Barbarella’s energy box

In addition to the portable brainwave detector, Dianthus also provides Barbarella with a number of weapons from the Museum of Conflict for her mission. All of these weapons are powered by a single energy box.

We only see it in use after she fires a single shot from the smallest of the weapons. She tries a second shot, but when it doesn’’t work, she glances at a device on the cuff of her boot. The device is designed in a taijitu, a yin-yang set of lights: one red, one white. They are blinking in an alternating pattern, and after viewing it she tells Pygar, ““My energy box is completely dead.””

Though having a visual signal is quite useful to understand the state of an invisible resource like power, the signal would be much more useful if it showed the amount of energy remaining, and gave warnings before the power was completely out. Failing all that, it would be more useful if she just put the device on the glove of her shooting hand so it was in her field of view at all times.

And though Barbarella’s culture doesn’t understand war, even a peaceful person can quickly come to realize the risk in making your available resources—like power for your weapons—wholly visible to your enemies.

Portable brainwave detector

Through the atom transmitter Dianthus bestows several gifts on Barbarella to help her with her mission. The first of these is the “portable brainwave detector…to test for Durand-Durand’s presence.” To operate it, Barbarella must press “a contact,” (Dianthus is offscreen when he indicates the contact, but later we see her operating the leaf-like button near the wrist) and if Durand-Durand is around, the ball of lights will glow and an alarm will sound.

The device is wearable, wrapping around Barbarella’s forearm, and held in place by a ring. This aspect of the design is good, since it means the device is ever-present for operation, and the design of it makes it lovely enough to be overlooked as a fashion accessory. In fact many characters see her wearing it and make no mention.

Manual activation is less than ideal, though, since this might tip off the suspect. This is especially true with the blinking, glowing ball of light and audio feedback. And, in fact, this is what happens later in the film when Durand-Durand trips over the device. The blinking light and audio catch his attention, betray the device for what it is, and blow Barbarella’’s cover in the process.

The best feedback would be invisible, like a haptic vibration through the cuff to her skin. Ideally, the device would be constantly on, to detect the subject passively, the moment he came into range. But presuming battery life is the issue, the activation cue should be something much more subtle, like Barbarella’s touching the back of the ring with the thumb of the same hand. Such a gesture would match the existing design of the object, be discreet to an observer, and yet still discrete enough to prevent accidental activation.

Destination threshold

As David is walking through a ship’s hallway, a great clanging sounds from deep in the ship, as the colored lights high in the walls change suddenly from a purple to a flashing red, and a slight but urgent beeping begins. He glances at a billiards table in an adjacent room, sees the balls and cue sliding, and understands that it wasn’t just him: gravity has definitely changed.

There are questions about what’s going on with the ship that the gravity changed so fast, but our interest must be in the interfaces.

Why did David not expect this? If they’re heading to a planet and the route is known, David should know well in advance. The ship should have told him, especially if the event is going to be one that could potentially topple him. Presuming the ship has sensors to monitor all of this, it should not have come as a surprise.

The warning itself seems mostly well designed, using multiple modes of signal and clear warning signs:

• Change in color from a soft to intense color (They even look like eyes squinting and concentrating in the thumbnails.)
• A shift to red, commonly used for warning or crisis
• Blinking red is a hugely attention-getting visual signal
• Beeping is a auditory signal that is also a common warning signal, and hard to ignore

After David sees these signals, he walks to wall panel and presses a few offscreen buttons which beep back at him and silence the beeping, replacing it with overhead pulses of light that race up and down the hallway. Over the sound system a male voice announces “Attention. Destination threshold.”

Why should David have to go find out what the crisis is at the wall interface? If he had been unable to get to the wall interface, how would he know what happened? Or if it required split-second action, why require of him to waste his time getting there and pressing buttons? In a crisis, the system should let you know what the crisis is quickly and intrusively if it’s a dire crisis in need of remedy. The audio announcement should have happened automatically.

The overhead lights are almost a nice replacement for beeping. It still says, “alert” without the grating annoyance that audio can sometimes be. (There’s still a soft “click” with each shifting light, just not as bad.) But if he’s able to silence the audio at this wall panel, why wasn’t he able to silence the race lights as well? And why do they “race” up and down the hallway rather than just blink? The racing provides an inappropriate sense of motion. Given that this signal is for when the crew is in an unusual and potentially dangerous situation, it would be better to avoid the unhelpful motion cue by simply blinking, or to use the sense of direction they provide to signal to David where he ought to be. A simple option would be to have the hallway lights race continuously in the direction of the bridge, leading the crew to where they would be most effective. Even better is if the ship has locational awareness of individual crew members, then you can cut all overhead illumination by 20% and pulse a light a few feet away in the desired direction between 80 and 100 percent, while darkening the hallway in the opposite direction. Then, as David walks towards the blinking light, the ship can lead him, even around corners, to get him where he needs to be. In a real crisis, this would be an easy and intuitive way to lead people where they’re need to be. It would of course need simple overrides in case the crew knew something about the situation that the ship did not.

