They’re rich. They’re glamorous. They’re fashion icons. Most of all, they’re the symbols of an age – and of many more to come, if their ferocious struggle against the slightest signs of rust or the slightest cracks of paint in their shiny chassis is any indication. Envied by some, loved by many, there’s almost no one who has not seen them on the big screens. Their public appearances have the power to cause hysteria among their fans, not excluding scenes of swooning. And although Marilyn’s career started earlier, Clark’s movies were such blockbusters that it didn’t come as a surprise when the two, beloved heroes to all audiences, decided to join forces and formed a filmmaking society of their own, the Clarlyn Pictures, financed by Hardlight Industries. And it was so that the two historical rivals became allied – although behind the scenes they’re still and always trying to outshine each other and bickering furiously all the time as to whose films bring more incomes to the society, who’s the most talented actor and who has more fans. The tabloids have long lost the count of the many romantic relationships, real or imagined, in which their names have been involved. Their fan club counts thousand of subscriptions and is probably only second to that of the two Earth heroes, EVE and WALL-E. There’s no doubt that Clark Fairbanks and Marylin Hayworth will keep being talked of for many years centuries ahead to come.From: A quick history of robots movies, article appeared on “Robot Vogue”
“You all know me – so I’m not introducing myself.” -
Clark FairbanksUnless his former rival and now partner in business Marilyn, who’s a native of Aperture Mesa city, Clark was originally assembled on Earth. In fact, he was one of the many androids assembled by ARGO during the 700 years he spent in a factory on the outskirts of New Chicago. None of ARGO’s creations were programmed with A.Is – he knew that he’d not make the same mistake of his creators and give them sentience just to live a pointless life. At the time, ARGO didn’t yet know if, or when, humans would return on Earth. Creating destructive androids that would be unleashed against his creator when the day came was the only way he found to keep his “madness” occupied. Essentially, they were remotely controlled chassis which ARGO used to move around.
Among these androids were the surveillance Powerdroids 541. Their original design looked like a cross between a miniaturized escape pod and an HAN-S unit, with sharp metallic claws. However, their main feature was a built-in hologram projector that allowed them to look like just about anything else – robots, humans, everything - as well as to perfectly mimic themselves with the background against which they moved (think Randall’s chameleon abilities in Monsters Inc.). It was one of these droids that took the appearance of Pilot, Sergey and BOLT in the factory – tricking Sybille to believe that the rest of the crew had been killed.
After ARGO enrolled in Blacklight’s Military, he took along his army of droids – Powerdroids, Rhinoceroids, nanobots capable of assembling and de-assembling themselves in bigger or smaller units, vaguely cat-like bots armed with flamethrowers, and many more - who had been heading toward jail to fetch Buddy, and trashing the Colony’s area majorly in the meantime. On the Hurricane these highly efficient combat machines were programmed with personalities, making them valuable soldiers for the Military. And such would have been the destiny of a surveillance Powerdroid 541 unit who took for himself the name of Clark, if on his way to the ship he had been assigned to, he hadn’t stopped to watch the advertisement for a movie that was being projected on one of the Hurricane’s holoscreens. Clark was struck by the acting he saw on the screen – in a negative sense.
“And they call
that acting?” the tale goes that he’d have told to the closest robot. “Even
I could do much better!”
How prophetic those words were. Although he was created to be one kick-ass fighter, like all surveillance Powerdroids 541, Clark never had it in him to be a soldier. He was far more interested in that new art he had accidentally come across – acting and the movies. According to the legend built around him, that very day he resigned from his role of soldier on the Fidelitas, a corvette of Blacklight’s Military, and instead took off for Hollywood, the space station where most of the highest grossing movies of the decade had been produced. Whereas other aspiring actors and directors might have expected to rise through the ranks, Clark was positive that he’d be immediately engaged for a protagonist role (despite having absolutely no experience as an actor). However, he felt that so long as he remained a simple Powerdroid 541 like all others (although they were in a way custom-built models, and there weren’t that many of them around either), he would never impose himself in the hearts and mind of the audience. He already knew that he would be a one-of-a-kind actor – he also had to be a one-of-a-kind unit.
