Set in the year 2154, the futuristic film wanted to depict real-world robots in a fictional future world.
This is why the security droids who try to keep Max De Costa (Matt Damon) out of the heavenly space station Elysium seem so real.
Most of the robots in the 2013 film are completely digital, including any of the droids that move, according to Shawn Walsh, the film's VFX producer. The film pulled off the real look of the robots by studying contemporary real-world machines.
"The stuff from Honda, DARPA, and Boston Dynamics, even down to production-line robots," Walsh said. "There's a never-ending supply of fully functional inspiration."