Customer Reviews

Robot Stories

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In the four-part anthology film "Robot Stories," writer/director Greg Pak examines the role that technology plays in modern life, pondering the age old quandaries of what is real and what is synthetic and whether or not technology can truly enhance our lives. Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Pak has chosen to utilize many of the same cast members - largely Asian - for each of the unrelated episodes.

The first story, entitled "My Robot Baby," takes place in the not too distant future when couples who are looking to adopt a child are first sent home with a fully computerized and monitored, "simulated" baby that they have to take care of for a brief period of time (this is a more elaborate version of what many high school Health teachers do with their students to convince them of just how much work caring for a newborn can be). How the participants do on this "test" helps to determine their fitness as parents and their eligibility for getting a "real" child in the future. This segment is both creepy and witty in roughly equal measure. In the well acted and touching second episode, "The Robot Fixer," a young man lies brain dead in a hospital after he is run over by a car. His mother and sister, who have long been estranged from the man, spend their time reconstructing his collection of beloved toy robots as a way of coming to terms with who he really is. This is the only section that deals not with futuristic technology per se but with the part technology plays in our imaginations and fantasies. The third installment, "Machine Love," is probably the most conventional of the quartet, about how even two robots - in this case, two office "workers" - need a little love in a cold, uncaring world. It's a theme that has been explored in virtually every film involving robots since "Metropolis" in 1927. "Clay," the fourth and most thoughtful segment, takes us to a future world in which people, rather than dying, become somehow absorbed into a giant "system" that allows them to live on in holographic form. A dying sculptor is forced to choose between this kind of virtual "eternal life" devoid of tactile sensation, or taking his chances with a more natural albeit uncertain existence in the great beyond.

As with many anthology films, "Robot Stories" turns out to be better in parts than it is as a whole, with certain episodes inevitably proving to be more imaginative and more captivating than others. Moreover, the twenty-odd minute length allotted for each section doesn't allow for the kind of depth and resonance one finds in more fully developed feature length movies. Nevertheless, given the constraints of the format he has chosen, Pak has mounted an impressive little product, taking advantage of his miniscule budget to adopt a subtle, low-keyed approach to a subject that, given less limited resources, might otherwise have become top heavy with special effects. The acting - particularly on the part of the older actors in the cast - is outstanding. "Robot Stories" may not satisfy the demands of the average sci-fi aficionado, but those in search of something different may enjoy it.

The title should have one more word in it: "Robot Love Stories." Despite it's decidedly SF premise, it's hard to call these stories SF. The themes are far more human than the title gives any reason to expect.

The first vignette, "My Robot Baby," is about mother love. Face it, that's not something that comes easily to every woman (or man, for that matter), and there's something to be said for making all your mistakes on a robot instead of a human child. The next story, "The Robot Fixer," is about familial love again, faced with a terrible family tragedy. The robots this time are toys, mementos of a loved one, when that love holds on long after it needed to let go. "Machine Love" points out that, in making robot minds in the image of our own, we're likely to succeed far too well. That new underclass will have a lot to overcome, expecially in pursuing the rewards in their lives that were never part of the product specification. Finally, "Clay" presents robot love in yet another way, the kind that appears when the distinction between human and robot blurs completely - or maybe not so completely, in ways that matter most to sculptor Johnny.

They are all exceptional and warm stories, enhanced by the extras on this disk. Deleted scenes and alternate endings show other directions that the thoughts could have gone. A ten-minute short, "Mouse," also appears among the extras. It stands away from the robot theme, and I'm wholly sure what to make of it.

These loving, literate stories have my highest recommendation. This quiet set deserves a lot more attention than it's generally gotten.

//wiredweird

I had the pleasure of catching this film at a few film festivals over the years and found that the viewing experience improved each time, as small nuggets of ideas continued to reveal themselves. I won't bother with the synopsis as others have done so well here already, so I'll get straight to my impressions of the film and this DVD.

