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The average movie goer may initially be
confused by this turn of fate in the movie. But it all gels together
well and flows smoothly. The plot enjoys multiple plots twists and
several sub-plots. It is not as one-dimensional as it first seems.
Yes, Will Smith (Del Spooner) does get to blow away lots of Robots
but it isn't for the reason that he suspects. He thinks there is
something wrong with the robots and it is being covered up by the
Humans who made them. He is completely wrong. In fact, everything is
going terribly wrong because of a logical conclusion to Asimov's
'3-laws of robotics'. Much of what Asimov wrote did concern the
interpretation of these laws and how they would have unintended
consequences.
Thus the story completely avoids all
references to Frankenstein's monster or the themes raised in
'Bladerunner' some 22 years beforehand. The story is about the role
of "free-will". It is our freewill that makes humans so dangerous
and robots so safe. To make us safe we must have no freewill. To
preserve our freewill we will need a machine with its own freewill.
We need something dangerous in order to protect us from a far
 worse
a fate. The worse fate is the loss of freewill. Hence we have to
strike a proper balance between our humanity and our sense of
self-preservation. There is a vast metaphor at work here that is
relevant to all of us. This was always the intent of the Isaac
Asimov's books. We read stories of Robots in order to understand our
humanity. Now we watch movies.
Not to say that this movie is that profound.
Lot of things get blown up. It is still a thriller. Quite possibly
many in the audience will only see good cops versus bad robots and
may never 'get' the reason for their actions. So what? Enjoy the
damn movie! No shame in that. I like this dual aspect. It does lead
some of us to question what kind of things are done 'in our best
interest' that remove our freedoms. Such actions may not be
revolutionary - they may happen bit by bit. Slowly, day by day. You
have been warned. |
