MovieChat Forums > Bicentennial Man (1999) Discussion > Portia at the end saying 'See you soon'

Portia at the end saying 'See you soon'

posted 16 years ago by djbell1
73 replies | jump to latest

This was a very cleverly done movie which I really liked and very much agree with the continuity and ideas of the film. The only harrowing thing was the ending where Portia gives us the impression that she is expecting to see Andrew in the afterlife, presumably in heaven.

This brought up a question I had about Andrew's quest to become human. I am left wondering throughout this 200 year quest to become human at what point would Andrew be considered to obtain a soul. If he was built as a machine, then possessing a soul would be impossible, would it not?

I can believe that in the future it might be possible to recreate organs in the body to function, even as it was done for Andrew.(This might be too much of a fantasy though- The organs of the body are too much of a mystery - to be left to God. (Even in 10,000 milleniums man will not be able to create souls)

Guess that's what I'm really getting down to. How does Andrew enter heaven?
Throughout the movie he is practially portrayed to have the traits required to become a saint.

I am surprised at his inquiries that this subject was not brought up as a real reason he could not become human - Because he did not have a soul.

Anyway, just figured that Portia might end up disappointed that she turned off her life support just because Andrew was gone. (Gone where?)

[–] Logiebear42 16 years ago

Well in my mind I think it wraps up the story in the way that he has succeded in his quest to become human. I always perceived that he had a soul to begin with and he was making his body human to match that.

I dunno, tht's my opinion

[–] mam13143 9 years ago

I agree. It is why he is "different" from the very beginning I think.

[–] A1nut 16 years ago

God endows us with life. If He endowed Andrew with true life, then why could God not have given Andrew a soul? Most people believe that animals do not have souls, and therefore, will not be in Heaven. But how could it even BE Heaven if you can't have your cherished pet with you?

"I'm not A1nut because I'm normal...."

John "A1nut"

[–] ki4doc 16 years ago

I totally agree

[–] suzanne-lawson1 8 years ago

Who says animals don't have a soul? The Bhagavad Gita says all life has a soul.

[–] prashanth_004 16 years ago

R u sure that there's a place called HEAVEN ? You believe in that right ? then it would be the same thing that Andrew got a soul too ..... after all heaven,hell,God,sould,Love,pain .....these things cant be seen lol

[–] rjpn76 16 years ago

A soul? God? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????? There is a reason why the genre is called SCIENCE-fiction. Because is fiction with a base of scientific elements. God, souls, heaven and all that crap is nothing more than fantasy.
Grow-up people, how long are you gonna keep believing in ethereal beings and magical lands.
If you are closed to reason and search for knowledge you could never understand the meaning of this movie and of what really means to be human.
It's okay to have imaginary friends and believe in neverland when you are five, but it comes a point in your life when you have to grow up.
This is the twenty-first century, stop believing in fairy tales

[–] lmatherson 16 years ago

Hey, live and let live, I am agnostic but I hope that there is something better than Newcastle in Winter.

An interesting theological (which is a philosophy and directly related to the films theme) discussion has been disrupted by your negative views.

In essence the theme is 'What is humanity and how can it be defined' a soul is the most often recognised symbol of a black and white view of humanity but accelerating scientific advances are very much going to gray the issue in the future.

Films like Blade Runner and Data in Star Trek go some way to addressing those issues. Its all good and a film that doesnt make you think about something is just moving wallpaper.

If you dont believe in fairies, santa clause etc thats cool, its your opinion but if you want to challenge someone elses' opinion it would help if you were more constructive then destructive.

[–] nicholas1987 16 years ago

[–] subzero288 14 years ago

OK, first off, there was no single man who developed the big-bang theory. It was devised over decades by piggy-backing on the work of Vesto Slipher - who was NOT a priest. Not one of the men credited with formulating the theory, most notably, Edwin Hubble, were PRIESTS. Who the hell invents this crap?

I love how religious people lie all the time. I've even heard some idiots believe Charles Darwin had a death-bed recant and said his theory was wrong. Religious people are so afraid, and filled with too much guilt to put aside their child-like foolishess, that they will fabricate nonsensical stories so they can go on pretending the universe is a magical place, full of fairies and invisible men in the sky controlling everything. This is 2010 people - GROW THE EFF UP!

BTW - to your point 2. To call someone arrogant for not believing in something for which there is NO EVIDENCE is not 'agrogant.' Demanding proof of a concept is actually evidence of a healthy, intelligent and independent mind. Only children should believe in something for NO OTHER REASON than other people TELL them to. Man has been on this planet for over 3 million years and you know how much evidence we've accumulated to establish the existence of a giant sentient force controlling the cosmos - none.

