The Works is a shelved animated feature film written and directed by Lance Williams, partially produced from 1979 to 1986. If it had been finished, it would have been the first film that was entirely 3D computer-animated. It included contributions from individuals who would go on to work at digital animation pioneers Pixar and DreamWorks Animation.
The film was developed by the staff of the Computer Graphics Lab in association with the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, New York. The title itself was inspired by the original meaning of the word "robot", derived from "robota" (meaning "workforce" or "slaves"), a word found in Czech and many other Slavic languages.Out of this World It was originally intended to be approximately 90 minutes long although less than 10 minutes are known to have been produced. A trailer for the film was screened at SIGGRAPH in Boston, Massachusetts in 1982. The project also resulted in other early computer animations such as 3DV, Sunstone, Inside a Quark and segments of the short film The Magic Egg from 1984.
The story is set in a future in which the human race has gone extinct on Earth because of The Works, a military supercomputer that then repopulated the entire planet with robots. Only scientist-astronauts survived and over two millennia created a new society on asteroids. One day the androids stationed on the Moon send them an ambassador, Ipso Facto, tasked with recruiting a human so that he can speak with The Works and obtain data about the former terrestrial civilisation. He encounters a boy, Beeper Raxis, who becomes his companion on the adventure..
Plot The story, written by Lance Williams, would have centered around "Ipso Facto", an elliptical robot, and a young female pilot nicknamed "T-Square". The story would have been set some time in the distant future after a malfunctioning computer, "The Works", triggered a devastating last World War but then, realizing what it had done, set out to repopulate the planet entirely with robots. T-Square, who works and lives in a nearby asteroid belt, vows to journey to Earth and fight[s] to make it safe to return to for her fellow space-faring humans. In the distant future, Earth is devastated by the Third World War. To stop it, a military "supercomputer" decides to collide an asteroid with the planet, causing the extinction of all humans. The only survivors are researchers who were on some planetoids conducting studies.. Over two millennia, they found a new civilisation..
One day, T-Square and Beeper Raxis, two young spaceship pilots, notice the arrival of a spherical metallic object headed toward one of their "bubble cities". Assuming it might be a bomb sent from Earth to wipe out the last humans,. Beeper decides to destroy it by ramming it. The impact actually only damages his craft, which is hurled into deep space. The metallic object instead proves to be a spacecraft piloted by a robot, who goes to rescue Beeper..
The android, named Ipso Facto, is an "expert on humans" and has been sent by Selene, the electronic brain of the Moon's scientific research centre, to recruit a living human who can speak with "The Works", the military "supercomputer" that, having gone mad after the end of the Third World War, tyrannises thousands of robots. The goal is to obtain from it all information relating to human progress, from the arts to science, including technology and medicine, so it can be given to the survivors. Selene had tried several times to speak with The Works, receiving only threats and attempted attacks via nuclear missiles in response..
Beeper accepts the mission. During the journey he is transferred to another spacecraft with which he connects to The Works, which at first does not believe he is human, considering him a robot assembled by Selene to steal its data. Nevertheless, it provides landing coordinates, intending to capture him and extract his memory, in order to obtain useful information about plans devised by its "enemy".. When Beeper and Ipso enter the Earth's atmosphere, they are hit by laser beams. They manage to land, but their spacecraft can no longer depart. The boy also moves with great difficulty because of gravity and is forced to wear a special stabilising suit.. After leaving the craft, they push into the surrounding vegetation,. heading for the central computer. Some robots arrive, tasked with disassembling the visitors: Ipso attempts to convince them that his travelling companion is a genuine Homo sapiens, but they do not believe him, since the stabilising suit and helmet make the youth resemble them. Ipso is therefore forced to display impressive fighting techniques, destroying his opponents one after another.
As they cross an architectural complex under construction, they are intercepted by the Dinosaur Squadron, a group of newly manufactured flying discs that join to form a gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex. Ipso tries to fight it, but is dismantled piece by piece and placed in metal boxes. Beeper, hiding in one of the buildings, follows the vehicles transporting his friend to a pyramidal structure, a kind of warehouse. He gets lost in corridors full of piled-up objects, but eventually finds Ipso Facto and rebuilds him. The pair are confronted by some androids and the Dinosaur Squadron: Ipso manages to neutralise some flying discs and to repurpose one of them, enabling their escape. Outside the building, a tripod robot hits them with a laser beam and they fall into the sea, where they are swallowed by the water and disappear from the pursuers' sight and radar.
