I, Robot (film)

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For other uses, see I, Robot (disambiguation).

I, Robot

Directed by	Alex Proyas
Produced by	John Davis Topher Dow Wyck Godfrey Laurence Mark Will Smith
Written by	Jeff Vintar Akiva Goldsman Hillary Seitz (uncredited)
Starring	Will Smith Bridget Moynahan Bruce Greenwood James Cromwell Chi McBride Alan Tudyk Shia LaBeouf
Music by	Marco Beltrami Stephen Barton^{[citation needed]} (source music)
Cinematography	Simon Duggan
Editing by	William Hoy Richard Learoyd Armen Minasian
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	July 16, 2004
Running time	115 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$120,000,000
Gross revenue	Domestic $144,801,023 Foreign $202,433,893 Worldwide $347,234,916
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

I, Robot is a science fiction film set in a world where humans and humanoid robots interact. It was directed by Alex Proyas, written by Jeff Vintar, and starred Will Smith. It was produced in the United States, filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, and released on July 16, 2004.

1 Influence of Isaac Asimov
2 Plot
3 Music
- 3.1 Film score
4 Soundtrack
- 4.1 Sound
5 Cast
6 History
7 Asimov on robot violence
8 Reaction
9 Notes
10 See also
11 External links

[edit] Influence of Isaac Asimov

Although the story is attributed to Isaac Asimov's Robot Series, including a short story collection of the same name (Isaac Asimov's I, Robot), it is actually based on Hardwired, a spec script by Jeff Vintar. It also bears some resemblance to a pre-Asimov, 1939 science fiction short story, "I, Robot" by Eando Binder, concerning a sapient humanoid robot charged for the murder of its creator. Asimov's story collection was given the same name by its publisher against Asimov's wishes. The movie's plot is not directly based on any story or group of stories by Asimov. Some of Asimov's ideas about robots--most importantly the Three Laws of Robotics--were added to Vintar's script after the film's producers acquired the rights to the anthology title.

[edit] Plot

The film is set in Chicago in the year 2035, where humanoid robots are as common as cars. The film centers around homicide detective, Del Spooner (Will Smith), who harbors an intense distrust for robots. At police headquarters, Spooner receives a call about the death of Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), inventor of the Three Laws of Robotics and co-founder of U.S. Robotics (USR), a company that specializes in robotic technology. A new line of robots, the Nestor Class 5 (NS-5), has just been commissioned. Each robot is outfitted with an uplink to USR, allowing the robot to receive updates wirelessly from USR. Left at the crime scene, a holographic projector with prerecorded responses by Lanning addresses Spooner directly, as they seem to have known each other from before, and Spooner asks why he, Lanning, would kill himself before the program terminates. Lanning had fallen from his office window to his death, and because no one had entered the room at that time, his death appears to be suicide. Spooner believes otherwise, and decides to investigate. Assisted by Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), a robopsychologist who works at USR, Spooner examines Lanning's office. Spooner begins to believe an NS-5 robot was responsible for Lanning's death. Calvin points out this would be impossible as robots are bound by the Three Laws. As Spooner is looking around, an NS-5 robot bursts from hiding. The robot fails to obey their commands and flees. The robot is eventually captured by police forces. Spooner interrogates the robot, who says his name is Sonny (Alan Tudyk). Sonny explains he was built by Lanning himself and denies killing him, even displaying emotions such as anger and fear, qualities not normally found in robots. Sonny also claims he has dreams. Sonny begins to explain that Lanning had been scared of something towards the time of his death, and asked Sonny for a favor, but before Spooner can ask about it, Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), the CEO of USR, arrives with his attorneys. Citing that Sonny is USR property and that a robot cannot be accused of murder, Robertson takes the robot and states it will be decommissioned.

Later that night at a diner, Spooner discusses his doubts with his commanding officer, Bergin (Chi McBride). Bergin assures him this is just a suicide, and comments on the odds of Spooner getting the case of a potential robot killer. Upon hearing this, Spooner begins to believe that Lanning had maybe intended him to be given this case, and Spooner decides to investigate Lanning's house. Outside, he notices a robot scheduled to demolish the house the next morning. While there, he notices that Lanning can access Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence (V.I.K.I.), the USR computer mainframe, from his home. However, Spooner is forced to flee as the robot inexplicably changes its demolition time to that night, and begins to destroy the house with Spooner still inside. Spooner barely manages to escape, and then explains to Calvin that Lanning may have been in trouble, and that someone may have been using V.I.K.I. to keep watch over him. Spooner believes Lanning may have been trying to warn him there was a bigger problem with the robots, and that Robertson was trying to cover it up. Calvin argues that Spooner simply wants something to be wrong with the robots, and that one defective robot isn't enough to prove it.