I treat this film a little differently than most studio releases, because it was truly an independent film. The budget was raised independently, the film garnered most of it's marketing via the film festival circuit (winning over 35 awards along the way!), and it was distributed on a limited theatrical run across the country, completely by the filmmakers. So it really has an underdog current to it, which in my book earns extra consideration. I have also had the pleasure of meeting the writer/director Greg Pak and found him to be exceedingly gracious, humble and intelligent. (Mr. Pak is famous, or infamous, for having 2 of the most popular short films online, All Amateur Ecstasy and Asian Pride Porn, both very clever in their inception and execution.)

The first thing of note is that this is an anthology of four short films loosely, but very consciously, tied together by human experiences. The amazing thing is that all four films are quite strong by themselves. For anyone who is familiar with the short film circuit, it is not easy to produce four strong short films in a row. They are often a hit and miss endeavor. Whatever advantages are gained by avoiding one long feature-film production, are balanced by the challenges (both logistically as well as narratively) of four short films shot in succession as part of a self-contained anthology. Parenting, marriage, parent-child relationships, office politics, love, and immmortality are major themes in these films. Then there are the smaller subthemes about transference, human physicality, creation, expression, boundaries, and more. Very impressive for a first feature. The tone is at times meditative, frightening, whimsical, and even horrifying, but always engaging. And in general the experience as a whole is very moving.

I was surprised and delighted by the extras on the DVD. There are 3 sets of commentaries all dealing with different aspects of the production, and include the writer/director along with the producers, and many of the lead actors. And they provide a lot of insight into what was going on behind the scenes. Particularly moving is the fact that the first day of shooting in New York City was September 10, 2001. The next day the Twin Towers fell and the filmmakers, being in obvious shock and grief, were in a quandary about whether to continue production or not. The way they reached their decision and the reasons behind it are truly inspiring. Also, on the DVD are deleted scenes and alternate endings, with optional commentary from Greg Pak. I was surprised to learn that a couple of the stories had alternate endings that really put a dramatically different spin on them. Also, there were actually some intentional crossovers of characters, which suggests that perhaps all the stories were occuring in a very real and common time and place. (This would be a little confusing to track though, since some of the characters, acted by the same performers, are obviously not the same people across the stories.)

All in all, I am very impressed by this DVD, given the background of the project and the circumstances in which it came together. I look forward to Mr. Pak's next film.

"Robot Stories" is a movie that includes within it, 4 stories; all having to do with a robot or some such A.I. technology. Each story focuses on a particular time period in life, beginning from birth and ending in death. The second story deals only with toy robots, but it's the most moving. It deals with a mother comming to accept the loss of her comatose son. Clay, the last story, was also very insightful and interesting. The old sculptor of the story struggles with his obligation to "scan" his brain for the sake of future generations having access to his knowledge or the dignity of a natural death.

This is the kind of science fiction that I love and hope to see more of. It's sci-fi that works to bring out the humane, using it to contrast and make the human experience "pop" to dramatize it to the limit without becoming contrived. "Robot Stories" is a wonderful collection of stories spanning a life of experiences.

Robot Stories tells four different science fiction stories in regards to robots and artificial intelligence in a thoughtful manner. These short stories provide an introspective perspective on what the future might hold in regards to the development of humans, human interaction, and artificial support to human intellect and collective wisdom. The wisdom in the stories is never exhausted or dissected into great detail, as they merely scratch on the surface of futuristic existential philosophy. Yet, it is this superficial scratching that offers much more for the audience to drift into deep contemplation of what might lay ahead for mankind.

The first tale, My Robot Baby, delivered to the audience illustrates the difficulty of raising a child in a loving and nurturing environment, especially, if people carry baggage from the past that might harm future children. Awareness of this predicament has generated a baby robot, which people can bring home to practice on while awaiting the possibility of having a child. However, can people learn from this awkward looking robot that demands attention like an infant?

In the Robot Fixer a mother discovers that her adult son has been placed into a coma after an accident. They seemed to have had a strained relationship, as it appears as if the son has distanced himself from the family. Nonetheless, the mother rediscovers the son's preoccupation with toy robots from his childhood and through these broken toys she attempts to reconnect with her son.

