Robot Wars (film)

A 1993 post-apocalyptic sci-fi film taking place in what used to be the southwestern United States of America. Drake is a Giant Mecha pilot, whose duties involve taking tourists for rides in his giant-robot-scorpion mecha becase, hey, why not?. His mech takes fire from members of another faction called the Centros, and he is ordered to engage, despite the fact that he is carrying civilians.

When he isn't piloting his robot, Drake has a habit of wandering the desert landscape, where he comes across the wreckage of the Centros he fought earlier, where he discovers that they are using weapons created by the Eastern Alliance. Of course, the Eastern Alliance are allies with our heroes, and in fact are a delegation led by Wa-lee is in talks to purchase scaled down versions of their Spider Tank Giant Mecha, so when Drake presses the issue, he is grounded. Shortly after, the Eastern Alliance delegation hijacks the GiantMecha.

It is up to our heroes to find some way to rescue the hostages taken during the Gundam Jacking and stop Wa-Lee from destroying their headquarters.

No relation to the TV series that came out later.

Robot Wars contains examples of the following tropes:

 * Dolled Up Installment: Marketed as a sequel to Robot Jox, produced by the same company.
 * Giant Mecha: Of the Real Robot variety, including a Scorpion Tank.
 * Gundamjack: The meat of the plot of the film.
 * Hidden Depths: Drake turns out to be surprisingly adept at Kendo.
 * Japanese Tourist: Notably, a tourist whose camera is actually a gun in disguise.
 * Ragnarok Proofing: Towards the film's climax, it is revealed that the secret weapon that is buried beneath Crystal Vista, believed to just be a powerful laser cannon, is in fact an entire intact Giant Mecha that had previously been thought destroyed.
 * Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: There was a background gag where a group of people are walking through an abandoned city, and you can see a theater marquee with something like Puppet Master 57.