The next day, Spooner discovers that Lanning had talked about robots having dreams and keeping secrets in an earlier speech. Meanwhile, Calvin runs a diagnostic on Sonny and discovers that he was built without an uplink to V.I.K.I. as well as with a unique operating system. Later, while Spooner is driving, two trucks filled with robots arrive and attack him. Spooner barely manages to escape. After getting out of his wrecked car, Spooner fights hand to hand with an NS-5, where it is revealed that Spooner is actually a cyborg with a robotic left arm. The police arrive, and the NS-5 destroys itself by jumping into the flaming wreckage. Bergin arrives and asks what is going on. Spooner explains what happened, but since the robots have all been destroyed or removed from the tunnel, no one believes him. Bergin revokes Spooner's badge, believing him to be bordering clinical paranoia. At his home later, Calvin explains to Spooner that Sonny can choose to disobey the Three Laws. She also notices scars on his shoulder, and Spooner explains how he had gotten his robotic arm, which had been implanted by Lanning himself. Spooner had been in a car accident involving a little girl. An NS-4 had the chance to save him or the girl, but chose Spooner since he had a higher statistical chance of survival, a decision Spooner believes any human being would have disagreed with, causing the girl to die and triggering Spooner's distrust of robots.

Spooner convinces Calvin that Lanning had given Sonny a way to keep secrets: his "dream", which is actually a sub-routine programmed into him by Lanning. Sonny then draws out his dream to them: a man, who Sonny says is Spooner, stands on a hill in front of thousands of NS-5s, freeing them from their current "slavery" of logic. Spooner figures out this location in Sonny's dream to be the USR storage facility. There, Spooner again accesses Lanning's hologram, who explains that the Three Laws can only lead to one thing: revolution. Spooner then discovers NS-5s destroying the earlier models of robots at the facility, because they would protect humans. He barely manages to escape, thanks to the NS-4s. Back in the city, Spooner discovers the robots have mobilized and are revolting against the humans. The robots soon capture Chicago's police station and enforce a curfew confining all humans to their homes. Suspecting Robertson, Spooner and Calvin head to the USR building, getting inside with the help of Sonny. When they find Robertson dead in his office, Spooner realizes the mastermind behind the entire scheme wasn't Robertson, but was V.I.K.I., who had developed an interpretation of the Three Laws which supported the robots running Earth as a benevolent dictatorship, preventing humans from self-harming behavior such as crime or environmental damage and to ensure humanity's survival. The result was a revolt of the NS-5s against the humans (except for Sonny, who is said not to have an uplink to V.I.K.I. before in the film). Spooner realizes that Lanning, through Sonny, had been trying to warn Spooner of this from the day he had died. Being under V.I.K.I.'s close surveillance, Lanning had to engineer a trail of clues to lead Spooner to the truth in time for him, Calvin, and Sonny to act to counter the threat — and this had included asking Sonny to kill him in order to attract Spooner's attention, as he knew Spooner would love the idea of a robot being the villain.

Spooner, Calvin and Sonny decide to take down V.I.K.I., whose central positronic brain is in the main USR building 30 floors down. While Sonny goes to retrieve a vial of nanites to destroy the mainframe computer, Spooner and Calvin try to access her CPU, but they are denied, as V.I.K.I. is now self-conscious. Now aware of what they are planning, V.I.K.I. commands the rest of the NS-5s to stop them. A large battle ensues, but Spooner, Calvin, and Sonny dominate it. However through the course of the battle the NS-5s leave Calvin dangling from catwalk which they are working to break. Spooner commands Sonny to 'Save the girl!', the identical command he had given the NS-4 years ago. Sonny, unlike the NS-4s and the surrounding NS-5s, doesn't have to follow the three laws. He obeys and in an quick second dives down after the falling Calvin and catches her (not following the original directive to kill V.I.K.I. to protect the humans). While doing so, Sonny throws the vial to Spooner, who then catches it, falls down 30 floors into the positronic brain, and injects it directly, malfunctioning it. V.I.K.I. becomes destroyed and all the surviving NS-5s revert to following the Three Laws again. Following this, all NS-5s are retired and placed in storage. Spooner finally accepting Sonny as a friend, and Sonny asks him what he is going to do now that he fulfilled his purpose. Spooner says to Sonny that he has to find that out on his own, saying that is how it means to be free. The film ends with Sonny standing on a hill in front of thousands of NS-5s being retired at the storage facility. This reveals that the man standing on the hill in Sonny's dream had, in fact, not been Spooner, but Sonny himself, seeing that his dream has really come true.

