Ahead of Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash’s release, we’ve got one hot conversation with Ben Procter. The film’s production designer, who previously worked on the Transformers series and Prometheus, discusses how real-world robots influenced the sequel’s autonomous systems and mechs.

From Avatar’s crab suits to swarm construction robots, this conversation dives deep into how real robotics, industrial design, and human biomechanics shape some of cinema’s most iconic machines. Ben Procter explains how mech suits are piloted, why insects, not humans, are the real inspiration, and how realism makes science fiction hit harder.

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