Real Steel/Fridge

• Fridge Logic: All companies that are seen in the movie have their current 2011 logos, despite the movie being set in the year 2020.
  • In a similar vein, no new music seems to have come out between now and then; people are still listening to current Eminem songs. That would be like a movie set in the present where everyone listened to the Backstreet Boys.
    • That's like saying no one would listen to music from the 90s today...or perhaps they don't, hence why Max's gimmick goes over so well. Imagine a boxer performing Frank Sinatra before a fight in the real world, for example.
  • The former may be justified in that branding is rather important to companies, and consistency is important for a brand, so there's a pretty good reason for the logos to be the same.
    • Especially as the time between release and taking place is just nine years -- companies certainly do change their logos at times, but nine years is short enough that it entirely possible (maybe not all that likely, but entirely possible) that none of the companies whose logos were shown in enough detail did that between 2011 and 2020.
  • The robots aren't repairable? You sink fifty grand into a robot, it loses one fight, and you write it off for scrap?
    • Well -- considering how complex the inner-workings of a humanoid bipedal boxing robot have to be, in addition to the fact that each individual robot appears to be completely unique in just about every aspect, meaning that it's probably not easy to find replacements for any specific part that gets damaged or destroyed in a fight -- it wouldn't surprise me if repairing a massively damaged robot would cost as much or even more than it did to originally purchase it, at which point it would simply be more cost-effective and less time-consuming for a boxer with no corporate backing like Charlie to declare it a total loss and invest in a brand-new one.
  • Where's the ownership regulation on the robots? Imagine criminal gangs or terrorists getting hold of these things. The early film is clearly black market trading and underground fights, but Max and Charlie later turn up to league matches with a stolen robot.
    • The robot was buried in a hill behind a junkyard. Salvage rights do exist, and obviously nobody missed it where it was. It might not even have qualified as being in the junkyard where it was at all, which means nobody would have had any claim to it.
  • Why are there no health and safety concerns? Nobody seems even a little worried about getting close to these giant wrecking machines. Or the flamethrowers from Zeus' entrance. During the actual fights, limbs fly off and robots get knocked clean out of the ring.
    • Regarding the safety concerns, they at least show that the fight referee wears armor when in the ring.
  • Some of the logos are different- specifically, one references an Xbox 720. The robots are repairable- Bailey's job throughout the film is as a Wrench Wench- but most of the bouts we see end with the head being destroyed (where most of the important circuitry is), or a critical system overload. Ironically, the underground fight Charlie attends with Noisy Boy seems to have more concern for health and safety than the actual league (given the cage), but the referee in the final fight is clad in heavy protective gear.
    • The Xbox 720 logo hardly counts as being different - It's the same as the Xbox 360 logo, but with different numbers. The film's set in 2020, and Technology Marches On, after all.
    • Also, it seems the problem isn't so much the robots aren't repairable, just that Charlie didn't have the money or resources to repair his. It's hard to get replacement parts to repair a 50,000 dollar robot when you're flat broke.
  • Robot boxing has become the dominant spectator sport, and armies in general are known to endorse contestants (or robots in this case) to advertise the military, but no military-endorsed robot is in sight. What happened to advertising for recruits?
    • And how many league robots did we actually see? Five: Zeus, Twin Cities, Atom, Noisy Boy, and whoever it was that Zeus pulverized.
• Bailey stated that Noisy Boy's voice control had probably been added in Brazil due to viewer demand, meaning that he was originally built for manual control. Wouldn't it have been better to switch him to that instead since Charlie had a bit of success with Ambush?
  • Charlie was in "Ooh, shiny" mode with the voice command system, and just like anybody enamored with the newest technology, he wanted to use that immediately rather than learning the robot's quirks and functions with his usual, less shiny methods first.
• If there are no rules in underground robot fighting, why does nobody kick their opponents while they're down? Probably would have won Noisy Boy's fight with Midas, at least.
  • The robots don't have as much flexibility as humans in what they can do. They're designed to attack targets that are standing up, not ones that are on the ground; attacking a downed target might not be cost effective for some of them.
• Fridge Brilliance: Zeus' strongest attribute is considered his adaptive opperating system, which allows him to adapt to his enemy's fighting style. Throughout the film, Charlie shows a knack for predicting and adapting to his opponent's moves. Combined with his natural durability, this makes Atom a perfect match for Zeus.
  • The displays on Zeus' console were made of Soft Glass that allowed Tak to punch through one without obvious injury. He may have realized at some point that at least one operator would do the same out of frustration and tweaked his design to accommodate that. That he would be the one punching was probably an ironic coincidence.
    • The real fridge brilliance of that is how the display has to work. It's completely see through but displays graphics. This means that there has to be a luminescent film between two panes of glass. If the film is designed properly, it would easily allow for the glass to act like safety glass used in cars, allowing for it to crumble into small, safe pieces that are easy to clean up and can't cause much injuries.
  • Zeus's other main attribute is that he hits so hard that nobody who ever fights him gets a chance to fight back properly. Atom's main strength as a robot is that he can take a pounding, and it's the first thing that Charlie mentions when he sees Atom fighting. Atom is essentially the perfect anti-Zeus robot.
  • Kingpin's controller for Metro is modified to be worn on his arm. This seems a bit odd at first, but then notice that Metro's primary means of offense is the sledgehammer on his arm. The modification is probably done to make the sledgehammer easier to control.
• Max uses Atom's Shadow function to make him dance before fights. Many boxers and other athletes take dance and ballet classes in their off time because it helps with their speed, agility, and concentration. By teaching him how to dance Max also contributes to one of Atom's greatest strengths, his speed and maneuverability due to his small size.