For this reason, one of the first things he did upon reaching the space station was to undergo several upgrades to himself. He switched his original chassis for a custom-built prototype based on AAWFs, which struck him as “eminently fashionable”, but kept many of his old features, including the hologram projector and the claws, though they wouldn’t be part of his normal body, but could be deployed whenever he had to play a fighter’s role. He also had himself upgraded with a speech synthesizer, vaguely similar to that of InGRiD units, which allowed him to speak in just about every possible accent. The robot-ladies, he knew, would go crazy for him. Now all he needed was a last name, and he decided he would pass to the history of movies as Clark Fairbanks.
Luck was with him. Although the directors could see from a mile away that he was a rookie when he showed up for his very first audition – and immediately started acting like a protagonist rather than the sidekick he was supposed to impersonate – Clark was spontaneous, had a vivacious personality, could improvise well and was very dashing and good-looking. Sensing the possibilities to make a star out of him if he was launched as a romantic hero, the Metro-Hardlight-Players hired him to play the role of one of Blacklight’s Lieutenants in their blockbusters
“Mutiny of the Blacklight” (although Clark would have very much preferred to impersonate Blacklight himself). And it was so that his career begun.
In less than a year he would pass from one filmmaking company to another – Metro-Hardlight-Players, Paraspace, AND-I Bros – and play in blockbusters such as
“Hurricane” (a dramatic love story against the sinking abandonment of the Hurricane by its original crew),
“Space Wars” (re-enactment of the Blacklight/White Enterprises most epic battles),
“The Lord of the Bots” (which launched him in the fantasy genre),
"Wuthering Spaceships" (his first anti-hero role), and most especially in his greatest success
“Gone With The Bot” which even the strictest critics (save for Icarus’s relative) had to acknowledge as Clark’s masterpiece.
Often busy shooting no less than three films at once, he eventually didn’t fail to notice that there was an actress who represented a serious threat to his popularity – the bright, beautiful diva Marilyn Hayworth. She had been in the business for longer than Clark, had a competitive fan-base and several of her films even out-grossed, or went dangerously near to out-grossed, some of Clark’s own. What irked him even more was that that she could actually count on superior upgrades; she was equipped with the adaptoid technology of HAN-D units as well as with self-repair utilities such as were rumored to be an exclusive of Blacklight’s advisor Marina and their son, Rex. To say that Clark was jealous was an understatement.
The rivalry between the two actors carried on for some months, and contributed a great deal to their fame. Polls such as
“Fairbanks or Hayworth – who will make history first?” were the question of the day among film buffs. However, audience and tabloids were literally swept off their feet when it was announced in a grandiose press-conference that Clark and Marilyn would be starting their own filmmaking company by the name of Clarlyn Pictures. The idea had come up to Clark that
“if you can’t fight them, join them”; he had therefore contacted Marilyn about a business meeting – half-expecting that she would easily give in to his charms and accept to become his sidekick. After all, he
was the bachelor that no female bot could resist to, wasn’t he? What could go wrong?
What he hadn’t was that Marilyn wasn’t just a vapid, ditzy and brainless dreamer ready to hero-worship the ground he walked on, but a clever businesswoman well aware of her success and the power that her image had over the mass media. In fact, it was she who ruled the deal, stating from the very beginning of the negotiation that the only way she’d agree to work with Clark was if the company’s ownership and rights were 50% hers, and refusing to accept roles of “sidekick” – she would be the protagonist of HER movies and if he wanted a protagonist role in those too, that could be considered, but she was in no way letting him “put her in the corner”. So in the end it was Clark who had to make allowances to her demands, and not the other way around as he had initially planned. Like he sometimes still likes to complain (when Marilyn’s not around to hear, and when paparazzi aren’t around to report his words to the four winds), the only positive thing he earned from the deal was the permission to have himself upgraded with HAN-D technology which, in addition to his hologram projector, have contributed to make him a talent in portraying the most different roles on screen.
Although they come off as very professional at interviews and public appearances, in everyday life and at parties he and Marilyn just can’t help throwing subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) jabs at each other. Working together has done little to tone down their rivalry a little – if anything it has added up to it. They’re constantly blaming each other for every little thing that goes wrong, and each always tries to give a better image than the other in the role they play in the company as well as in their acting career. Still, with such strong willed personalities as theirs, such a thing couldn’t but be expected.
