I,Robot vs. Frankenstein

In the 19th century Mary Shelley introduced us her first and unique novel Frankenstein. Almost 200 years later director Alex Proyas released his new blockbuster I, Robot based on the homonymous short story by Isaac Asimov. Both stories tell the viewer a fiction about creatures produced by human beings. These creatures feel itself as a stranger in the society and misunderstood. But even if the stories have the same beginning they are presented in a different way. So the question is: Is the movie I, robot the Frankenstein of the 21st century?

The future world of I, Robot is introduced to the audience through the eyes of Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith). Before he experienced a tragedy, he used to be a normal person, but now he seems to be very paranoid about technology. The robot-psychologist Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) is the opposite of the detective. She is very comfortable with robots, because she is involved in creating and making them - actually she makes the robots appear more human. Sonny, who is actually a computer animated character, is also one of the protagonists. It is a robot who does not appear to be like the other robots of its type. Instead it seems to be like a small child who is very frightened and wants to learn everything. V.I.K.I., Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence, is the main frame of the U.S. Robotics company, U.S.R., who is at the first glance not very important, but the importance of its character grows in the course of the story. It was also the first invention Dr. Lanning made. Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) worked around 20 years at U.S.R. and was also a cofounder of the company. He was the designer of all the robots and his last one was Sonny.

The story is an adaptation of Asimov’s short story which warned about the future and about technology. It takes place in Chicago in 2035 and to this time robots are a part of the everyday life. There is no way one could imagine a life without robotics. The company who develop the robots, U.S.R., is about to bring out the new robots, NS-5. But the business is overshadowed by the suicide of the developer Alfred Lanning in the U.S.R. headquarters. Detective Spooner is convinced that it is a homicide and that the committer only could be a robot. But nobody believes him since there are the three laws of robotics which build a perfect cycle of protection. “1. A robot may ...

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...Dr. Lanning and other humans how to deal with emotions. In scene 12, detective Spooner teaches Sonny, the sign of trust when a human blinks to another human. Sonny processed this information different than other robots. Spooner also aroused anger in Sonny. At first Sonny did not know what anger is all about, but then he was told by the detective. Even though, the detective told him right away that machines cannot feel any emotions at all. So Sonny learned with every experience more and more about emotions and how to handle them. Nobody every explained those emotions to Frankenstein’s monster.

The fundamentals of both stories are identical, although there are different conclusions drawn by each plot. Frankenstein is more seen as a denier of technology. And in the movie I, Robot it is shown that technology is actually good for the humans but it is also seen as a critique against the unsophisticatedness of the human beings. Also one should not accept everything without questioning. So both movies actually show that back in 1818 the human race was not able to understand and accept technology. And in 2035 the humanity is still not capable of dealing with the technology they invented.