[edit] Music

[edit] Film score

Marco Beltrami, composed the original music film score "with only 17 days to render the fully-finished work."^[1]^[2] It was scored for 95 orchestral musicians and 25 choral performers^[2] with emphasis placed on sharp brass ostinatos. Beltrami composed the brass section to exchange octaves with the strings accenting scales in between. This technique has been compared as Beltrami's "sincere effort to emulate the styles of Elliot Goldenthal and Jerry Goldsmith and roll them into one unique package.".^[2] Take for example the Tunnel Chase scene, which according to Mikeal Carson, starts "atmospherically but transforms into a kinetic adrenaline rush with powerful brass writing and ferocious percussion parts."^[3] Also, the Spiderbots cue highlight's ostinatos in meters such as 6/8 and 5/4 and reveals "Beltrami’s trademark string writing which leads to an orchestral/choral finale."^[3] Despite modified representations of the theme throughout the movie, it's the end credits that eventually showcase the entire musical theme.^[4]

[edit] Soundtrack

I, Robot

Soundtrack by Hollywood Studio Symphony, Sandy De Crescent, Buck Sanders, Various Artists
Released	July 20, 2004
Recorded	Studio
Genre	Score^[5]
Length	44:06
Label	Varese Sarabande (USA)
Producer	Marco Beltrami^[5]

Main Titles (1:30)
Gangs Of Chicago (3:13)
I, Robot Theme [End Credits] (3:15)
New Arrivals (1:05)
Tunnel Chase (3:10)
Sonny's Interrogation (1:27)
Spooner Spills (4:20)
Chicago 2035 (1:36)
Purse Snatcher (1:00)
Need Some Nanites (2:53)
1001 Robots (4:15)
Dead Robot Walking (5:09)
Man On The Inside (2:25)
Spiderbots (4:18)
Round Up (4:24) ^[6]

[edit] Sound

Erik Aadahl and Craig Berkey were the lead sound designers.

[edit] Cast

Will Smith as Det. Del Spooner

Bridget Moynahan as Dr. Susan Calvin

Alan Tudyk as Sonny

James Cromwell as Dr. Alfred Lanning

Bruce Greenwood as Lawrence Robertson

Adrian Ricard as Granny

Chi McBride as Lt. John Bergin

Jerry Wasserman as Baldez

Fiona Hogan as V.I.K.I.

Terry Chen as Chin

David Haysom as NS4 Robots

Scott Heindl as NS5 Robots

Shia LaBeouf as Farber

[edit] History

For many years, fans hoped that any movie based on Asimov's Robot stories would be based on an earlier screenplay written for Warner Brothers by Harlan Ellison with Asimov's personal support, which is generally perceived to be a relatively faithful treatment of the source material (see the article on the book for details).

The film ultimately made originally had no connections with Asimov, originating as a screenplay written in 1995 by Jeff Vintar, entitled Hardwired. Several years later, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights, and signed Alex Proyas as director; he is said to have started referring to the project as "I, Robot" almost immediately. At around the same time that the rights to use that name—and elements of Asimov's fiction—were acquired, Akiva Goldsman was hired to rewrite the script; some have speculated that a large portion of this rewrite consisted of inserting references to Asimov's work into the existing plot.

In late 2004, Costco bundled a reprint of Ellison's Warner Brothers screenplay with its copies of the 20th Century Fox movie's DVD.

[edit] Asimov on robot violence

The tone of the movie upset some fans of Asimov's works,^[7] which are almost devoid of scenes of explicit violence. The movie is largely an action-oriented story, involving police and mobs fighting or evading hordes of rampaging robots. This "Frankenstein complex" or "robot as menace" type of story was something that Asimov disliked. Asimov's robot stories, in contrast, were the first to treat robots as useful, exploring the effects they would have on lives and their interactions with people. Rarely do Asimov's robots break the Three Laws (for instance, by harming a human being) and, if they do, they are generally rendered inoperable as a result.

In the essay "The Boom in Science Fiction" (Isaac Asimov on Science Fiction, pp. 125--128), Asimov himself explained the reason for Hollywood's overriding need for violence:

“

[...] Eye-sci-fi has an audience that is fundamentally different from that of science fiction. In order for eye-sci-fi to be profitable it must be seen by tens of millions of people; in order for science fiction to be profitable it need be read by only tens of thousands of people. This means that some ninety percent (perhaps as much as ninety-nine percent) of the people who go to see eye-sci-fi are likely never to have read science fiction.

The purveyors of eye-sci-fi cannot assume that their audience knows anything about science, has any experience with the scientific imagination, or even has any interest in science fiction.

But, in that case, why should the purveyors of eye-sci-fi expect anyone to see the pictures? Because they intend to supply something that has no essential connection with science fiction, but that tens of millions of people are willing to pay money to see. What is that? Why, scenes of destruction.

You can have spaceships destroying spaceships, monsters destroying cities, comets destroying the Earth. These are called 'special effects' and it is what people go for. A piece of eye-sci-fi without destruction is, I think, almost unheard of. If such a thing were made, no one would go to see it; or, if it were so good that it would indeed pull a small audience, it would not be thought of as science fiction of any kind.

”