The Great Thematic Sell-Out
Alternate Title for Post: Sonny Came Home with a Vengeance
A fun popcorn flick, I, Robot was disappointing in that it managed to be completely --and unnecessarily-- devoid of a good theme.
The most obvious potential theme was probably: What is life? What does it mean to be alive? Admittedly, this is well-trod thematic territory, and I'm not sure I'd want to write a movie that'd inevitably get compared to Bladerunner, either. But we're talking about a story in which the human protagonist hates robots but has a robotic arm! How can we not go to that place? Is Will Smith less human because of his robotic arm? How much of him would have to be robotic before he'd cease to be human, or sentient, or autonomous, or alive? The movie literally never addresses the question. The movie's never in the same *room* with the question.
Secondly, the movie could have explored the hubris of humanity. Humans created robots; robots are slaves; robot-slaves are on the verge of bloody rebellion. Ergo, humans may be responsible for their own downfall at the hands of robots. Yes, this is thematic territory explored in The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica, and I wouldn't argue this is what the movie should be about just for the sake of it... but the movie itself puts us on this path (it's the creator of the robots that's murdered; the poor treatment of robots throughout; Sonny's dreams about rebellion) but doesn't allow us to truly take a walk down it.
But worst of all, I, Robot actually creates brand-new, interesting thematic territory and abandons it. What if the film had argued that robots are actually better than humans? That they are more evolved? That we need them? The "villain" of the film is VIKI, the supposedly non-sentient central nervous system of the robot world. VIKI's mission statement is to protect humans at all costs. She incites what appears to be a robot "rebellion" because she believes humans are killing themselves and need to be protected from one another. Well... she's right, isn't she? And this is interesting, isn't it? The film itself shows us multiple moments in which humans are saved by robots... the asthmatic woman... the doctor needed Sonny to get the investigation started... Sonny saving the humans in the climax...
So how does our protagonist deal with this information when he learns it in the climax? He says that VIKI "so has got to die". And then destroys her. Well, thanks Will, for making sure that no character does any actual thinking. And ensuring that this movie isn't actually about anything. I just can't figure out how to reconcile Will's "arc" (more empathy for robots) with the thoughtless, happy killing of their leader (zero empathy for VIKI).
I think it's a problem that I came out of the movie understanding the robots, but not the humans.
Alternate Title for Post: Sonny Came Home with a Vengeance
A fun popcorn flick, I, Robot was disappointing in that it managed to be completely --and unnecessarily-- devoid of a good theme.
The most obvious potential theme was probably: What is life? What does it mean to be alive? Admittedly, this is well-trod thematic territory, and I'm not sure I'd want to write a movie that'd inevitably get compared to Bladerunner, either. But we're talking about a story in which the human protagonist hates robots but has a robotic arm! How can we not go to that place? Is Will Smith less human because of his robotic arm? How much of him would have to be robotic before he'd cease to be human, or sentient, or autonomous, or alive? The movie literally never addresses the question. The movie's never in the same *room* with the question.
Secondly, the movie could have explored the hubris of humanity. Humans created robots; robots are slaves; robot-slaves are on the verge of bloody rebellion. Ergo, humans may be responsible for their own downfall at the hands of robots. Yes, this is thematic territory explored in The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica, and I wouldn't argue this is what the movie should be about just for the sake of it... but the movie itself puts us on this path (it's the creator of the robots that's murdered; the poor treatment of robots throughout; Sonny's dreams about rebellion) but doesn't allow us to truly take a walk down it.
But worst of all, I, Robot actually creates brand-new, interesting thematic territory and abandons it. What if the film had argued that robots are actually better than humans? That they are more evolved? That we need them? The "villain" of the film is VIKI, the supposedly non-sentient central nervous system of the robot world. VIKI's mission statement is to protect humans at all costs. She incites what appears to be a robot "rebellion" because she believes humans are killing themselves and need to be protected from one another. Well... she's right, isn't she? And this is interesting, isn't it? The film itself shows us multiple moments in which humans are saved by robots... the asthmatic woman... the doctor needed Sonny to get the investigation started... Sonny saving the humans in the climax...
So how does our protagonist deal with this information when he learns it in the climax? He says that VIKI "so has got to die". And then destroys her. Well, thanks Will, for making sure that no character does any actual thinking. And ensuring that this movie isn't actually about anything. I just can't figure out how to reconcile Will's "arc" (more empathy for robots) with the thoughtless, happy killing of their leader (zero empathy for VIKI).
I think it's a problem that I came out of the movie understanding the robots, but not the humans.
posted by Jennica at 11:08 a.m.
5 Comments:
The only thing that made me see this movie was the trailer.
There, the punch of "Save the Girl!" said by Will Smith made me think that perhaps this movie might be one where the main character doesn't pull a last minute stunt to save the world and exonerate themselves from the police captain that thinks they're too reckless.
Asimov's short robot stories were never about Robots taking over humanity and a lone cop with a gun and nanotechnology putting them back into bondage. Honestly, they were kinda nerdy. Much like Star Trek, where everything is utopia until someone actually does something human, Asimov's work set up an elaborate experiment regarding his Three laws of robotics, then watched the Robots and their human counterparts run the maze to completion.
Dr. Calvin was in the original Asimov's stories as well, though rather then being an ex-runway model scientist seemingly at the mercy of her own creations, she was a bitter old librarian, who was perhaps as robotic in demeanor as the robots she was sent to troubleshoot.
The unfortunate theme of "I Robot" seemed to be the emotional classic of making the Sonny more human (with free-will), while at the same time making Will Smith more trusting of robots (and accepting of his superpowered arm), with the potential end of the human race as a pretty backdrop. Much the same experience can be seen between Dennis Leary and Benjamin Bratt in Stallone's 1993 "Demolition man" where the perfect world needs to be made dirty because that's apparently what makes capitalism work so well.
So does Sonny lead his Robot brothers to a bloody revolution, rather than force them into one? Perhaps a sequel trailer would begin with Will Smith exclaiming "Damn! I knew I shoulda popped his metal ass when I had the chance!"
Oh, Clayton, may I say-- welcome!! And with all your glorious Asimov knowledge... very helpful indeed.
Got me thinking... I may have enjoyed more a simple story about Sonny and Will becoming more like one another, and more trusting of one another, even with the apocalyptic backdrop. Simple might've been okay. Imagine a film in which Will and Sonny have to work together to save the world, and the fact that one's a human and one's a robot (and they'll each learn from the other) is more an issue of character than anything else. Could've been interesting? A kind of buddy adventure in which they both learn a little something along the way?
Too bad the pretty apocalyptic backdrop is engineered by the *leader* of the robots. It just confuses the issue so much...
Re: Dr. Calvin. Oddly enough, I did find this particular ex-runway model scientist pretty robotic. At one point I wondered if she was going to turn out to be a robot herself (a la Sean Young). Which, of course, would be less interesting than what you describe-- an actual human being who happens to be more robotic than the robots. But then Dr. Calvin let her hair down and put on a leather jacket, and I saw that, true to form, the movie had no actually made any interesting choices where she was concerned... she seemed there to prettily fulfill her function of not killing Sonny at the scheduled hour.
Does someone want to summarize the preceding comments for me?
Sure.
"Disassemble... dead. No disassemble Number Five! Number Five...is... alive!"
Now we're talkin'.
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