Entering electronic stores, watching TV commercials, and seeing billboards swooshing by along highways provides several opportunities for the audience to bump into the growing popularity of Macintosh's popular iPod. In the near future people will be able to purchase their own iPerson's, which can be seen in Machine Love. The iPerson the audience gets to follow is named Archie who is put to work as soon as he has delivered himself to a small computer company. Work seems to be the only thing Archie is allowed even though he proclaims that he will be more efficient if he is allowed to interact with the humans. However, people seem to perceive Archie in a similar fashion as an audience in the 1930s did when they viewed Tod Browning's film Freaks (1932). The neglect slowly begins to have its toll on Archie, as he notices another iPerson in a window across the street.

The final short story, Clay, offers the audience a possible future where a person's identity and consciousness can be scanned and through this process live forever. Despite the possibility of never-ending happiness through digital immortality the audience is introduced to an artist that struggles with the idea of existence--an existence where pain and suffering are a large part of reality while in a generated world the suffering might be avoided. This question seems to have a simple answer, yet as the audience knows, philosophy is so much more than what meets the eye.

Ultimately, Robot Stories offers an intelligent take on what the future might hold, as it is depicted in a natural order from birth to death. In the process, the audience gets to experience the possibility of artificial love and the human reality where robots are mere items. The stories are well written which helps bring cinematic occasions of brilliance. This small budget film has grand conceptual thinking and moments of visual artistry, which in the end bring a good cinematic experience to the audience.

This is definitely one of the most unusual compilation of sci-fi stories, all revolving around robots, yet touching and emotionally poignant. The first story, "My Robot Baby" centers around a couple [Tamlyn Tomita & James Saito] who are hoping to adopt a baby, and need to prove their competence at prenthood by taking care of a robot baby. The adoptive mom-to-be finds that she is lacking the 'mommy gene' and is emotionally detached from her robot baby, until a string of events cause her to ponder more deeply on motherhood.

The second story, "The Robot Fixer" was one of the most poignant in the series...a mother finds herself coping with her dying son through an unusual channel - by finding parts to complete her son's toy robots collection, in the hopes that by fixing the toys, she might 'fix' him too.

The third story is called 'Machine Love', and revolves around an office android [played to robotic perfection by director Greg Pak himself] who is not completely detached, and finds himself attracted to a female android working in the offcie building across the street - this episode had lots of sardonic humor in it.

The last story was the most thought-provoking - an aging and dying sculptor finds himself being weighed down by two options, i.e. preseving his consciousness through digital immortality or dying a natural death. The lead character is well-played by Sab Shimono, whose emotional conflicts are credibly protrayed and elicits sympathy from the viewer.

All in all, this is a unique compilation of stories that though labelled as sci-fi, are more than that, and the stories draw the viewer in emotionally whilst giving food for thought at the same time. Worth checking out.

I had the honor of attending a 24 hour Sci-Fi film marathon in Boston last year. One of the flicks that we got a peek at about half way through the day was "Robot Stories", written and Directed by Greg Pak. This was Mr. Pak's first feature and I have to say that I was solidly impressed.

Robot Stories is a collection of four vignettes concerning, well, robots. Strangely though, that's not what the stories are really about. Like the best science fiction, Pak has taken elements of the fantastic and wrapped up some wonderfully human tales. I hate reading reviews that give away entire plots so I'll just take a moment to paint some broad strokes here to hopefully whet the appetite.

The first tale concerns a couple going through the process of adopting a child. Before they can qualify for a human baby they must spend thirty days caring for a robot child to show that they are capable of providing a loving home. The robot looks like a strange combination between one of those Virtual Pets that were popular a few years back and a giant egg. I'm willing to bet that a part of the inspiration for the design of the robo-kid came from one of those strange assignments that most of us had in high school where we had to take care of an egg for a week. At first things seem to go pretty well, but once the prospective mother is left alone with the virtual infant, hilarity, a hint of horror and some amazingly powerful emotional breakthroughs ensue. As a parent who was going through the adoption process and was then blessed with twins I can vouch for the authenticity of everything faced by the couple here. A fun, but very powerful story.