[–] GreyHunter 13 years ago

Sigh. S/he's talking about Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian clergyman. Yes, the progress of science is collaborative and cumulative, but there's nothing wrong with crediting people who have an inspiration that pushes that progress forward to another level. Einstein certainly developed his theories of relativity on the back of work by others (Poincare, for instance) but he was the one who truly synthesized it. Lemaitre deserves a vast amount of the credit for promulgating the Big Bang theory (or "the primeval atom" as he called it.) You needn't be so dickish about the issue.

[–] lexp2005 8 years ago

subzero288,It is now 2016 as I write and if you and others like you would really like to know the answer for evidence about the force controlling the cosmos all you and others will have to do is read the book "One Light" by Jon Whistler and published by Light Pulsations.

[–] chiluvr1228 9 years ago

Science & religion are not mutally exlusive, the man that cam up with the big bang theory was a priest. Finally how dare you mock the beliefs of others, I am not a christian, but i believe 2 things 1. that everyone has the rights to believe whatever they want. 2. I am not that agrogant to know for certain that there is no God.

Best post ever! I hate when atheists come onto boards spouting their beliefs that there is no God, no Heaven, no hell, etc. Nobody is telling them they must believe in any of those so stop denigrating those that do!

"Vulgarity is no substitute for wit".

[–] voltape 16 years ago

O.K. You don't like the idea of a God and all that "stuff". As you are scientific-, positive-, practical, down-to-earth-, etc. etc.-minded you may come up with the old wives tale that "nobody has gone to afterlife and has come back to tell us there is an afterlife". Right. But then neither can you prove there is NO afterlife!
Nobody has died and has returned from death to assure that he did NOT find any God there.

[–] Rip-Off 15 years ago

Well, it depends on what qualifies as dying, if just the fact that you can come back means you weren't really dead then you're right, but if you accept cardiac arrest or things a little more to the brain dead side of the whole thing as dead, then I'd have to say that many people have come back from the dead. And if we accept those terms then many have claimed seeing god...and many say they didn't.
Like I said, it all depends on where you draw the line.

Don't *beep* a *beep*...wait! beep? It was meant to say *beep*. *beep*!...no! not beep!...*beep

[–] subzero288 14 years ago

That's a completely absurd argument. It's not even worth the time it took you to write it. You are saying that, when someone makes up a story that can't be disproved, it has tobe treated as if it could be legitimate. So, assume I hypothesized that invisible unicorns fly around in another galaxy. By your logic, since noone can actually prove I'm wrong, then my theory COULD be correct. That's stupid.

If someone asserts that something completely absurd is true (ie, a magical man who lives in space created the universe), it is up to them to PROVE it. It's not up to the listener to discredit something so ridiculous that 100% of the 'evidence" exists inside the theorists imagination.

[–] IronZombie 13 years ago

Jeez some of the discussions here.. if there was an afterlife/heaven, I'm pretty sure whoever was running it could pull some sort of magic and bring the robot up as well.

---
Idiots

[–] gompcreature 12 years ago

In the same way, none of us can prove that there is NOT a 250 feet high statue of a two-headed giraffe in orbit around Saturn. But as a thinking being I reserve the right to consider it very, very, very unlikely.

Proving non-existence is an ungrateful exercise, to put it mildly.

Don't breathe air. Birds *beep* in it!

[–] AvonKerr 14 years ago

Well said. Let's not forget either that Asimov himself was a lifelong atheist and his stories were often quite outspoken (albeit in his own wonderfully gentle way) about the evils of religion and the foolishness of it's followers.

The book is all about discovering the value of life and how it can have no real meaning without the inevitability of death. Andrew does not seek death to reach a mythical afterlife, he wishes it because it will make him value his living days as much as the mortal humans he shares them with do. It also forms part of a larger theme through Asimov's works (and those of many other subsequent authors) where intelligent machines eventually reach a level of understanding where they seek evolutionary progress as a means to grow. As with "natural" creatures the process of evolution requires the death of previous generations and the acceptance of this is often the key to such stories.

[–] mrjprice 13 years ago

To the "grow-up" zealot..Life IS a Fairy Tale, you shallow-thinking robot! How do YOU explain life? You CAN'T! We are here because of a miracle so profound that a fairy tale in comparison reads like a stock exchange report. I'm afraid you're just too jaded to conceive of it!. I do pity your shallow life. Try to open up your mind..You'll be happier.I don't believe Andrew had a soul..Portia, however, had so much LOVE in her heart, that on her death bed, may have manifested enough soul for both of them. Your concept of "grown up" is dogmatic and poisonous to your happiness. You can't grow old enough to figure it out, so loosen up and make mistakes and think outside your little 21st century box, grown-up!

[–] SpielbergRules 12 years ago

@rjpn76: BEST. REPLY. EVER.

