Robot Stories
Run Time: 85 minutes
Director: Greg Pak
Starring: Tamlyn Tomita, James Saito, Wai Ching Ho, Greg Pak, Sab Shimono
DVD Release: February 15, 2005
Robot Stories is a series of four short films loosely tied together by the common theme of human self-discovery through technology.
My Robot Baby takes place in a future where couples wanting to have children must first make a test pass at parenting caring for a robot baby that quickly learns from its environment. The story is disturbing both in implications of the resulting behavior and the ultimate outcome.
The Robot Fixer has less to do with technology and more to do with human grieving as a woman symbolically repairs her adult son's robot toys from his childhood as he sinks further into a coma.
Machine Love is a story of human realization and cruelty through the eyes of an android office worker giving us an outsider-looking-in point-of-view for seeing ourselves at our most vulnerable.
Clay deals with human frailty and the opportunity to transcend the end, instead living on as a digital replica of your mind in a world where the body has become a vessel designed to be a temporary home before we move on to an everlasting next life still connected to this one.
Each of the stories stands alone and while this isn't sci-fi in its purist sense, it certainly fits the man versus himself type conflict common to many stories in the genre. This is a great addition to any movie collection and one of the few short film collections I'd consider must-view material.