Voice and Speech Recognition in Movies and SciFi: Voice Recognition has been used extensively in Science Fiction Movies (SciFi). From R2-D2 to the "computer" on Star Trek to HAL from Space Odyssey voice recognition has been used not only to add characters to the movies, but also to show how man and machine will interact in the future.

Voice and Speech Recognition in Movies and SciFi

Movie	System	Attributes
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)	HAL 9000 Computer	Humans are seen by HAL as a lower form of life. Humans are bored (playing games), need artificial sun, and have to be virtually frozen to get around (suspended animation). Humans are at the end of their evolution. But HAL makes a mistake in predicting the failure of an antenna. The humans decide that HAL should be truned off. HAL disagrees with this idea and plots to terminate the humans. One lone surviving crew member manages to terminate HAL using a "screw driver" (one of the earliest tools created by man).
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)	R2D2 and C3PO	R2D2 was not able to speak in English (just blips and beeps), but could understand spoken instructions. C3PO was designed as a translator/communicator. The two robots form a kind of comic routine like a bickering Laurel and Hardy with with one suffering the majority of misfortunes.
Westworld (1973)	Gunslinger	An android designed for the entertainment of guests ends up killing them instead. His speech is characteristic of a western gun fighter.
Star Trek (1966)	Ships Computer	The computer always seemed to be able to identify who was speaking and to distinguish between voice commands and conversations between crew members.
I, Robot (2004)	VIKI and Sonny	VIKI - the sinister mainframe intent on believing that humans are flawed creatures (a virus of this Earth). Sonny - the likeable android that is imune from VIKI's control and who works to save mankind.