Lesson learnt from the real steel movie...

Now just for once can you bow down to the old man, not that I am worthy of any attention but because I have brought you something unique today. Now read and learn...

Firstly there is this bad attitude that writers have, not writers per se, but all those who have reading and writing as their hobbies, they all have one thing in common. My guess is as good as yours, they don’t like to watch TV.

If they do it’s for less than an hour or should I say an hour and 30 minutes just to make the soccer fanatics happy. If you don’t believe me, go ask Sparks (Swazi News columnist), my Editor, Phephisa Khoza, Managing Editor Mbongeni Mbingo and the Times SUNDAY Editor, Innocent Maphalala.

I m sure they would tell you that they only watch TV when the news are on or maybe when the teams they support, either in soccer or whatever is playing.

Don’t count Mkhulu out, I am a book worm myself (currently I am reading Robin Cook-Foreign body which I am about to finish). Now let’s get to the gist of today’s article.

Okay as I was reading my novel (thank God for the reading glasses gogo bought me, ngabe ngacwala kadzeni lamehlweni)... Umtukulu pops up and disturbs me "Mkhulu you have to put aside that novel of yours and watch this movie with me."

I ignored him as I always do and in fact he has learnt to live with it but this day, it was Tuesday if my memory serves me well, he just wouldn’t allow himself to be ignored, yeyi this boy.

He kept pestering me and I eventually put aside my novel to watch his movie on the small 14 inch laptop screen.

But get this clear I have been warning umtukulu about loading lots of unnecessary stuff on the machine but he just never listens. Udzinga lubhoko lwa Mkhulu phela lomfana lo.

I had made this clear the day I got this laptop that it was only for writing my column nothing more. Loading all these movies, I am told, makes the machine to run slow, in computer language they say it takes time to execute tasks.

Yes, no wonder it is so slow, but that’s a story for another day.

I watched the movie from the beginning and I must say I was pleasantly surprised because it kept me in suspense. From the moment Charlie receives a phone call from a Jack, to the moment when they finally celebrate with Max, Atom (Robot) it was just great.

Great movie indeed. For those who didn’t watch it I will summarise it for you. Okay Charlie is a man who is in debt and the debtors want their money.

Charlie thinks of a plan to repay the money. The only option he has is to enter for a robot boxing competition since he owned one. Charlie has a passion for robots and we see this when he objects to his wife, Bailey’s suggestion to sell the workshop.

He had been in two fights and lost both except the final boxing fight with a robot named Zeus. Are you following? Even though he was defeated in those fights he was not thinking of giving up, his wife would blame him for wasting his precious time and money on robots.

From left to write: Atom (robot), Max and Charlie were celebrating after Atom won the final challenge. Everything changed for the better when Max came to stay with Charlie for the summer when their parents went on vacation to Europe. Max had love for robots as you can expect from any young children of 11.

You know our children spend lot of time playing computer games these days.

If you don’t believe me then read the world news of April 30, 2012 Times newspaper, where a child was tied on a tree by his father for abconding school to play computer games.

Anyways I was talking about Max, on his first day at Charlie’s place, he controlled the robot (Noisy BOY) when Charlie was worried why it didn’t move and when he instructed it to do an uppercut on English.

Max instructed it in Japanese and it acted upon his command. Then Charlie got a challenge which he lost. They go back home dejected and angry. This is when the movie starts, at least for Mkhulu.

They go to a scrap yard to look for parts to fix the robot. Accidently Max fell and slid down a hill and an earlier generation robot saved his life. It was stuck up in debris in the waterfall. Charlie came down and helped the boy and Max told him there was some robot in there but Charlie didn’t believe him. He was surprised when little Max came up with an ancient robot. They cleaned it before repairing it.

Max taught it to act like him. Prior to this Charlie would control all his robots via an Ipad or sorts of remote control. When it was competitions time Atom won five of the games.

Although in the last fight it was quite tense they eventually won. Before the final challenge, a buyer named Tak Ma-shido approached them and Charlie was willing to sell Atom for US$200 million but Max was against the idea. This is how their conversation went:

Charlie tried to convince the little boy but Max stood his ground. I liked it when Max suggested that Charlie must pull himself into fighting shape and guide Atom by pantomime from outside the ring.

No wonder the plan worked as Atom was directed by voice and the move that Charlie made outside the ring led them to victory. It was such a big moment for Charlie and little Max.

I like it when they are on their way home and Charlie says, "I told you we should not sell him," and little Max replied saying, "as you know we adults never want to admit the truth," Charlie finally says, "Let’s say we’re a good team."

Okay this movie from New Times (released on October 6, 20011) by journalist Stephen Holden, evolves around humans and machines at a time when robots are replacing people in the workplace and in war. Holden continues to say this movie doesn’t question our deepning love affair with technology and foolish trust in it.Well that’s how he sees it and now mkhulu old as I am , will just ignore the nitty gritty and draw a conclusion from what I have seen in this two hours eight minutes action packed robots movie produced by Shawn Levy and written by John Gatins.

One main lesson here is passion can drive you to achieve anything you want. We see this from both Charlie Kenton and Max, they had passion for robots, thus they never gave up even though the future looked bleak.

Instead they grow stronger in this game of robot boxing. Now when something is bound to be a success there are bound to be those hiccups and this is clearly illustrated when Charlie’s wife, Bailey suggested that they sell the robot and the workshop but passion pushed him to focus on his goal. Thirdly when things are about to go well, you will experience the greatest challenges.

We see this when the little boy slid down that hill and Charlie was worried and thought the boy was dead. But wait for it, that is where they discovered a robot. That was the beginning of good times. Just to add to that point, Charlie didn’t want to listen to Max, what if Max had let go and followed Charlie and never bothered to dig up the ancient robot.

Lastly everything happens for a reason and happens at the right time so just chill and relax and let God control your life. Guess what, it was the right thing to read this article and take note of the trends in your personal life.

Now do I sound like a motivational speaker? After all Swazi News has a section where movies are reviewed and I remember this movie was reviewed in one of November issues.

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