After walking through the racing-light hallways, he turns just past the door and into the bridge, where we can see the legend “DESTINATION THRESHOLD” across the pilots HUD. He turns on a light, licks a finger, and presses another button to activate all of the interfaces on the bridge. He walks to the pilot’s panel, presses a button to open the forward viewscreen, observing LV223 with wide-eyed wonder.

This entire sequence seems strange from an interface perspective. We’re going to presume that licking his fingers was just a character tic and not required by the system. But in addition to the fact, raised above, that David seems somewhat surprised by it all, that he should have to open doors and manually turn on lights and interfaces during a crisis seems pointless. It’s either not a crisis and these signals should diminish, or it is a crisis and more of this technology should be automated.

Robbie the Robot

Dr. Morbius creates Robbie after having his intellectual capacity doubled by the Krell machines. The robot is a man-sized, highly capable domestic servant receiving orders aurally, and responding as needed with a synthesized voice of his own.

Robbie exits the cockpit of his vehicle.

Robbie invites the men inside.

Robbie first appears steering a special vehicle to pick up the officers. It is specially built for him, accommodating his inability to sit down. From this position, he can wirelessly maneuver the vehicle, and even turn his head around to address passengers.

Robbie fires Adams’’ sidearm.

Despite his having only two wide, flat fingers on each hand, he is able to grasp and manipulate objects as a human would. To demonstrate this, Morbius has him aim and fire Commander Adams’’ weapon at a nearby tree. How he pulled the trigger is something of an unanswered question since his hands are hidden from view as he fires, but he does so all the same. This makes him quite useful as an interface, since he is able to use any of the devices already in the environment. Additionally, should he become unavailable, humans can carry on in his absence.

Alta thanks Robbie for offering to make her a new dress.

Given that he must interact with humans, who have social needs, his stature helps ingratiate him. In one scene Alta wishes to express her gratitude for his promise of a new dress, and she gives him a hug. Though he does not hug back, she still smiles through and after the expression. Had he been less anthropometric, she would have had to express her thanks in some other way that was less pleasant to her.

Robbie warms the coffee for Alta and Farman.

In addition to being physically suited for human interaction, he is quite socially aware and able to anticipate basic human needs. In one scene, as Lt. Farman walks with Alta towards a cold pot of coffee, without having been asked, Robbie reaches down to press a button that warms the coffee by the time the two of them arrive. He also knows to leave immediately afterwards to give the two some privacy.

Despite these human-like qualities, some of his inhuman qualities make him useful, too. He is shown to be incredibly strong. He is tireless. He can synthesize any material he “tastes.”

With eyes behind his head, Robbie shoos a pesky monkey.

He even has “eyes in the back of his head,” or a 360-degree field of vision for surveillance of his surroundings. In one charming scene he combines this observation with small nonlethal lasers to shoo away a pesky monkey trying to steal fruit behind his back.

Morbius shows Robbie’’s “sub-electronic dilemma” when asked to harm a human.

Addressing safety concerns, Robbie is built to obey Asimov’’s first law of robotics. After having his creator instruct him to point a weapon at Adams, and “aim right between the eyes and fire,” Robbie’’s servos begin to click and whir noisily. His dome glows a pinkish-red as blue sparks leap across it. Morbius explains, ““He’’s helpless. Locked in a sub-electronic dilemma between my direct orders and his basic inhibitions against harming rational beings.”” When the command is canceled, the sparks stop immediately and the red fades over a few seconds.

This failsafe seems quite serious, as Dr. Morbius explains that if he were to allow the state to continue, that Robbie would “blow every circuit in his body.” Since the fault of such a state is with the one issuing the command and not Robbie, it seems a strange design. It would be like having your email server shut down because someone is trying to send an email infected with a virus. It would make much more sense for Robbie to simply disregard the instruction and politely explain why.

Tool of liberation

Maria’’s heroism in saving the children of the Lower City from flooding is aided by what may be only positive depiction of a technology in the film.

Maria summons the children with the gong in the town square.

To summon the children so that she can direct them to safety, she climbs a structure in the center of the town square. There she struggles with a very difficult-to-budge lever, but when she finally does so, it sets a loud gong to ringing. In keeping with the film’’s theme, this brings people together so they can be saved.