Why Edward Scissorhands is the Best Robot Film of All-Time (Even if It Wasn’t Meant to Be One)

Why Edward Scissorhands is the Best Robot Film of All-Time (Even if It Wasn’t Meant to Be One)

When people think of great robot films, they usually name the usual suspects: Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Wall-E - you know, the ones with futuristic tech, AI dilemmas, and lots of metal. But the greatest robot film of all-time might just be one that no one realises is a robot film: Edward Scissorhands.

Yes, Tim Burton’s gothic fairytale about a lonely outsider with scissors for hands is, at its core, an imaginative robot story. Edward was engineered in a factory, developed from the typical robots one would find working in a factory; he was created to be human, programmed with language and emotion, and - importantly to Burton’s story - left tragically unfinished. The only clue remaining of his machine origins is his metal hands.

Sure, Blade Runner asked deep questions about what it means to be human, and The Terminator gave us robots that could time travel and shoot up entire police stations, but Edward Scissorhands takes the robot story to another level - not with explosions, but with heartbreak. Instead of a dystopian future, Burton subverts the stereotypical trope and drops Edward into pastel-coloured suburbia, where the real villains aren’t killer androids but nosy neighbours. Instead of questioning whether robots have emotions, the film shows us Edward can learn and develop them like his human peers and, let’s be honest, Edward has more feelings and compassion than most of the actual humans in the movie.

Burton probably didn’t set out to make a 'robot movie' or a sci-fi film, but he was undeniably influenced by the robot-heavy favourite flicks prevalent in the ‘80s before Edward Scissorhands hit cinemas. Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Short Circuit - all these films became part of popular culture before Edward Scissorhands released, and whether he realised it or not, Burton took the popular robot motif and subverted it, by putting his robot in a gothic horror, with a fairytale twist. I wonder how much of an influence the Japanese cartoon, Astro Boy, had on Tim Burton. After all, Astro Boy was a pop-culture phenomenon in the late '80s and it stared a child-like robot, the first of its kind with a heart - not too dissimilar to Edward.

I’ve never met someone who realised Edward was a robot, and I wondered why that was. Even though the Terminator looks more human on the outside, he still feels like a machine. His mannerisms, speech patterns, and lack of true emotion reinforce his robotic nature, despite his human disguise. Edward, on the other hand, is openly mechanical but expresses emotions more deeply than most of the actual humans around him. He is creative, like humans, and his art captures his love of humanity.

It’s almost like audiences recognise the Terminator as a machine because he acts like one, while Edward’s vulnerability and emotional depth make them overlook his artificial nature. The fairytale aspect plays a big role too; Burton presents Edward as something magical rather than technological, even though his origins are entirely mechanical. His “cookie for a heart” is almost the opposite of the Terminator’s cold, metal endoskeleton, making Edward seem more like a mystical creation than a programmed machine.

Another way Tim Burton draws viewers into the believability that Edward is human is because he utilises a trope commonly found in stories, that being the orphan protagonist. Famously found in movies like: Star Wars, Spider-Man, Batman, Lion King, and one of my favourite robot films, Big Hero 6, having Edward be childlike and orphaned at a young age by the death of his creator, gained sympathy with audiences, probably on the same level as people felt watching Harry Potter be orphaned. Applying this over-used trope but subverting it by having it played out with a robot, is not only creative, but had audiences believe Edward is human. And Johnny Depp’s charismatic acting made audiences perceive Edward as an innocent child, and removed us further away from Edward’s mechanical origins.

So if you’re ranking the greatest robot movies of all-time, don’t forget about the one with the cookie for a heart. It might not have lasers or killer AI, or set in a dystopian future, but Edward Scissorhands proves that sometimes, the best robots don’t come from the future - they come from the mind of Tim Burton.

Ps. Other great robot films I did not mention in this article but considered when evaluating which robot film is the greatest:

The Matrix, Ex Machina, Ghost in The Shell, Avengers; Age of Ultron, Bumblebee.