Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

jmbwithcats First of all I choose not to compare movies, I take them on their own merit. We can compare these stories all over the place, but then again we can find similarities everywhere we look if we really want to. Let's empty our cup for this movie, and express from the heart for a moment, because that's what Robot Stories is all about.The movie starts with a tiny segment which runs during the opening credits, a cartoon short about little robots with red faces spitting out binary numbers, ones and zeroes float up the screen, at different pace... then one looks around and his face goes blue and he pops out a 2... he looks around, the rest of the little robots stop and before you know we have all the colors of the rainbow spitting out all the numbers... what a simple yet poignant way to explain the beauty of diversity... at least I enjoyed it... so I settled in to watch Robot Stories, with a smile on my face.Story 1:My Robot Baby is about 2 parents in Japan who want to adopt a baby, they are made to practice on a robot baby first. This segment stars Tamlyn Tomita who I have always loved. You might know her from Joy Luck Club or Day After Tomorrow where she played a reporter. It's a cute story.Story 2:The Robot Fixer begins in a hospital. The first thing you hear is a female voice over the loud speaker, "Doctor Blair..." That's actually the introduction to the song Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche, not sure why it's in there but I recognized it instantly.A boy is in a coma because he got hit by a car crossing the street. His sister and mom come to help, and mom decides to get in touch with her estranged son by fixing all of his old toys, his prized possessions from childhood. It's endearing and an original story I've never seen anything like before. We watch the story develop as mom seeks to fix his toys and come closer to understanding him, she takes responsibility for the part she played in the distance that set them apart, it's a very beautiful story."There's a change that even with regret cannot be undone." -Division Bell Pink Floyd.Story 3:Machine Love takes place some time in the near future with the Gi9 Person. A coder tech robot named Archie who delivers himself, does his work, like a clockwork orange, until he meets a female robot, and discovers something outside his parameters, love. The story symbolizes how we limit each other's capabilities, and each other, in a world without limits, without boundaries, without definitions. Too cool.Story 4:Clay. In 2027, scientists make the first perfect digital copy of the human brain. When you die, you are uploaded into a collective consciousness where you live forever, knowing everything... kind of sounds like a pleasant yoga session to me. Very Zen.Overall nice stories with thoughtful premises.

karen_miller1981 I remembered this film after seeing two more science fiction films recently, NIGHTINGALE IN A MUSIC BOX and PRIMER. All three are extremely low budget meditations on the relationship between technology and human identity. This one is the hardest to comment on, because it's a collection of short stories that differ somewhat in quality; but on the whole, ROBOT STORIES deserves its place with the other two as part of a real renaissance in American independent "science fiction" film-making.I put science fiction in quotes, because these films are more more about the human soul and if there can even be such a thing in this brave new world we live in, than they are about the actual new forms technology might take, though PRIMER is probably the best on little science details, if you like that.To anyone reading this comment, I'd suggest you try to see all three. They represent an exciting movement in American independent movies.

noralee "Robot Stories" is a collection of four thematically related short films, written, produced, directed and, in at least one, acted by Gregory Pak. They are humanistic "Outer Limits" episodes with the usual ending twist. The first two particularly rise above the genre with touching insight into human and machine interaction, the fourth almost succeeds, and the third just seems like the usual android of the future amidst the humans, similar to "Data"'s experiences on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."One unique resonance is the preponderance of Asian-American actors, which adds a subtle layer of commentary about "the model minority" with the pressures on them to succeed that can only be met by machine perfection, perhaps leading to the pressure to opt for tekkie, rather than artistic--like filmmaking--fields. The movie concludes with a sweet tribute to a friend or relative of a worker on the film who died at the World Trade Center.

David Eastman Science Fiction is a great device for writing about social politics, and these four short films do this well in some way or another.The first story is the sharpest, and questions how we value motherhood against normal human values. The serious point, that babies are truly alien to your life, is well made.The second film slighly connects love of science fiction with withdrawl from real life. And this film was in a Sci-Fi festival!The third film is light relief, but does explore alienation and fear in a simple way.The last film is in someways the most traditional, in that it looks at the ultimate mechanization of human life. All these stories are in turn funny, sexy and intelligent - I wouldn't say that any were original, well produced or deep. A good film for a new director.