I Robot Vs Frankenstein example essay topic

In the 19th century Mary Shelley introduced us her first and unique novel Frankenstein. Almost 200 years later director Alex Pro yas 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 Monahan) 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 co founder 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 not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot can protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law". With the help of Dr. Calvin, Spooner tries to solve the case.

This is a back-breaking job because his adversaries are always one step ahead. But Sonny seems to be the solution for the whole riddle because he is the first robot who can choose between adhering to the rules and being against them. This for Dr. Calvin and all the other humans seems to be impossible, because if robots can break those laws, then there is nothing which could stop them taking over the world, because human have become very dependent on their robots and cannot live without them. But maybe the robots have already taken over the world?" Guy creates Monster.

Monster kills guy. Everybody kills Monster. [... ] Frankenstein [...

]" That is the key sentence of the whole movie. The ambitious Dr. Alfred Lanning created those robots to help humanity with its daily chores and fulfill his dreams. So Dr. Lanning is very similar to the early Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's debut novel Frankenstein or The modern Prometheus. In this narrative Victor Frankenstein has a passion for science and a consuming interest in life principals.

These interests developed in an unnatural obsession to create an artificial human out of several dead body parts to see if it is possible to animate this creation. As one night the creature opens his eyes Frankenstein is so frightened that he escapes out of his laboratory. As he later comes back the monster left. Few days later Frankenstein's younger brother is found dead. Frankenstein knows right away that properly the monster has murder his brother.

So he goes to look for him. When he finds him, he noticed that the monster is now able to talk. The creature tells him that he learned to talk when he watched one family, but when he comes closer to the family and want to be their friend they chase him away. And so does everybody. He feels so lonesome and alone, that he wants Frankenstein to create a girlfriend for him so he is no lonely anymore. As a result he may have then somebody to talk to.

In return the monster would turn his back to the human race. Consequently Frankenstein creates a female mate for the monster, but when he is almost through the work he is suddenly overwhelmed with fear that the monster and his mate will spawn more monsters and destroy the human race. So he destroys the female. Thereupon the creature murders Frankenstein's fianc " ee. So it is seen that Frankenstein's experience with science and technology to satisfy his curiosity if it would be possible to animate a dead person scared him. This unites Dr. Lanning and Frankenstein in some way, because he also wanted to satisfy his curiosity.

But there is also a big difference, Lanning wanted to invent something for humanity, to help them, to fulfill their needs. In contrast Frankenstein just seems to be curious about figuring out whether it would be possible to animate a dead person. And as Frankenstein catches the sight of the monster he had compunctions and he wished that he better did not gratify his curiosity. Lanning found out in every experience more about robots and tried to understand them, he also figured out that there "have been always Ghosts in the machines [... ] Random segments of code that have grouped together - and formed unexpected protocols.

What might be called behavior. [... ] These free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity and even the nature of what we might call the soul. [... ] Why is it that robots stored in an empty space will seek out each other rather than stand alone?" (film quotation) Frankenstein's monster also seeks after closeness and sympathy but every time he came closer to a human being they were frightened and chased him away with stones and unfriendly words. Consequently nobody showed him what love and all the other emotions are about and how one can handle them.

The creature also did not know any laws. In I, Robot Lanning gave his robots from the beginning on three important laws, which were programmed into the source code. V.I.K.I. is the evolution of the robots. It also knows the three laws, but it independently reinterprets these laws and performs these laws according to its logic. In contrast to V.I.K.I. Sonny can not be seen as an evolutionary product but as a mutation of it.

He was taught by 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 unsophisticated ness 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.