An Amiga 500 was spotted in 1989 splatter-comic movie "Robot Ninja" - both on screen, and behind the scenes.
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| Robot Ninja (1989) poster artwork (see end of article) |
The movie is a very gory, but also funny and slightly tragic low-budget sci-fi/horror production. If this fits your taste, it's really enjoyable, with a lot of handdrawn comic panels thrown in, goofy, but (very) rough characters, and some actually quite ambitious, visionary storytelling, complete with dream sequence, Terminator rip-off scene, and everything.
"Robot Ninja" was written, produced, directed, and edited by J. R. Bookwalter, who also supplied some of the music.
The opening credits might look somehow familiar to longtime Amiga users.
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| A couple of frames from the opening credits |
The comic panel sections of the opening sequence feature some animated text - could this be some Deluxe Paint animations that we're looking at?
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| A couple of frames from the opening sequence, with comic panels, and animation |
Only a few minutes into the movie, we get a little news report that features some sort of artwork of the "Robot Ninja".
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| Is Robot Ninja connected to the Ridgeway Murders... ? |
So far, all of this feels very much like something Amiga. It wouldn't be surprising if one shows up in the movie... and indeed, soon a machine can be seen that looks remarkably like an Amiga 500.
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| Someone is playing a game... |
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| ...on a computer with some extra equipment... |
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| ...that looks very much like an Amiga 500... |
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| ...and runs a GUI with a blue background. |
So after this character has played a round of "Lords of the Rising Sun", he returns to what seems to be AmigaOS Workbench 1.x.
More artwork shows up during the movie - isn't there a faint title bar, that maybe says "Deluxe Paint"? And there's another news report, that uses a font that just looks all familiar.
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| The "Robot Ninja" shown on the computer display - with title bar. |
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| The font used by this TV station looks very familiar. |
We get to see more of the computer equipment. There seems to be a dot matrix printer on the left side (maybe a Star LC-10?), and a floppy drive right next to the keyboard. And is there another, bigger printer, on the right side?
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| 1989 computer workstation in "Robot Ninja" |
In this sequence, the movie's anti-hero is in very bad shape after a heavy fight - he tries to decipher what's written on the computer display, but he's dizzy, and his vision is blurry.
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| Robot Ninja can't properly see the computer display. |
But then, finally, all doubts are dispelled: Yes, this is an Amiga 500. With a red LED.
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| It's really an Amiga 500, with PSU, 1010 floppy drive, and 1084 monitor! |
The movie's ending credits feature some digitized images with a little bit of animation.
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| A couple of frames from the pictures during the ending credits. |
When the credits' text (Topaz font? Opal font?) begins to roll, it gives more clues about Amiga usage during production, and some enthusiastic praise for the computer.
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| Amiga 500 in "Robot Ninja" ending credits |
The titles, and we can pretty safely assume also the digital artwork in the movie, were indeed created on an Amiga 500, as was the music by Mr. Bookwalter. Maybe the entire editing was done with some gen-locking, VHS-recorder-controlling Amiga setup, at "The Imagination Industry" and Richard B. Perrine?
"Robot Ninja" is a very nice example of Amiga usage in movie production. Looking at its imaginative, bold style, it's a perfect tie-in with the idea of the allround-creative Amiga user. Mr. Bookwalter obviously is one such person. He felt he had to put the machine into the movie, give it big credit, and the fact that he did the work for "Robot Ninja" on an Amiga 500 is pretty cool in itself. It's proof that even the lowest-cost model, a literal bedroom-computer, can be a (low-res) film industry workhorse.
Now, why isn't there a "Robot Ninja" game for the Amiga?*
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100503/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Ninja
"Robot Ninja" poster image:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Ninja#/media/File:Robot_Ninja_(1989)_poster.jpg
https://theschlockpit.com/2020/03/29/in-praise-of-robot-ninja-1989/
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