Every Movie Walker Gets This Wrong (Except Aliens)

Aaaaand get away from her, another day in the yard!!!! In 1968 General Electric built the US Army a truck with legs, and its drivers were worn out in about fifteen minutes. In 2015 the Marines put a $42 million robot mule into storage because the enemy could hear it coming. And the most famous walker in cinema started life as a delivery truck: a Syd Mead painting in a 1969 U.S. Steel portfolio that Joe Johnston, in his own words, turned into a walking tank. So we put every walking war machine through the same three inspections. The ground: does it walk somewhere a wheel can't? The foot: can it lift one without falling over? The size: can its legs carry it? The AT-AT passes the foot test, thanks to Phil Tippett's rule of three feet on the ground at all times, and then walks across the flattest place in the galaxy. ED-209 has legs and can't do stairs, the one job legs are for (and its fall was a lead-filled puppet dropped down a tilted miniature). The Wild Wild West tarantula has the best stance in the episode and a Razzie for Worst Picture. H.G. Wells described the tripod gait in 1898 as "a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground", and a Virginia Tech robot walks exactly like that. The APU is Ralph Mosher's walking truck with two cannons bolted on. And the one that passes is a forklift you wear, designed with input from the same Syd Mead. Verdict: FORKLIFT. THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS FOR A LIVING. ## Chapters 0:00 Cold open 1:03 Why legs at all 2:53 AT-AT: the walking truck 5:31 Six legs, two legs 6:49 ED-209 and the stairs 8:55 The tarantula 10:44 Three legs 12:33 The APU 13:47 The zoo 15:41 The forklift 18:17 Next on the slab This one came from the comments under the speedrun: the Wild Wild West spider turned into a whole episode. Which walker did we miss? — NEXT ON THE SLAB — Drop your pick, and the thing in it that doesn't add up. Narrated by: Me :)