them are lured to a mysterious robotic installation where the girl soon finds herself at the mercy of a menacing robot facsimile of her real grandmother.
This work contains examples of the following tropes:
- Antagonist Title
- Behind the Black: The child seems genuinely awed when the camera reveals a field of derelict aircraft that she actually would have been looking directly at for a few minutes.
- Big Damn Heroes: Grandma pulls one.
- Big Good: The real grandma, not only of the film itself but through the eyes of the girl.
- Crapsaccharine World: The machines that seem to operate the film's world seem helpful and even whimsical, but they clearly don't have the human inhabitants' best interests in mind at all.
- Cyber Cyclops: The title character's head is a black sphere, the only features of which are a stylized eye and mouth.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Cybernetic Grandma might seem reassuring, but its actions toward the girl are flagrantly bullying and abusive.
- Hero of Another Story: The film doesn't delve into what the grandmother had to do to reach the girl, but given the distance separating them at that point, it had to have been an adventure unto itself.
- Jerkass: Whether playing keep-away with the girl's ball or placing her valuables just out of reach, the robot grandmother's behavior is awfully petty for such a cold, emotionless machine.
- Kick the Dog: The Cybernetic Grandma's behavior toward the child is pretty much one non-stop dog kick.
- Mundane Solution: The Cybernetic Grandma is disabled with a mere flick of her on/off switch.
- Never Mess with Granny: The real grandma isn't having her mechanized replacement's nonsense.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The film's setting is contemporaneous with the time when it was made, with the addition of A.I.'s of varying sorts.
