To live forever, that is what every human wants. Mortality is one of the themes that the movie Bicentennial Man discuss. Bicentennial Man is a 1999 film which revolves around Andrew, portrayed by Robin Williams. Andrew is a robot who serves the Martin family. "Sir" Martin, the family patriarch discovers Andrew's sentience which the robot developed and was not placed in his programming. Andrew slowly developed ways to identify and reciprocate human emotion. Andrew then asked his freedom from the Martin family and "Sir" Martin gave it to him but Andrew was "banished" so that he can be "truly free". Several years have past and Andrew is living in a house near the beach. He decided to return to Martin's house. There he found Portia, who resembles "Little Miss" Martin (Andrew's friend years ago and the daughter of "Sir" Martin). Portia is "Little Miss" Martin's granddaughter. Portia and Andrew did not have a good relationship but because "Little Miss" is slowly dying, Andrew and Portia became friends. While visiting "Little Miss" in the hospital, he realized that all of his loved ones were dying. He asked Rupert Burns, son of the designer of the robots, to make simulate emotions and make him look more human through different upgrades. Andrew gradually became human because of the mechanical parts of his that resembled and acted like human organs. He fell in love with Portia but she did not reciprocate his feelings because "she can not invest her feelings to a machine". Andrew asked more upgrades from Robert and made him feel tactile stimuli by giving him a central nervous system. He confronted Portia about their feelings and decided that they should get married. Portia realized that their marriage won't be socially accepted because Andrew is a machine. Andrew decided to ask a petition to the world congress to label him a human. The congress denied his petition because according to the council "the society may accept an everlasting machine but it can not accept an immortal human, it would cause to much jealousy". Several years have past and Portia looks like a middle aged woman (but is actually seventy-five years old) because of the innovations that were developed from Andrew's "organs". Portia realized that she does not want to live forever and because Andrew does not want to lose Portia while he is alive, he asked the elderly Rupert to introduce blood to his systems which would cause his body to slowly degrade and eventually decay. He went to the World congress for a second time, to appeal that the congress change their earlier decision. Since Andrew is now mortal and now looks elderly but is still a machine the congress decided that the members will deliberate about it. After a long time (it not stated in the film for how long but it may be months or years), the council finished the deliberation and Andrew and Portia are now connected to a life support system while listening to the broadcast of the World Congress. The Congress announced that Andrew is the longest human (with exemption to biblical characters) being having lived two hundred years but he died in his bed before he can hear the announcement. Portia seeing Andrew asked Galatea, the robot nurse, to unplug her from the life support system and she slowly died.
What I liked about the film is that it discusses different themes and these are: Mortality, Love, Intellectual freedom, Slavery and Conformity. The setting shows that humans were able to develop advancements in medicine and in robotics. Robots in that future are "slaves" to humans. I loved their idea of a robot (Andrew) developing his own sentience and later asking his freedom from his masters.
Even though I don't like the idea of conformity. It makes a good conflict for the film's plot. Because of this, I really have nothing to recommend for this film.
References:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicentennial_Man_(film)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity
- http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llszke4YDz1qamlmoo1_500.jpg
- http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4sx6pZsaT1rvr4jho1_500.png
- http://25.media.tumblr.com/1aa41d1c3089610d7c15743977f574ce/tumblr_mhhxxdv2W51qf48reo1_500.jpg
- http://www.posterbobs.com/bicentennial_man.jpg
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5YMEwX2-88
