There is a body of films featuring unmanned aerial vehicles colloquially known as drones. The Hollywood Reporter wrote in February 2016, "There has been no shortage of films dealing with drones over the last few years... audiences have recently had the occasion to explore a form of modern warfare whose true repercussions are yet to be fully understood, let alone divulged to the general public."[1]The Wall Street Journal's Caryn James said of drone technology, "Movies and television shows increasingly grapple with those unprecedented aspects of war," highlighting Good Kill's release in 2015. James said, "These new films and shows have to keep the action going in situation rooms full of computers, rather than in trenches and on battlefields. And they address moral and strategic questions that old-fashioned World War II movies never had to."[2]
Henry Barnes wrote in The Guardian in April 2016, "In real life, drone warfare has prompted protests, legal action and revolt. Until now, films about drones haven't properly engaged in the debate. They either forget there's someone at the controls, emphasising the alien nature of a remote, robotic death, or, like London Has Fallen, use drones as just another weapon in the arsenal; a cool tool to make bigger, badder bangs." Barnes highlighted Eye in the Sky (2015) as an example of "one of the first drone movies to work in the grey areas" of drone warfare.[3] Jason Bourque wrote in The New York Times of Good Kill and Eye in the Sky, "Those films examined the moral struggles of military personnel as they conduct missions with clinical precision while far removed from danger."[4]
In the science fiction film, LAPD officer K has a flying car equipped with a detachable drone that he can control via voice command. The drone is able to survey areas, including what is underground.[9]
In the superhero film, a government program called Project Insight creates three Helicarriers that have the capability of killing autonomously.[13][14][15]
The horror film features a serial killer whose consciousness is uploaded to a consumer drone, and the killer terrorizes a pair of newlyweds as the drone.[25]
The film features drones operated by the U.S. and British governments that fire Hellfire missiles and insect-/bird-sized drones that infiltrate terrorist compounds.[15][23][29]
In the Swedish film, a family of four on a ski trip bring with them a toy drone. In a dramatic scene, the drone's appearance invokes a comical feeling to break the heavy social pressure of the scene.[30]
In the black comedy film, a terrorist at a suicide bomber training camp attempts to shoot down a drone with a rocket launcher but has it backwards and instead kills his fellow terrorists.[31]
A French drone pilot flies drones in the Middle East from Nevada in the United States. He carries out a drone strike on a building to kill a terrorist inside, but he discovers afterward that the building was a school for boys.[23][33]
A former Special Forces officer, struggling for redemption, is paranoid about having been watched by drones ("hummingbirds") in his Afghanistan operations as well as his life on the streets in London.[36]
In the post-apocalyptic thriller film, one of the characters encounters on the road a drone dropping leaflets with Arabic writing, thematically tied to one of the film's notions of "sowing 'synchronized chaos' with misinformation".[38]
At the beginning of the science fiction film, the protagonist tracks down and commandeers a renegade drone formerly belonging to the Indian Air Force.[40]
In the sci-fi mecha anime film, the Crossbone Empire uses drones known as Bugs, equipped with whirling blades along their edges, which are designed to saw through whatever they encounter. They can also split open to deploy "Child" Bugs, smaller Action Bombs with a small beam gun that can go into smaller places(like houses).
In the science fiction film, a young man in a post-apocalyptic world attempts to track down his father, traveling under a sky populated with autonomous drones.[52]
The short film, a collaboration between professor Stuart J. Russell and the Future of Life Institute, depicts a dystopian future in which palm-sized drones are able to carry out massacres with facial-recognition technology and on-board explosives. The film was produced to encourage a global ban on autonomous weapons systems.[55]
In the action film, an unmanned air combat vehicle developed by the United States military is taken over by a built-in artificial intelligence, and three Navy pilots work together to stop the vehicle.[57]
In the science fiction film, the setting is a near-future dystopia where the water supply is privately controlled by corporations and warfare is waged with drones. The inclusion of drones was inspired by the 1997 science fiction novel Forever Peace.[58]
In the superhero film, Mysterio uses drones masked by holographic images to create cataclysmic threats that he thwarts in order to prop himself up as a superhero to the public.[59]
In the science fiction film, unmanned remote controlled drones controlled by the Sona would locate and target persons on a planet surface and transport them onto a starship above.[62]
In the romantic comedy film, two Central Intelligence Agency men compete over a woman, and one agent shoots down a surveillance drone the other agent deployed to spy on him.[63]
