<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  In this golden age of Hollywood visual effects, exoskeletons are everywhere, from James Cameron&amp;#039;s towering AMP suits lumbering through the alien jungles of Pandora in Avatar to Tony Stark&amp;#039;s knight in powered armor, which rockets back onto the screen in Iron Man 2 (out next month). The excuses that kept the mecha exoskeleton out of the 1997 movie adaptation of Starship Troopers have been stomped flat by the current intersection of animation and live action. So how did a weapon so thrillingly, nakedly badass as the exoskeleton survive, even thrive, in the hoary old days before CGI set up a beachhead in our collective imagination? Here are the all-stars of fictional exoskeletons and a look at how sound, outdated, or just downright fanciful the technological principles that back these suits are. Iron Man Armor MK III /// Tales of Suspense (1963) ///  Even before the 2008 film, the red and yellow iteration of the Iron Man armor was possibly the world&amp;#039;s most recognizable exoskeleton. Designed and drawn with the casual improbability of comic books, the MK III suit is metallic yet musclebound, with svelte boots concealing powerful rockets, and equally form-fitting chest and palm-mounted energy weapons. The Iron Man armor is not about gauging the future of military hardware but creating the gadget-based equivalent of Superman. The movies add a whiff of realism\u2014flight-control flaps that shuffle open and closed, and more missiles than ray guns\u2014reimagining the suit as a kind of compact, wearable jet fighter.   Why It&amp;#039;s Smart As influential as Robert Heinlein&amp;#039;s --&amp;amp;gt; was, the Iron Man armor is the exoskeleton of record for pop culture. That doesn&amp;#039;t mean it makes any sense.  Why It&amp;#039;s Not Although journalists and marketers alike tried desperately to compare Tony Stark&amp;#039;s fictional powered armor in the first Iron Man movie to the real-world exoskeleton being developed by Sarcos Robotics and Raytheon, don&amp;#039;t believe the hype. The MK III armor, and every iteration since, is about as feasible as Harry Potter&amp;#039;s flying broom\u2014a wingless flight of fancy with the aerodynamics of a falling brick, and a power source as mysterious as it is infinite. At least those brooms have stirrups.  Mobile Infantry Powered Armor /// Starship Troopers (1959) ///  The exoskeleton appears to have been born in 1937, in E.E. &amp;quot;Doc&amp;quot; Smith&amp;#039;s series of Lensman books. But it was Robert A. Heinlein&amp;#039;s military SF classic Starship Troopers that made the concept famous, as the Mobile Infantry fought an intergalactic, interspecies war wearing suits of powered armor. Heinlein&amp;#039;s description of the exoskeletons is actually pretty sparse, comparing them to metallic gorillas equipped with rockets for leaping around the battlefield and with an arsenal ranging from anti-personnel guns to tactical nukes. Although the Mobile Infantry&amp;#039;s armor has shown up in animated form\u2014in a 1988 anime adaptation of the novel, and in a 1999 CG-animated series based on the live-action film\u2014Heinlein&amp;#039;s seminal suit has yet to receive the full Hollywood treatment, acting as a kind of spiritual predecessor to the more accident-prone mechanized armor of The Forever War, and nearly every military exoskeleton since.  Why It&amp;#039;s Smart More than a half-century later, Heinlein&amp;#039;s suits are still the holy grail of modern warfare, with systems that combine the two-legged, all-terrain mobility and boots-on-the-ground situational awareness of infantry with the protection and firepower of an armored vehicle (minus the nukes). The Mobile Infantry was also a kind of overcompensating prediction of the role that small units of well-equipped special operations forces would eventually play. Although it could take decades, or even centuries, there&amp;#039;s no doubt the Pentagon is interested in a future filled with fighting metal gorillas.  Why It&amp;#039;s Not If the jetpack as means of transportation is a bad idea\u2014and it is\u2014jump jets are even worse. Jetpacks have been plagued from the beginning by the difficulty and knee-shattering impact of trying to land. Although the power amplification and biomechatronic principles at the heart of the powered-armor concept appear to be feasible in the long run, waving away the laws of physics for the sake of increased mobility is one bounce too many.  