The second chapter has no "real" robots at all. It is a very moving tale of a mother who discovers the son she never really knew or understood through the Micronaut toys he leaves behind. (Apparently they were not able to get permission to say "Micronaut" on screen and had to substitute "Micro-Bots". Silly, but true.) This story provides one of the most amazing acting jobs I have ever seen. Wai Ching Ho gives a magnificent performance as the mother who only really gets to know her son at the last possible minute. Hardcore geeks and nerds around me were visibly weepy toward the end. Since this film has been in circulation on the indie scene for a couple of years I am sure that it no longer qualifies for any major awards and that's a shame. The writing and acting in this and the last chapters are among the finest I have seen in any film.

Chapter three is a lighter piece that poses the age old question of how regular folks will react with a "synthetic human" when they are first exposed to one. In this case we are treated to the writer/director playing Archie, the first i-worker in a software development company. Pak does a passable job as the robot who longs to interact with his coworkers and raises some interesting questions, but this is definitely the lightest segment of the lot. That's fine though. The audience gets to relax and chuckle a bit after two fairly emotionally powerful segments. Think of this story as bit of mental sorbet.

The final piece is another deeper tale that has Sab Shimono contemplating the nature of immortality when he finds out that he is going to die, but is afforded the opportunity to have his consciousness duplicated onto a mainframe computer and "live" forever. He is an artist and will be able to continue to create, spend time with his adult son and do everything that his body has prevented him from attempting for the past seven or so decades. It would seem particularly enticing seeing as his wife has already gone through the process, died and yet is still able to even share his bed through the wonders of modern technology. This one will keep the old cerebellum buzzing for hours afterwards and will undoubtedly spawn some very interesting conversations over coffee or pizza after each show.

After the film Greg Pak came out and answered questions for thirty minutes or so and handed out some swag to folks who were able to answer trivia questions about the film. I got to ask about where he was able to cut corners on the budget and still generate such a good-looking flick. If you get to a screening and he is available afterwards, corner this man and get him to relay some of the stories about how he paid his animator, how they were able to build a working robot from bowls bought at a kitchen store and what pieces of robot makeup came from the foot care aisle at a local pharmacy.

The first story was about a couple wanting a baby and to prove worthy they had to take care of a crude looking robot baby. The second story was about a man who was clinically dead and his mother refused to accept it gracefully. She needed to find parts to the broken toys that he kept from childhood. All futuristic robot type toys with their accessories. I think she felt if she could put them together he too would be "fixed". Kind of like Humpty Dumpty. The third was the humorous one, with robots that looked human and could interact with people. Two of them "fell in love". I thought it was a sweet story...in a freaky kind of way. The last story was disturbing. You had to, by law, become pure consciousness via computer. I've always found the idea of living forever as my "self" rather repugnant. I think if we live forever I rather have a rest and return as another sentient being. To know other ways of living besides as a human. Maybe return as an animal or on another planet.

interesting low budget sci fi . some good touching moments , which deal with a changing world , pick of the bunch CLAY , does anyone know if the soundtrack got released

This anthology of four short films by Greg Pak addresses the role and meaning of technology in our lives; in particular, the filmmaker is interested in robots and artificial intelligence, and identifies both positive and negative effects. My Robot Baby tells the story of a couple and how they deal with a robotic "test baby"; The Robot Fixer follows a mother in her attempts to refurbish her comatose son's toy collection; "Machine Love" explores looks at an artificial office worker and his growing sense of isolation; "Clay" is the story of a sculptor facing a difficult decision at the end of his life.

I enjoyed all four of these films, the first two in particular. They were well acted and written, and introduced interesting ideas about possible uses of technology and the impact on our lives.

Extras include an 11-minute short, director's commentary and deleted scenes. No subtitles are available.