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In both versions the robots or Cylons turned against their creators. The ideas about human beings, about the centrality of labor to give their lives meaning, of the pressures of modern capital to strip workers of their essentially human characteristics are what the play is all about. In both versions the robots or Cylons are obsessed with replicating themselves, though in BSG the Cylons are capable of laboratory reduplication, but aspire to procreation sexually. Capek's particular version of the robot has many connections with subsequent depictions of constructed people.
(short for Rossum's Universal Robots) explores instead ideas, leaving character to one side. Karel Capek's R.U.R. Capek's own politics do not fit comfortably on the current political grid. But Capek also shares with this older conservative tradition a fear of technological development.
I find it fascinating that this, the first truly important SF play, focuses on robots. The robots are emblematic of what, Capek believes, modern capital want to do to workers, taken to their logical extreme.The play is, therefore, a profoundly political play. He could properly be called conservative, if one could recover an older conservative tradition that was not linked so powerfully to business and corporate interests. Historically this was not always so. Most 20th century plays are focused on the exploration of characters, not ideas.
He does not believe that much genuine good will arise out of increasing technological development.The play is perhaps most significant for having popularized the use of the word "robot," a word coined by Karel's brother Josef. The robots of Capek's play have far more in common with what we would today call cyborgs or androids, being apparently human creatures made by humans. The novel that is usually considered the first SF novel, FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley, also is about an artificially constructed human being. The first SF feature length film, Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, also had a robot as one of its major characters. This tradition in American politics was transformed earlier just after the half century mark in the 20th century, much to the chagrin of traditional conservatives like Russell Kirk. The character in this play are somewhat beside the point, irrelevant. To take merely one instance, there are many parallels between Capek's robots and the Cylons in BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (the new version, not the 1978 one).
John Adams, for instance, the second American president, wrote passionately about the need for the executive branch of government to stand between the greed of the economic elite and both ordinary Americans and the republic. Capek shares much in common with this earlier tradition, seeing the greed of corporate interests, which would reduce workers to mere machines if they could. In both versions the robots were created to undertake work for humans to make their lives easier. Clearly Capek anticipated many ongoing questions in SF.This remains one of the important works of SF of the 20th century as well as one of the most crucial works in the history of imaginative explorations of what it means to be human through the creation of artificial people.
This is a very lean version, with some characters being removed or merged with other characters. Whole sections of original dialogue have been removed, or at best, changed. Avoid this version like a robot plague.
don't skip this one - it's the best part of the play. It was like listening to a play in a language I barely understand - I couldn't believe it, and thought I may have had it wrong. "R.U.R.", from the author of "The War with the Newts", is a major disappointment. Thank goodness I didn't buy tickets for and then have to sit through the least believable dialogue I have ever read, nor did I waste a lot of time wondering why Glory accepted the elephantine attentions of Domin. But I didn't: it WAS clumsy, stilted, unbelievable. Read "Newts", and get the same message in a novel you'll never forget, by an author who will never be forgotten.
This is definitely a great read. It's got enough 'depth' despite it's small package to interest just about anybody. It surprised me how much Capek touched upon present day issues in a volume authored over 80 years ago.
This is a really good play but most reviewers miss the fact that in the play, the robots are not mechanical or androids but genetically engineered from a "protoplasm". I think this really addresses some of the issues today, especially stem cell research.
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