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| ROBOT STORIES (2003) | |
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Robot Stories tells four different science fiction stories in regards to robots and artificial intelligence in
a thoughtful manner.
These short stories provide an introspective perspective on what the future might hold in regards to the development of humans, human interaction, and artificial support to human intellect and collective wisdom.
The wisdom in the stories is never exhausted or dissected into great detail, as they merely scratch on the surface of futuristic existential philosophy.
Yet, it is this superficial scratching that offers much more for the audience to drift into deep contemplation of what might lay ahead for mankind. The first tale, My Robot Baby, delivered to the audience illustrates the difficulty of raising a child in a loving and nurturing environment, especially, if people carry baggage from the past that might harm future children. Awareness of this predicament has generated a baby robot, which people can bring home to practice on while awaiting the possibility of having a child. However, can people learn from this awkward looking robot that demands attention like an infant? In the Robot Fixer a mother discovers that her adult son has been placed into a coma after an accident. They seemed to have had a strained relationship, as it appears as if the son has distanced himself from the family. Nonetheless, the mother rediscovers the son’s preoccupation with toy robots from his childhood and through these broken toys she attempts to reconnect with her son. Entering electronic stores, watching TV commercials, and seeing billboards swooshing by along highways provides several opportunities for the audience to bump into the growing popularity of Macintosh’s popular iPod. In the near future people will be able to purchase their own iPerson’s, which can be seen in Machine Love. The iPerson the audience gets to follow is named Archie who is put to work as soon as he has delivered himself to a small computer company. Work seems to be the only thing Archie is allowed even though he proclaims that he will be more efficient if he is allowed to interact with the humans. However, people seem to perceive Archie in a similar fashion as an audience in the 1930s did when they viewed Tod Browning’s film Freaks (1932). The neglect slowly begins to have its toll on Archie, as he notices another iPerson in a window across the street. The final short story, Clay, offers the audience a possible future where a person’s identity and consciousness can be scanned and through this process live forever. Despite the possibility of never-ending happiness through digital immortality the audience is introduced to an artist that struggles with the idea of existence--an existence where pain and suffering are a large part of reality while in a generated world the suffering might be avoided. This question seems to have a simple answer, yet as the audience knows, philosophy is so much more than what meets the eye. Ultimately, Robot Stories offers an intelligent take on what the future might hold, as it is depicted in a natural order from birth to death. In the process, the audience gets to experience the possibility of artificial love and the human reality where robots are mere items. The stories are well written which helps bring cinematic occasions of brilliance. This small budget film has grand conceptual thinking and moments of visual artistry, which in the end bring a good cinematic experience to the audience. |
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DIRECTED BY |
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| Greg Pak | |
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USA |
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| REVIEWED | |
| 3/14/2005 | |
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The Internet Movie Database. |
