Celluloid Heroes

Well, the past is gone, I know that. The future isn’t here yet, whatever it’s going to be. So, all there is, is this. The present. That’s it.

The opening credits of Broken Flowers is like porn for postal geeks, as we follow a pink envelope through virtually the entire process of it being mailed, sorted and delivered. I was oddly reminded of the little girl in the red coat from Schinder’s List as I watched this pink beacon sail through a sea of white and manila envelopes.

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You are a clever imitation of life… Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?

I, Robot was a series of stories by the late Isaac Asimov about a future society where robots serve humans and are governed by the now immortal Three Laws of Robotics.

1. A robot will never harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot will always obey the commands of a human, except where those orders conflict with the first law.
3. A robot will preserve it’s own existence, except when doing so would conflict with the first or second law.

These laws became so famous within the science fiction community that if you wrote a story with robots, you were in danger of being bombarded by outraged 13-year-olds if your robots didn’t obey Asimov’s Three Laws.

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