Clark is very conscious of his reputation of a latin lover. He’ll flirt shamelessly with all female robots, and boast often about the way he could easily make even CATH-E or human females fall head over heels for his good looks and charm. He just can’t figure out which female robot in her right mind would prefer someone else to him. Extremely self-absorbed and more than a little arrogant, he refused all along to recognize that he’s replaced by stuntbots for the most difficult or dangerous scenes, and often took the merit for the success of films in such a way as to overshadow not just the rest of the cast, but the directors and producers both, so that his name is the first that comes to mind whenever his film appearances are mentioned. This led to a love/hate relationship with the filmmaking industry, which resents him for catalyzing the attention of the mass-media on his figure alone, but is also well aware that an actor of such fame is a mark of sure success for their films. Ever since its foundation, alas, the Clarlyn Pictures became the bane of other companies, who know they can’t compete with anything that comes from the “dream factory” of the King and Queen of the movies.
In general Clark’s appearance looks a lot like that of an AAWF, with wings on his back (similar to those of AND-I and BRIDGETs, but much more streamlined) that he doesn’t use for flying but merely for looks. He’s known to change the coloring of his chassis often (think Ramone in Cars), but his favorite color scheme is chromed bronze and pale copper, with actual glitters (think the outfit Ken wears in TS3
). He does not seem to have a preference as far as eyescreen color go, but his eyes are always narrowed in an intense expression (maligned by other actors as the product of malfunctioning optics “which cause Clark to narrow his eyes in order to clearly see his partners”. The actor, however, has always denied such claims).
He’s known as “the robotic Gary Stu” by his detractors (especially Icarus White's re,ative who writes movies reviews).
“An autograph, darling? Why, I’d love to – woah, woah, darling, move aside, you’re blocking the camera, everyone wants to see the winning smile.” –
Marilyn Hayworth.Whereas Clark’s career in the movies was the product of an after-thought (he was originally meant to enroll in Blacklight’s Military as a soldier), Marilyn was assembled in Aperture Mesa purposefully as a theater-oriented custom-built unit. In layman’s terms, she was born to act. For this reason she was assembled with tech specifics such as advanced self-repair utilities (which aren’t actually as advanced as Marina or Rex’s own, but more like a “beta” version) and the same adaptoid technology of HAN-Ds, which enables her to become a different bot whenever she has to impersonate one.
The beginning of her career was nowhere as sensational as that of Clark; in the beginning, in fact, she played a number of minor roles and walker-on parts. But in all those roles she did stand out, not just for her appearance, but for the way she truly seemed to channel the various characters; she was now part of a choir of starlets in a musical, now one of the many freedom fighters against mankind in more tragic films, now sweet, now resigned, now willful and combative. Slowly at first, Marilyn started rising through the ranks and earned her first accredited role of co-star in the rather popular series of LASS-E, where she played the BRIDGET sidekick of a modified K-9 unit (who was to become one of her best friends). The series of LASS-E was the one that launched her; ever since she would make the leap of her career and perform only roles of protagonist.
The audience went crazy every time she appeared on the screens. Thousands of fans requested permission to land on the space station of Hollywood in the hope to get a smile or an autograph from their diva. The holo-disks edition of her films were instant blockbusters just about everywhere – a few even got smuggled in White Enterprises controlled ships by robot-friendly organizations like the GDA, that saw in a robot who had earned such a fame for herself a symbol of that freedom that they wanted for Marilyn’s brothers and sisters. Some of her successes include
“Oil and sand”, “The Bachelor Bot”, “Medi-Bot Zhivago”, “The Roboticist of Oz”, and
“Gentlebots prefer EVEs”. However, her movies weren’t the only reason why she became so loved by the fans. Since the beginning of her career Marilyn had felt strongly for the ideals of robots rights, and volunteered to shoot a series of promotional ads to encourage recruiting in the Blacklight Military, ads in which she wasn’t reprising her usual roles of “femme fatale” but spoke with great dignity and compassion about the lives that were at stake everyday in White-controlled ships, about the arrogance of humans and the inhuman slavery to which robots were subjected.
From her patriotic speeches it could be understood that she had not just beauty, but brain. Another sign of this was the fact that she never needed an agent – she was always her own manager, able to stand her grounds against producers and directors. Ever since she became a star, Marilyn never had to ask for a role in a movie, nor she was ever been talked into performing in a movie that didn’t do a thing for her. She was well aware that her name and fame would make a film an instant hit, and that the filmmaking industry counted on that; therefore, when negotiating with the companies, she did not beat around the bush but straight out demanded to have her way, both in the choice of the films, in the selections of the accompanying cast and sometimes even in the design of the sets and costumes. And so it was that, like Clark, she soon started taking the merit for the success of her movies much more than producers, directors and artistic crew did.