[–] lexp2005 8 years ago

rjpn76,To help you in your quest to grow up try reading the books "One Light" by Jon Whistler and "Enter the Vortex as One Light" both are published by Light Pulsations.They WILL really help you and all who read them!

[–] suzanne-lawson1 7 years ago

It's sad how the online atheists don't realise they're as boring as the religious people they put down with their lectures. Completely changing the conversation with their boring opinions just because somebody mentions a soul. I'm sure they sit in wait for somebody to say something like, oh my god, so they can give a long lecture about why there isn't one.

[–] suzanne-lawson1 7 years ago

I bet you're the kind of mo ron who follows Dawkins because you think science means there isn't a god, when you don't know anything about science. I think Dawkins is a bit of a nob. I remember when I read that science shouldn't claim to know everything, as no new discoveries can be found without an open mind, so that previous theories can be changed if new evidence is found. As a person who studied science after being interested in Eastern philosophy, including meditation, I assumed studying science would make me think anything spiritual was ridiculous, but it was the opposite. I realised we're part of the universe, not separate, so part of the answer. The longer I would be going outside myself trying to work out equations, thinking the answer to everything lies in numbers, the more I realised that the greatest scientists were in fact intuitive to already know the answer deep inside, but then used science as a tool to prove what they already knew. Such as Faraday the greatest physicist was very spiritual but knew little about higher mathematics. Stephen Hawking is the perfect example of Chapter 47 in the Tao Te Ching, where the sage can know the universe without leaving the room, the further you go, the less you know. It makes me think that Dawkins should just stick to science, instead of commenting on spirituality which he hasn't spent a day studying.
He attracts atheists who are as annoying as religious people when they force their opinions on others, who know nothing about science, and think it makes them an expert repeating what he says. They know as little about science as he knows about spirituality. OK the fundies from the USA who only follow the Old Testament, while ignoring anything Jesus said about peace and love are also as annoying as Dawkin's atheist followers though.
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 47
Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.
Thus the sage knows without travelling;
He sees without looking;
He works without doing.

[–] may-contain-nuts 16 years ago

Have you never heard of Silicon Heaven? Where do all the dead calculators go?

[–] xf_r 16 years ago

haha nice Red dwarf quote!

Haha religion!

[–] marksharp1961 16 years ago

I think she was just being polite..after all how many robots will a nurse witness the 'death' of..

Andrew had gone, he had been switched off..no more no less, no religion needed.

Atama hagetemo uwaki wa yamanu.!

[–] digitalboy72 16 years ago

A soul? God? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????? There is a reason why the genre is called SCIENCE-fiction. Because is fiction with a base of scientific elements. God, souls, heaven and all that crap is nothing more than fantasy.
Grow-up people, how long are you gonna keep believing in ethereal beings and magical lands.
If you are closed to reason and search for knowledge you could never understand the meaning of this movie and of what really means to be human.
It's okay to have imaginary friends and believe in neverland when you are five, but it comes a point in your life when you have to grow up.
This is the twenty-first century, stop believing in fairy tales

Who the hell do you think you are telling people this? Do you really believe your going to convert believers to your way of thinking? Not gonna happen.

Your post was a waste of everyones time. As for there being a heaven or not being a heaven, well, I guess you'll find out when you die won't ya as will I.

[–] merrynsmith-1 16 years ago

"If he was built as a machine, then possessing a soul would be impossible, would it not? "

Yes. It would. I have read the entire thread, the arguments and abuse....but the film does pose a lot of interesting questions.
For the characters in the film, the soul doesn't matter, if Andrew has "aquired" one....great. If not, it really doesn't matter, he has achieved the ultimate goal, and loved, and died with the one he loves.

With regard to the issue of "aquiring" a soul, it boils down to the question of "when do we aquire a soul?" Is it at birth, conception or do we gain consciousness at some point of our infant development? I don't have the answer.....I don't even have the correct spelling of "aquire!!!!" but I do like to think!!!!

It's a Badger, It's a Badger Mrs Evans.

[–] Smkspy 16 years ago

I wouldn't want to go to a heaven that wouldn't let Andrew become part of the afterlife after all the great deeds he had done for humankind. I don't think God would be so cruel to give an individual blessed with such self-realization and drive to perfection(more than most humans have)only to deny him at the final step.

[–] fire_ice8000 16 years ago

i think that portia more said that just to show that in her eyes he truly was human, truly was a man. she was expressing her wish to see him in the afterlife, remaining positive about it as if insisting it would happen and not taking no for an answer. even if unfortunately it might not work out the way she wants, she's just being stubborn and 'lying' to herself, telling herself he really is going to be there to see her in a matter of minutes

anyone get what i'm trying to say? haha