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Sadly Over-hyped

Great Film overall

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

(www.plasticpals.com) Rather than making one really good short film, director Greg Pak decided to film all four of his robot-themed short stories and compile them into one film.The first story, My Robot Baby, follows a couple as they take home a robot baby to show they are responsible enough to handle a real one. It's not a bad concept for a robot-themed film, and is a plausible scenario that will be familiar to anyone who had to take care of an egg for a sex ed class. As it turns out, the robot baby looks quite a bit like a football-sized egg with cardboard eyes stuck onto it. Despite the cheesy props the story does contain some interesting ideas, like when the robot's "mother" reprograms the bot so that it automatically takes care of itself. Unfortunately the concept was better explored and in much greater detail in Steven Spielberg's A.I., and it quickly dissolves into a silly suspense film when the baby robot runs amok late at night.The second story, The Robot Fixer, isn't really about robots at all. A distraught mother is visiting her comatose son, who has been hit by a car. While cleaning up his apartment, she and her daughter find his collection of robot toys. The mother decides to complete her son's collection in a symbolic bid to put her son back together. By the time this one was over I was ready to stop watching this turd, so I did.

Robot Stories, created in 2003 by Greg Pak is his first (and so far his only) feature film. It consists of four independent vignettes, each one treating another aspect of our relations with the world of robots. A couple who wants to adopt a child gets a robot-baby instead, just for exercising. A mother tries to connect to his comatose son by sharing his passion: fixing robot-toys. A robot-worker gets in love with a female-robot. An old sculptor who will die soon has the option to become a robot and live for ever in a hologram.The movie got very controversial reviews. Some compared Robot Stories with other movies of the same kind to find out that everything that was to be said about robot stuff had already been said. Some others tried to consider the movie on its own merits. I think it should be considered also within the context of Greg Pak's creation, all his comics and very short movies (videos of less than 10 minutes, even less than 2 minutes): it is about the interactions between our universe and the universe of his comics.Robots were created with the aim to help us: in our work, or in our moments of fatigue, when we need some kind of intelligent toys to play with. Only it happened that robots went further and created their own universe, sometimes controlled by us, sometimes with them in control, sometimes cooperating with us, sometimes competing. Contacts between our universe and theirs can be sometimes beneficial for both, while many times it is about collisions with unpredictable outcomes. On the other hand, in most cases the universe of robots offers a window for us, to look into it: what happens there, in their world, is the objective image of what we are.If we consider now the four vignettes of the movie, we could say that the vision of Greg Pak about the matter is rather pessimistic. Babies are replaced by robots, communication between humans is possible only using robots, human sentiments are felt by robots only (and humans forgot about them), medicines cannot compete viruses any more while death sends human beings into the world of robots for ever. Is the picture too pessimistic? Well, let's put it this way: babies start being little savage robots till we learn how to communicate with them, communication between humans is ultimately possible, even if we need robots for that, and so on. Discussing this movie we can go either way. Plus think about that: the movie uses robots to describe our own world. Is it about them or about us? As I said, we can go either way.The first vignette (My Robot Baby) is funny and witty. What are babies after all, other than little savage and absurd things you cannot communicate with? Anything you try, they keep on crying. And only when you don't know what to try anymore and get discouraged, they start understanding you. The communication channel is set when the little thing realizes you can be weak, too.The second vignette (The Robot Fixer) is a little gem. Mother and daughter come at the bed of their son and brother: he lies in a coma, brain-dead, and the only decision to take is when to unplug him. The daughter realizes it very well, while the mother is thinking how to connect with the son in his last days. A set of little robot toys discovered in his little condo shows her that she knew the son very little. And the mother starts to learn about robots, to play with them, to fix the toys, to be at least now in synch with the boy. Is it too late? Is it useless? Maybe any human attempt is useless or it comes to late, but it doesn't matter. It has to be done.The third vignette (Machine Love) is funny, but rather weak, in my opinion. An android worker (nicely played by Greg Pak) is surrounded at office by humans devoid of any warmth, while he discovers, step by step, the miracle of love. I saw better ones, even between robots. The standard was probably set by Data, what do you think? As for the last vignette (Clay), it has a great subject, maybe difficult to be grasped. To continue your life for ever, frozen in a hologram, or to accept the dignity of your never more? Well, when you tackle with a great subject, you should have a moment of genius, to say there the ultimate truth. I think the moment of genius came for Greg Pak in the second vignette. But all in all, you shouldn't miss these four Robot Stories. They are uneven, that is true, but Greg Pak is a very cool creator.