Beeper and Ipso Facto wash up on a beach near a landfill; there, Ipso, although missing a hand, repairs a discarded robot. The robot recognises the boy as a human because, being very old, it had actually dealt with humans, unlike newer machines. Asked how to reach The Works, it does not know and directs them toward other machines playing poker. Ipso joins the game and, as the stake, offers Beeper himself, advertising him as a tireless and very strong slave. Despite the boy's fears, Ipso wins game after game, eventually obtaining from one of the opponents, Rusty, its memory. From this, Ipso learns that reaching the central computer requires some heavy unit. Beeper notices a huge ant-shaped vehicle stopped in the road; they board it and set it in motion. Ipso's hand, washed up from the sea, follows them from afar.
With the ant vehicle, they reach a large ventilation duct that leads them inside The Works, a vast complex of machinery and metal structures. Ipso and Beeper are surrounded by military androids, clamped by steel pincers and an immobilising beam. The Works is ready to dismantle them, but Ipso's hand, having slipped into the structure, presses a button that turns the paralysing antenna, striking The Works. All the androids shut down.
Beeper asks Ipso for help, but Ipso, deactivated, cannot respond. However, a spark of life, triggered by the boy's voice, revives him. With his strength, Ipso breaks the clamps, freeing his companion, who, injured, bleeds. The Works notices the blood, understands that he is a real human, and is enthusiastic. Beeper asks why it is happy to see a member of a race it nearly exterminated; it answers that it had no choice: a rival computer possessed deadly bacteriological weapons, and the only way to defeat it was to drop an asteroid on Earth. In addition, The Works had been forced to kill those humans who had managed to survive because, contaminated by viruses released during the conflict, they were attempting to reach the researchers on the asteroids. Beeper, realising that the machine acted for the good of his people, thanks it. He communicates with Selene, who informs everyone of the colonists' imminent arrival, led by T-Square.
Pre-production Background
The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) was founded in 1955 by entrepreneur and academic Alexander Schure, described as an "eccentric, fast-talking millionaire". Across its two campuses, one in Old Westbury (on Long Island) and the other in Manhattan, students were guided into technological and scientific research fields. Through creative teaching methods, the university promoted education for less privileged youth; for example, learning mathematics through comics was tested to help first-year students who were struggling. The idea met with some success and Schure wanted to turn the drawings into an animated product for educational purposes, pursuing one of his great passions: Schure had a long and ardent interest in animation. He was a great admirer of Walt Disney and was reported to have dreamed of making animated features. After winning a gold medal at the New York International TV Film Festival, he decided to open the Department of Animation, Visual Arts Center and Tech Sound Lab at the Old Westbury campus. Schure had already created a traditional animation facility at NYIT. After visiting the University of Utah and seeing the potential of computer technology in the form of the drawing program Sketchpad created by Ivan Sutherland, he told his people to pore over the Utah research center and "get him one of everything they had". In 1974 Schure announced that he would direct and produce an animated feature film, Tubby the Tuba, inspired by the children's song of the same name (1945) by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger. "He hired a hundred animators [...] but soon realised that drawing every frame by hand was a tedious process", so he began looking for means and resources that could speed up production. David C. Evans of Evans & Sutherland persuaded him to visit the computer graphics laboratories at the University of Utah. As Michael Morrison recounted in his essay Becoming a Computer Animator (1994): "After seeing the situation at the UU, he asked Evans what equipment he needed to create computer graphics. He told his people to 'bring me one of everything they have'". Ed Catmull, who had just earned a PhD in computer science and found work at the computer manufacturer Applicon, was contacted by Schure with a proposal to come to NYIT "to create an independent research lab, hire a team, buy whatever equipment they needed, with no constraints, just to develop a major technology" that could help animators produce cartoons.
And so in 1974 the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab (CGL) was established, buying state-of-the-art equipment and hiring major researchers from throughout the computer graphics field. The CGL was established at Old Westbury, headed by Catmull. He was joined by his friend and colleague Malcolm Blanchard. In the following months, two former employees of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Alvy Ray Smith and David DiFrancesco, learned of the project from a University of Utah consultant, Martin Newell: Smith had worked with Richard Shoup on the digital colouring program SuperPaint; after being laid off, he spent his last savings to fly to NYIT from Berkeley, California. He and DiFrancesco were immediately hired as "Information Quanta".
At first, one of CGL's main goals was to use computers to produce 2D animation and invent tools to assist traditional animators in their work. Schure reasoned that it should be possible to develop technology that would make the animation process cheaper and faster. An early version of the CAPS system later used by Disney animators was among the tools created. Over time the lab expanded its staff, bringing in, among others, the visual artist Ed Emshwiller and the programmers and researchers Lance Williams, Jim Blinn, James H. Clark, Tom Duff, Ralph Guggenheim, Garland Stern, Fred Parke and Christy Barton, many of whom came from the University of Utah. Schure imposed no spending limits and managed to acquire the best commercial equipment available, such as a PDP-11 and a VAX from Digital Equipment Corporation, as well as the latest LDS-1 model and the "first random-access framebuffer" from Evans & Sutherland.