Bad Man
Back in 1976 a bunch of science fiction authors were asked to write a story called "Bicentennial Man." Isaac Asimov, who only a few years before had returned to writing sf, complied. (He loved to write on request if there was money involved.)
It's a long story--really a novella--about (spoilers, I guess) a robot who goes through enough changes that he/it eventually becomes human and, on his 200th birthday, dies. It was an immediate classic. Okay, perhaps a bit overpraised in its day, but still pretty good.
Seemed a natural for the movies. Finally, in the 90s, it got the go-ahead. Chris Columbus, who'd done Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, was set to direct. I remember talking about it with some people in his offices at 1492 Pictures a year before it came out. The place was buzzing.
It was a big-budget picture starring Robin Williams at the height of his career. It looked like a blockbuster, but it fizzled. Did it deserve its fate? I recently watched Bicentennial Man (1999) and have to agree with the general audience--it doesn't work.
Maybe there was no way to make it work. The story is episodic. It regularly skips ahead years, with only one character to follow. There's not that much going on, really--just a vague quest for Andrew (the robot) to find his humanity, spread out so much it's hard to care. And when it comes down to it, they're spending $100 million on a film where the main character spends 200 years figuring out how to die.
Also, all the changes Andrew goes through seem to be on the outside (even when they're made inside him). How he has a personality, or creativity, or feelings, isn't much gone into. Maybe it's too complex a subject, but since it's at the center of the story, it feels like something's missing. Instead we get a lot of sentimentality and muted humor.
But I think there's one thing hurting the film that no one saw coming. Andrew goes through many changes, but for much of the story, we see this metallic man who bears a strange resemblance to Robin Williams. It gives you the creeps.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:04 AM
3 Comments:
I've always thought the multi-year, multi episode/movie journey of Commander Data in Star Trek TNG was one of the best film treatments of an AI trying to become human. Given so much time,the various writers could explore miniscule elements of the search for humanity (learning to laugh, learning to cry, learning to sacrifice).
Of course the series also had parallel stories to show mishaps in the search (so that Data wouldn't be damaged as a continuing character). One of my favorites was the AI of the Enterprise itself gaining self-awareness in the holodeck in the form of Dr. Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes lexicon. The program, designed to be evil, gains self-awareness (in an attempt to defeat Data), and then "thinks" itself out of being evil. Great stuff!
Some of those Data shows were overdone (Joe Piscopo teaching him about comedy?) but it wasn't a bad theme, even if it's impossible to deal with the issue in any depth in the given format. Becoming human means nothing unless you can deal with what consciousness and self-awareness means, but they were essentially givens with data, or at least mostly unexplored.
As for the holodeck, after the stupid Moriarty episode, time to put it in mothballs. Too dangerous. The whole idea of the holodeck was pretty cheap, only second to time travel as as sf easy out. (For that matter, one episode tried to be "edgy" and had Data shoot to kill someone who was causing him trouble. Once the crew discovered this, time to shut him down permanently--he's more dangerous than the holodeck.)
I have to agree (with a sad chuckle) that after the first time the holodeck tried to take over the Enterprise )or Deep Space Nine or Voyager), there is no satisfactory answer as to why the system wasn't shut down. Give them a good Wii or XBOX360 for the time off.
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