Members of female punk rock band engage in a rowdy brawl with local hoodlums during their bar gig and spent the night at an auto repair shop with a kind passerby offering to fix their broken-down van. Upon waking up, they realize rather than getting their car fixed, they are in an arena made of junkyard cars and are mutated to be modern-day gladiators with mechanical parts replacing their limbs. Surrounded by blood-thirsty crowd and a local dictator named The Emperor, bloody battles ensue as they are thrown into the survival of their lives while they try to find the means to escape.

With the help of their high school’s newest teacher, four Hispanic students form a robotics club. Although they have no experience, the youths set their sights on a national robotics contest. With $800 and parts scavenged from old cars, they build a robot and compete against reigning champion MIT. Along the way, the students learn not only how to build a robot but something far more important: how to forge bonds that will last a lifetime.

An endearing outlier, Brian lives alone in a Welsh valley, inventing oddball contraptions that seldom work. After finding a discarded mannequin head, Brian gets an idea. Three days, a washing machine, and sundry spare parts later, he’s invented Charles, an artificially intelligent robot who learns English from a dictionary and proves a charming, cheeky companion. Before long, however, Charles also develops autonomy. Intrigued by the wider world — or whatever lies beyond the cottage where Brian has hidden him away — Charles craves adventure.

When the trainee pilot and her mortally wounded gunner are shot down, they crash land on a nearby planet. An enemy craft offers the chance of spare parts to fix her ship, but then she spots another survivor – an enemy alien soldier with no intention of letting her escape.