Power Suit /// Metroid (1986) ///  As geeky cave paintings go, Samus Aran&amp;#039;s Power Suit from the original Nintendo game, Metroid, is a vivid one. It vaults its wearer into the air. It fires increasingly powerful bolts of energy and missiles. And somehow, for some reason, it rolls up into a ball. Don&amp;#039;t worry about how or why\u2014this suit was a gift from an alien race, woven into the bounty hunter&amp;#039;s very flesh. Later games in the series would add a grappling hook, a more defined, less pixelated look and colossal shoulder pads to balance out the bulky helmet. But as basic as Samus&amp;#039;s suit was at the time, it remains an early pop culture example of the exoskeleton-as-alien-gift, as well as powered armor that either borrows from or merges with biology.  Why It&amp;#039;s Smart Some power suits are famous without the added bonus of being well thought out. This is one of them. By claiming extraterrestrial heritage, however, the Metroid Power Suit is part of a long sci-fi tradition of sidestepping known physical laws by assuming the inherent smarts of space-faring aliens.  Why It&amp;#039;s Not Two words: Morph Ball. Humanity could colonize a thousand planets and meet a hundred intelligent species, each with its own homegrown suit of heavily armed, fully featured powered armor. None of those suits will enable ball-based travel. That&amp;#039;s a promise.  Caterpillar Power Loader ///Aliens (1986) ///  The Power Loader was nothing less than a flash of genius\u2014no guns, no armor, just an agile forklift on two legs. The design was so realistic, and the pre-CG effects so convincing, that Ellen Ripley&amp;#039;s crate-lifting, alien-queen-wrestling suit has become cultural shorthand for what an actual full-body exoskeleton might look like. The Power Loader has also been followed up by nearly identical designs that make a lot less sense, replacing the forklift extremities with bolted-on machine guns (the APU suits from Matrix Revolutions) or gigantic, five-fingered hands for grasping oversize, bayonetted rifles and the occasional oversize combat knife (Avatar&amp;#039;s AMP suits).  Why It&amp;#039;s Smart The climactic extraterrestrial brawl may have immortalized the Power Loader, but the open-cockpit design, Caterpillar paint scheme and blue collar mission set are what made the exoskeleton so believable. Nearly every real-world exoskeleton project\u2014 including the Japanese HAL-5 from Cyberdyne, the Pentagon-funded EXO from Sarcos/Raytheon and HULC from Lockheed Martin and UC Berkeley\u2014emphasizes enhanced strength and load-bearing capabilities. The ability to grapple with monsters or fire awesomely big rifles is not a highlight of most funding requests.  Why It&amp;#039;s Not If you really want to know, Ripley should have been wearing a hard hat. That, or the suit should have more than an exposed roll cage for head protection. Even the Colonial Marines don&amp;#039;t want a lawsuit on their hands.  MJOLNIR Mark V ///Halo: Combat Evolved (2001) ///  There have been notable exoskeletons since\u2014the Nano Suit from the 2007 game Crysis, or the alien battle-suit from last year&amp;#039;s District 9\u2014but at press time, Master Chief&amp;#039;s outfit remained the last great icon in powered armor. The MJOLNIR Mark V is not strictly original, or unique. It&amp;#039;s a stripped-down, refined version of the Mobile Infantry suit, as well as a hundred sloppy sci-fi book covers since. The armor turns its wearer into a high-jumping, truck-flipping superhuman, but not a nuke-firing, supersonic, sometimes-spherical juggernaut.  Why It&amp;#039;s Smart Aside from the recharging force field, which was more of a revolutionary game mechanic (all but replacing the clumsy health pack in first-person shooters) than a fictional defensive system, the MJOLNIR suit is a surprisingly reserved concept. It boosts strength, allowing for better protection on the battlefield and in hazardous environments, without sacrificing mobility. Although the Pentagon isn&amp;#039;t paying anyone to build a space-worthy exoskeleton, everything else is in line with the final goals of the Army&amp;#039;s Future Force Warrior program. As exciting as an armed Power Loader might seem, a stronger, up-armored soldier, capable of trudging miles through the 100-degree desert without tiring and then jumping into a Humvee without ripping out its suspension, is a more reasonable fantasy.   Why It&amp;#039;s Not While engineers were busy installing real-time ammo counters and active fire-control systems in the MJOLNIR&amp;#039;s head-up display, no one bothered to give Earth&amp;#039;s greatest champion anything resembling night vision. In classic military fashion, Master Chief gets a flashlight. Also, a personal force field might have been a necessary evil for Halo&amp;#039;s developers, but it&amp;#039;s an awkward, out-there fit for an exoskeleton that looks and feels more Colonial Marines than Starfleet. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a5523/scifi-most-iconic-exoskeletons/?click=main_sr>