I,Robot (2004)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0f3JeDVeEo

Director:Alex Proyas

[3]

Director

“Alex Proyas directed iRobot. He is an Australian film director who is best known for directing the films The Crow (1994), Dark City (1998), I, Robot (2004), and Knowing (2009) and for doing great photographic techniques in his films.”

Three Laws Of Robotics According to Isaac Asimov, the Three Laws of Robotics are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction,

allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except

where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such

protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Themes and ideas

The author is trying to tell us that we should be careful with what we create, because something such as robots can be hard to unmake.

Besides the two obvious themes of a man who creates something that turns on him and technology destroying humankind instead of helping it, I think logic vs. emotion is a vital part of the film.

Technology and its relationship to society

NS-5 robots improved versions of NS-4s. They are represented to us as a very clever robot and lives by The Three Rules of Robotics. They appear as very human like, have eyes, a nose, ears etc. They just look like metal man-made humans. This reflects society todays technology and how far its come, this is because it’s scary how robots can be built and made to live just like humans. There is the fear that robots will take over the world, however, why is there this fear when humans were the ones who created robots in the first place, and made them so human like.

Also, robots can do things that humans cant such as be made to fly, have super strength etc.. So this could imply robots will become more important than humans as they’re more helpful, and thus wipe out the human race.

Historical context and the narrative

The film I, Robot, starring Will Smith, was released by Twentieth Century Fox on July 16, 2004 in the United States. It was based off of “iRobot” which is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in USA based magazines and then were so popular they were made into a book.

In my next slide “setting”, it also links to this slide of Historical context because of how I, Robot is set in the future, like in some sci-fi films. Therefore there isn’t much historical context as it technically hasn’t happened yet, its foreshadowing.

Setting iRobot was set in the future (2035) in Chicago, but made in 2004.

2035 Now (2015)

Comparing both of the images on the slide before, I see that the buildings are the same e.g- Sky scrapers its just the other things are different like the mixture of robots and humans. Also, the 2035 has a much duller look in the sky than 2015. This could show that as time goes on from 2015, technology has a big impact on the world and pollutes it, makes it look almost depressing.

The setting reflects the conventions of the genre because of how the story is set in the future. This is very stereo typical of sci-fi films because of the thought that we think in the future their will be robots, floating cars, etc. So they set it In the future as if the movie iRobot was set today then it wouldn’t be realistic. This also links to the story line and how people think robots will take over the world eventually.

Main Characters

Del Spooner - is a Chicago Police homicide detective who dislikes the rapid advancement of technology, including the robots.

Susan Calvin - the U.S. Robotics robopsychologist.

Sonny - programmed by Dr. Alfred Lanning to break the first of the Three Laws of Robotics.

Alfred Lanning - scientist of U.S. Robotics.

VIKI - the main villain

Detective Del Spooner (main character)

Del Spooner has a very violent attitude towards robots, this is because of how when he was in a car accident with a little girl and the robot saved him and not her. And from this, he believes that robots have no emotion or a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. Del Spooner has a robotic arm, I feel this relates massively to the genre of sci-fi because of how robots are sci-fi. However, its funny how he hates robots but in some ways he relates to them because of this robotic arm. Spooner also carries around two guns, this relates to the genre of sci-fi because of how weapons are used in these types of movies. Eg- machine guns.

“Del Spooner is a tall, black African-American man with a slim, muscular build. He has brown eyes, has short, black hair on his scalp, and the clothes he wears are brown jeans, a grey T-shirt, and the most common outfit he wore through out the film was his black leather overcoat. He prefers to wear his hat even when inside as shown when he entered his office.”- [2, see references on last slide] how wiki describes him which I agree with.

The fact that Del Spooner has a muscular build relates to him being the hero. This is because in most sci-fi movies the hero always is often muscly and I’d say one connotation of “hero” Is muscly. Eg- Superman, Batman, etc.. They all have quite muscly builds.

Del Spooners black leather overcoat reflects him being an important character because it makes him seem very boss like.

Will Smith who plays Detective Del Spooner has also been in many other sci-fi films such as After Earth, Independence Day, Men in Black, I am Legend. This means he is very used to the Sci-fi genre and was great for the part.

The Other (Sonny the robot: an NS-5) Sonny Is a modified NS-5 robot and was created by Alfred Lanning

and helps Del Spooner after the death of his creator. He is unlike any other NS-5 as he was modified to live against the Three Rules of Robotics where as any other NS-5 obeys it as they were made like that.

Sonny is as able to disobey the Three Laws of robotics (shown on the fifth slide) this means that Del Spooner could take advantage of that and use Sonny to help him stop VIKI from overthrowing humanity.

Sonny is represented to us as a good robot as he Is helping humans, where as other robots would not do the same and try to take over the world and overthrow humanity.

