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Dramatic Science Fiction
by Jonathan W. Hickman
Technology is progress. In a
progressive society, technology is an engine of change. But change is incremental—the stuff that
starts from the ground up, grass roots and all that.
I keep wondering how I’ll be shaving in 20 years. The advent of the Mach 3 Turbo has
minimized razor burn. Still, I’ll
bet there is a better way and in 20 years, who knows, maybe lasers.
Greg Pak, a filmmaker I had occasion to talk to about a year ago
concerning his touching documentary Fighting Grandpa, focuses on
the little things that propel the big issues. In his first feature film, Robot
Stories, Pak tells four separate stories of the human side of
technology. Collectively, these
small stories capture the personal insight felt in Isaac Asimov’s
famous work of science fiction I, Robot. Pak has effectively made a science
fiction drama four times over.
Story 1: My Robot Baby: This first episode of Robot
Stories features a young upwardly mobile couple, Marcia (Tamlyn Tomita)
and Roy (James Saito), seeking to adopt a baby. Although the set pieces do not feature a
high tech environment, there is a definite futuristic feel. At an adoption agency, Marcia and Roy
are presented with a tiny egg-like robot “baby.” It is explained that the robot baby can
grow like a normal child and will be a “dry run” of sorts for the couple. After a period of time, the data from
the robot child will be analyzed, and the opportunity to adopt a real child may
arise.
Marcia and
Roy, an attractive career-oriented duo, take a month away from their busy jobs
to care for their tiny techno-tot.
How will they fare?
The robot
here was very odd and its low-tech presence added an eerie touch to the
story. I was reminded of the egg or
flour bag babies that high school students are made to cart around as part of a
project for a home economics class.
Just imagine if students were made to care for a robot child that had to
be fed at regular intervals and discharged a little graphite afterwards that has
to be wiped away periodically. “My
Robot Baby” is an exploration of technology at the intimate developmental
level.
Story
2: Machine Love: Greg Pak plays Archie, a Sprout G9 iPerson. In the not too distant future, iPersons
are human looking robots that serve various jobs normally occupied by real
people. Archie checks into his job
and is rudely forced into his position by his insensitive boss. Insensitive is right, and why not? Archie may look like us but he is really
just all circuits and computer chips underneath that rubber skin.
Archie is
curious asking questions of his co-workers that fall on deaf ears. Late at night, Archie discovers that he
is not the only iPerson on the job.
Is love in the air? Is
machine love even possible?
This story is
a cruel ironic joke: a computer that learns on its own must be a curious
computer. And a curious computer
might just end up being an inefficient one. Oh, the perils of being human.
Story
3: The Robot Fixer: Not
really a futuristic story but one that could easily take place today. Bernice Chin (an absolutely wonderful
Wai Ching Ho) travels to visit her son in the hospital. Her son has had a terrible car accident
and lies in an irreversible coma.
Bernice holds
onto the fantasy that her son will come out of the coma as she becomes fixated
on his collection of robot toys.
Bernice in her son’s apartment finds the toys, reminiscent of
Micro-Naughts. She embarks on a
mission to restore the toys, missing many pieces, and revive her son in the
process.
Symbolic and
moving and uncompromising in its approach, The Robot Fixer is a
well-told personal story of our times or any time.
Story
4: Clay: The best and most
ambitious of the stories gives us John Lee (Sab Shimono) a sculptor in the
twilight of his natural life.
Clay is set many years into the future in which people can
download their memories and, thus, their consciousness into a computer where it
can be preserved almost indefinitely.
John’s
natural life is waning. His doctor
tells him that he hasn’t long to live.
His son and his digitized wife tell him that it is time to get
scanned. But John is not so
sure. He is not completely
comfortable with the idea. The
mystery of death waits luring him in causing him to resist the push to be
digitized.
Clay touched
me. The story telling is mature and
complex. With a great ambiguous
haunting ending and the sincere winning performance of Sab Shimono, this segment of
Robot Stories is a technological treasure—the kind of science
fiction that sophisticated audiences crave and deserve.
Jonathan W. Hickman, 2002
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