Robot Stories is an anthology of 4 distinct segments which premiered in the Singapore Fantastic Film Festival this evening, with a common theme of advanced technology or robots taking centerstage.My Robot Baby In the future where career minded couples have no time to conceive and turn to adoption, they will have to go through a "baby trial" period, whereby they will be tasked to take care of a baby-like Tamaguchi robot, which looks similar and beeps just like Star Wars' Artoo-Deetoo, sans legs.The robot records how it is treated by the couple, and without proper care, feeding and cleaning, once the evaluation period is up, the couple will be deemed unsuitable to adopt a human child.So when career gets in the way of childcare, desperate times calls for desperate measures. While a robot can be hacked and reprogrammed, the same cannot be done for a human child, and critical sacrifices has got to be made. It makes you think if what had been done to outsmart the system is ethical, and reflect upon a statement made by one of the characters early in the film on "never fall in love, never get married, and never have kids" if these sacrifices cannot be made.The Robot Fixer A man is lying comatose on a hospital bed, while a mother clings onto childhood memories of her time with her kid. While waiting for her child to wake up from his coma, she inevitably goes through his stuff, with most of her memories being linked with his robotic toys.While she scours all around town to re-assemble the broken and lost pieces (in the hope that it will jog his brain waves when she speaks and presents them to him), it parallels her determination and never-say-die spirit that her son will one day be able to be with her again.My guess is any son or mother in the audience, will be able to identify with the characters. As a son, I did, and I know that my mom will go through all lengths to wake me up from that deep sleep, with similar methods and determination. A mother's love is always strong.Machine Love Director Greg Pak stars as the protagonist in this segment, a (probably subtle approval to Apple) model G9 iPerson, who's able to self-deliver himself to the company he is bought for.This segment perhaps dreams of what the future may hold for Artificial Intelligence - that of never-tiring workers who can work at their desks all day without the need for breaks, always responding eagerly to "you got work" calls and striving to accomplish all assigned tasks in the fastest possible speed.And with AI, this segment inevitably explores the "what ifs" that these lifeforms could have or developed in terms of emotions, and love, as they learn through interactions with humans.Being the perfect worker, it also brings forth fear into humans on things that we don't understand, and the usual name calling / chiding happens. Abuse also follows with female versions of the iPerson, with lecherous males openly fondling and commenting on why the racks ain't being bigger.I shan't finish this segment for you, except to comment that these robots sure know the right buttons to push!Clay This is, in my opinion, the weakest of the four stories, but the one which has the most potential, and features the most human of emotions, that of love, longing and the anticipation of death.It is an era where the human brain can be mapped onto a computer, so that man can finally beat death, and while the physical person wastes away, the consciousness will forever be alive in an electronic form. The protagonist, however, refuses to use this technology, being a clay-artist, he loathes the thought of designing his craft without feeling or emotions.However, he uses technology to interact with his dead(?) wife, and with the proper plug in, could also get intimate with her. There is nothing new with this technology feature as it was also shown on screen in Tom Cruise's Minority Report. But interwoven into the narrative is a strong sense of his wanting to be back in the arms of his wife again.Do stay for the end credits. There is a slide at the end which states that production started on September 10th 2001, and the crew lost one of their own in the WTC attacks. Also after the end credits, one of the dancing robots (featured in the opening credits) will appear with a message on New York.For those who wish to catch this film, you can do so on Monday where the evening show will be screened at GV Marina.

"Robot Stories" tells four stories following the theme of isolation, and its remedy, or lack thereof, through technology. "My Baby Robot" shows couple seeking to adopt a child who are given a robot infant to test their worthiness for a human child. "The Robot Fixer" deals with an emotionally-distant mother whose son lies brain-dead in a coma. When she finds remnants of his boyhood toy robot collection, she seeks to complete and restore the collection. In "Robot Love," a humanoid office robot with the ability to interact is frustrated by his human co-workers unwillingness to do so. The final tale, "Clay," tells the story of a dying sculptor given to the opportunity to have his mind scanned so that his consciousness can survive after his death in huge database.I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw this film. From the trailer, I expected a somewhat whimsical piece about love and robots, and the third tale with its G9 iPerson is certainly whimsical enough, but I found the overall film much more emotionally challenging and moving than I anticipated. The second and fourth stories were the best.SPOILERS...."The Robot Fixer" is hardly science fiction at all. The only robots are little plastic toys. The film starts with a mother, wonderfully played by Wai Ching Ho, arriving to find her son lying in a coma. It soon becomes clear her son was a disappointment to her, and that she never understood him. She later goes to his apartment and finds a collection of toy robots he saved from childhood. The mother realizes the fact that her son saved the robots all these years showed that they were important to him. In an attempt to understand him better, and perhaps draw him out of his coma, she goes to great lengths to repair the robots and bring them to his bedside in the hospital. She poignantly doesn't succeed in drwaing him from the coma, but learns a great deal about herself and her son in the process.In "Clay," a dying sculptor is required to have his brain scanned so that his consciousness can survive in a huge database. The artist, played by Sab Shimono, resists, despite knowing that the process indeed works. His deceased wife survives in the database and visits him in holographic form. She is, in fact, a better wife to him dead than she was alive. Not only does she love him more now, she has achieved a blissful state of happiness in the database. That's one of the problems. The artist knows he has lived a selfish life and doesn't deserve the happiness he would find in the database. He'd rather take his chances on a natural death than survive in a reality he finds false and artificial."Robot Stories" is an excellent first feature by writer/director Greg Pak. I look forward to seeing another one.