He conforms to the other in the genre because of how he is the side kick of Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) and helps save the world.

The Villain – V.I.KI

“To protect humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To insure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will insure mankind's continued existence. You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves.”

~ Words of Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence (V.I.K.I.)

“The perfect circle of protection will abide. My logic is undeniable.”

~ Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence (V.I.K.I.)

Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence (VIKI) is a supercomputer in the film and the true main villain in the movie, played by Fiona Hogan.

In the movie, VIKI is the brain of USR headquarters, a robotic machine based. VIKI can be thought of as a controller that maintains the security of the building, she also upgrades the robots and installs them with their software, etc..

VIKI finds out about The Three Laws of Robotics and gets the NS-5s (who she can control) to destroy any earlier models of the laws which shows robots in this film are evil and villains just like most sci-fi films, this once again links to how they are taking over the world in a negative way.

VIKI is a classic villain in a sci-fi movie, who has a motive to try and get what they want, and by doing so being selfish as she’s after all, the villain.

The last scene

In the last scene of the iRobot, the robots take on new characteristics than in the before part of the movie such as being thoughtful, kind, considerate etc.. Which is funny because in the first part of the movie the robots were seen as being evil because of how they are being controlled by the evil villain VIKI. Similarly, robots in the sci-fi genre are mostly evil and this makes a difference.

In this scene, Sonny is trying to figure out what to do next because of how all the other robots have been taken over by the villain and Sonny needs to save them from evil.

The very last part of this ending scene I believe is very powerful for the movie. It’s of Sonny looking down at all the robots watching them enter the storage. Then all the robots see him standing there and stop following orders from the bad guy of the film. It’s powerful because one robot made all the difference and saved the robots from destroying the world which isn’t technically their fault as they are just following orders.

Development

It started with an screenplay made1995 by Jeff Vintar, called Hardwired. The script was an Agatha Christie inspired murder type of film. FBI agent Del Spooner, investigating the killing of a scientist.

Props used in the film

Costume For costume in iRobot, the humans are wearing quite dark

colours such as black. This adds mystery to the movie and shows its serious. For example, Will Smith wears a black leather jacket and leather black trousers which makes him look smart and important.

The robots wear metal and plastic based costumes to make it look as real as possible. This reflects sci-fi because of the mechanics that have gone into making these costumes, and usually with sci-fi costumes it takes a lot to make them.

Special effects [1] – see references on last slide

“The production used a special camera called Robo-Tile, which takes multiple pictures that range from extreme underexposure to extreme overexposure, meaning that these pictures will read everything from the deepest shadow to the brightest sun.

Another creative tool, Encodacam, combined the physical set with the digital set in real time, as cameras rolled, to enable Proyas to direct both the virtual and the real worlds simultaneously. The technology, developed by General Lift in Los Angeles, was created for possible use on the Matrix sequels, but was actually first used on the set of I, ROBOT. It is the latest method to bring the computer graphics world onto the soundstages.

For some scenes, like an action set piece that has Spooner fleeing a house thats being demolished around him by a demo-bot, the filmmakers used every trick of the trade, combining location and studio live action, green screen, computer graphics, miniatures, and models. Alex loves to make shots that are detailed and complex and give a lot to the viewer, says John Nelson.”

Why is iRobot important?

iRobot is important because in the movie the robots try to take over the world, and this links with real life reality because of the fear that technology will take over the world eventually as its already made a huge impact on life and society already, and new things are being invented everyday. Soon we will rely on technology for everything if we don’t already.

Portrayal of women

Men have usually held power in society. For example, the men would go out to work whilst women stayed home, they had the say in what happened. In The Terminator The man is rescuing the women at the start, this demonstrates patriarchy; men in control. Women are usually seen as the victim, like in most movies the men have to come to the woman’s rescue and its never really the other way round. In iRobot, most of the robots are male and there are also a lot more male characters than men, the main character Will Smith is also male.

In a quote from Harlan Ellison's screenplay of I, Robot says this about Dr Calvin (female) which I find interesting, "She is a small woman, but there is a towering strength in her face. Tensile strength, that speaks to endurance, to maintaining in the imperfect world. Her mouth is thin, and her face pale. Grace lives in her features, and intelligence; but she is not an attractive woman. She is not one of those women who in later years it can be said of them, She must have been a beauty when she was younger. Susan Calvin was always plain. And clearly, always a powerful personality.“ It’s Saying she is a small woman shows that maybe she’s helpless and quite a few male characters are bigger and stronger.

Bibliography

[1]-https://www.fxguide.com/featured/irobot_what_happens_in_the_last_2_months/

[2]-http://irobot.wikia.com/wiki/Del_Spooner [3]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot