I Robot

Christianity and Culture Assignment

on

I Robot

I Robot

I robot is a movie based on the works of an atheistic man, in which there are many theological themes present, which play toward the same questions we ask about our faith each and every day.

I Robot is a movie based on the works of Victor Asimnov, a man who wrote several short stories about robots and human kinds interaction. The movie takes place in futuristic Chicago in the year 2035, at a time there are so many robots, that there will soon be one of them in each home. The story revolves around detective Del Spooner (Will Smith), a homicide detective who hates robots. The reason being that he had a bad experience with them, ever since a robot saved his life in a car accident when it could have saved a young girl instead.

The movie starts off when the scientist who repaired Will Smith after the accident, named Alfred Lanning, is found dead in the lobby of the U.S. Robotics office tower. Del Spooner (Will Smith) assumes that the scientist’s death was not a suicide attempt, but a murder committed by a robot named Sonny. Everyone tells Spooner that he's crazy, because robots cannot go against the three laws by which they are to abide by at any cost.

THE THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with

the first and second rule.

Every robot is programmed to protect humans at all costs, and to obey them unless such obedience would harm a human life. Spooner very much doubts this because various robots keep trying to kill him, from a home-demolition robot, to a whole truckload of metal men that ambush him while he drives through a highway tunnel. The story continues, and the new robots go on a rampage, even Spooners own grandmother is held captive. Detective Spooner along with Sonny and Susan Calvin a robot expert, learn that the robots are being controlled by the motherboard located in the US Robotics building and go to destroy it before it is too late and the robots have taken over the city. The motherboard is destroyed, and the world is saved. Sonny ends up being the chosen one who leads the robots to their freedom and the movie ends there.

There are many theological themes and truths present in this movie, whether they are obvious or embedded and require some thinking. This movie, however, is not about robots, it's about what it means to be a human being. It's not about the future either, but rather what has always made man different from other forms of creation. At one point in the movie, Will Smith says to the robot “You are a clever imitation of life … can a robot write a symphony … can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?”. The robot counters with another question, “Can you?”. The point of this theme is that it’s not the degree of ability that determines what a human being is, because some humans can’t do things that some robots can. It is what makes us human, to be created in the image and likeness of God that this point is trying to get across.

Human being have two aspects to them a spiritual side, and a physical side . Deep down, there seems to be something more to what makes us ourselves, and the movie highlights this. There is a longing that people have for there to be something more, something beyond their physical existence, despite of their evolutionary thinking.

There is a great line in the movie in which this theme is present, when Will Smith says

I am a real human being, you’re not! . However throughout the movie, there is much talk about the similarities and differences between humans and robots, particularly when a persons soul is concerned. In a speech captured on video just before he died, Dr. Lanning suggests that random bits of programming join together within the robots' brain and eventually cause robots to have free will, creativity, and even