When the new rising star of the movies, Clark Fairbanks, started being a “stone in the anti-gravs”, Marilyn was not worried.
“I’ve watched the movies of the darling Clark” she said during an interview.
“He is an amateur who acts off the cuff and improvises a lot. But without a good team behind him, and some acting lessons, maybe he will last more than a couple years… but I very much doubt so.” These sweet-spoken but strict verdicts had made the end of many actors before Clark’s time. However, she was mildly surprised, and secretly amused, by the way he rose up to the challenge and continued to attempt to overthrow her from her title of “Queen of the movies”. With every new film he released, Marilyn had to fight to make sure that her next interpretation was even greater. Because, sure as Hell existed, if Fairbanks wanted to cross her path, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
When Clark approached her producers about a business meeting, she knew even before he did that they’d be discussing not an armistice, as he had put it, but rather subtly admit his defeat. Obviously that amateur had realized out that on the long run he’d never be able to compete with her forever, and he thought he could small-talk her into withdrawing in his shadow – as if. Marilyn smiled prettily, listened with attention, giggled – and then froze Clark How-cool-I-am Fairbanks with a few selected phrases.
“Let’s make one thing clear, Mr. Fairbanks. I will *not* be your adoring sidekick. If you want to start a co-partnership of a filmmaking company, the rights will be 50% mine, or else no deal will be possible. It’s a take or leave, and if you’ll forget my saying so, you are NOT in the possibility to consider ‘leave’ as an option.” Poor Clark, who thought he had that attractive but brainless bimbo wrapped around his fingers with his smiles and nice words, was completely dumbstruck by the financial shark in front of him. That amused Marilyn even more.
Ever since their collaboration began, alas, she has never had qualms reprimanding Clark when she thinks he’s doing something wrong. She also has a tendency to blame him whenever something in the company goes wrong, but she’s an advocate of “always showing a winning smile to the cameras” – their personate arguments can be resolved when the media aren’t around. Like him, she can be arrogant, though it’s more a matter of knowing her worth rather than boasting – she just
knows she’s the best actress out there, and it’s her fans, not herself, who have claimed so over and over again. She’s also quite vain, caring a great deal for her physical appearance – but even then, you could say that it’s not a “vanity for its own sake” but rather “calculated”, as in, she knows that her beauty together with her acting abilities is the one reason why her fans love her so, and therefore her main source of incomes and popularity. In fact, she’s much more down to earth than Clark and has a very materialistic attitude toward the world, seeing it in terms of profit – which can be economic or for an ideal, but remains a profit. She could have make an excellent business-woman. And maybe that was the reason why the tabloids are so crazy about her latest romantic involvement (after a great number of heavily rumored flirts) with none other than Vox Hardlight. Marilyn is the only one who knows whether or not she’s really in a relationship with Hardlight, and she sure ain’t saying – after all, it all adds up to her legend, doesn’t it?
Her design is very particular. Her head looks like that of an EVE probe, with elegant twirl markings that resemble locks of hair, and a square eyescreen (with rounded angles) which is slightly thinner and wider than that of EVE probes (think widescreen monitors vs normal ones). Her body resembles that of an AAWF, but smoothler and more streamlined (think halfway between a AAWF and Vida/Vanessa). However, her head and limbs aren’t attached to the body but hover just like those of an EVE probe; even her neck/shoulders are bowl-shaped to resemble those of EVE probe. She has HAN-D like helicopter blades on her back, which earned her the nickname of “fairytale” among her fans. Her color scheme is mother-of-pearl and platinum silver. Her violet eyes (with darker iris border making them look almost like pupils) also add part of her charm, and you can often hear robot females say “If I had purple eyes like Marilyn!”
Like Clark, she has some detractors, including Icarus White’s movie-reviewer relative who nicknamed her “the robotic Mary Sue”.
(And there they are
Of course named after Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth, but I included homages and references to many other actors and films in their biographies
They’re my homage to the history of movies and the Golden Age of Hollywood
)
