MovieChat Forums > Robot & Frank (2012) Discussion > Too many problems ** MANY SPOILERS **

Too many problems ** MANY SPOILERS **


For a movie like this to work, it has to be honest with the premises, especially those upon which the plot hinges. There are a few glaring problems that effectively render the entire plot unbelievable, and therefore pretty much wreck what could have been a great movie. In no particular order:

- we're led to believe that Frank has no knowledge of his former wife and mother of two kids? Sure, his mind is fading but he has enough in there to remember his kids. Not once in seeing his ex-wife in the library, he would've remembered? He remembers how to pick locks, spray-paint security cameras, the fact that second-story windows aren't always alarmed... but he doesn't remember her? Come on.

- a robot like this would be backing up its memory daily or hourly or continually, much like any computer or device today does, to the cloud or via Time Machine or whatever. A robot can get hit by a car or fall into a lake, and any owner who paid big $ for a robot would want to know that the replacement will be identical to the one just lost with memory intact, sort of like re-loading a new iPhone from a backup. Therefore, there will be copies of the robot's memories all over the place, easily accessible to cops doing an investigation

- there's no way these robots would be programmed to allow illegal activity. It's a fundamental law of robotics. Otherwise, what's to stop someone from teaching one of these things to kill? Would it know that killing is wrong? Why is it any more or less wrong than stealing?

- the cops could've asked the robot what it knows about the robbery. What's it going to do, "cover for Frank?" How about, as the robot is programmed to look after Frank's best interests, you tell it "hey robot, tell us what you know or Frank goes to a rat-infested prison for the rest of his life"

- a robot would also have some sort of GPS/tracking in case it gets lost. Somewhere, memory erased or not, it an accurate log of that robot being on the premises of the library and that house during the time of those robberies.

There are other little things, but these are fundamentally game-breakers when it comes to a movie like this, where the science-fiction framework laid has to be faithful to reality and not bend little rules to suit the plot. In this case, the plot depends on a number of things that just aren't plausible within the context the movie itself defines.

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- I don't know much about Alzheimer's either but I know it is pretty devastating so yes, I think that is plausible especially if there has been a huge lapse of contact but not with his kids. Or maybe he had moments but forgot again. I thought long-term memory was generally intact but that might not always be the case.

- It's probably optional and they didn't select that option.

- This part surprised me too.

- Yes, I think it might, because it knows not telling is best for his health.

- They'd need a subpoena for that. Didn't he wipe it in the end?

I found the film a bit jumping around about what it wanted to be, but I overall enjoyed it and liked the robot-man relationship and the future vision.

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Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics belong to Asimov, for pete's sake. Not reality. A computer virus is the first stage of electronic harm to humans, which will be massive when it finally gets to the robot stage.

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Hey OP, you silly robot, movies are for people, go do something productive instead of acting like a human.

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"- we're led to believe that Frank has no knowledge of his former wife and mother of two kids? Sure, his mind is fading but he has enough in there to remember his kids. Not once in seeing his ex-wife in the library, he would've remembered? He remembers how to pick locks, spray-paint security cameras, the fact that second-story windows aren't always alarmed... but he doesn't remember her? Come on."

Alzheimers affects people differently, there are also many forms of Alzheimers conditions out there. Suffers can recall some aspects of their lives with impressive detail but totally forget other aspects. Remembering some family members while totally forgetting others can and does happen.

"- a robot like this would be backing up its memory daily or hourly or continually, much like any computer or device today does, to the cloud or via Time Machine or whatever. A robot can get hit by a car or fall into a lake, and any owner who paid big $ for a robot would want to know that the replacement will be identical to the one just lost with memory intact, sort of like re-loading a new iPhone from a backup. Therefore, there will be copies of the robot's memories all over the place, easily accessible to cops doing an investigation."

Total speculation, we're not given any details about the robot's memory other than it's based on some form of holographic technology. For all we know, memory devices in that future could be nearly indestructible rendering the need for multiple backups redundant.

"- there's no way these robots would be programmed to allow illegal activity. It's a fundamental law of robotics. Otherwise, what's to stop someone from teaching one of these things to kill? Would it know that killing is wrong? Why is it any more or less wrong than stealing?"

You might want to go have a loot at the 3 laws of robotics again, and pay attention to the one that states that a robot must obey all instructions given by a human, except where such an order would harm a human.

"- the cops could've asked the robot what it knows about the robbery. What's it going to do, "cover for Frank?" How about, as the robot is programmed to look after Frank's best interests, you tell it "hey robot, tell us what you know or Frank goes to a rat-infested prison for the rest of his life""

They could have asked but the robot was instructed by Frank to not say anything to anybody.

"- a robot would also have some sort of GPS/tracking in case it gets lost. Somewhere, memory erased or not, it an accurate log of that robot being on the premises of the library and that house during the time of those robberies."

The robot probably would have GPS or something like it but there's no reason to assume it would have kept any logs on it's movements as it has a holographic memory so in order to find out where the robot had been you'd just need to watch it's recorded memories. Except Frank wiped those, so they couldn't.

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Wow... interesting that my original post is generating such strong "shut up and just go with it" reactions, especially given the weakness of the counter-arguments that are being written.

For any movie to work, as I originally stated, the premises have to work. Otherwise, it's just as possible to pull a rabbit out of a hat at an opportune moment and render the entire plot useless. "So what?", you say, "it's fantasy... why can't a rabbit get pulled out of hat?" -- sure, it can, but it makes for a bad movie.

I will again re-state my objections, this time with some targeted replies to those calling my original post and/or comments stupid.

1. I stated I didn't believe that someone with Alzheimer's could remember in such vivid detail, and at a moment's notice, such detail as remembering to spray-paint a security camera... while at the same time forgetting his former wife and mother of his children. I'm told Alzheimer's can play out in many different ways and that this is possible. OK, let's not argue it. I'm not a neurophysiologist and neither are you. Your sister's husband's friend's associate's brother is, and he told you... ok, fine, I won't argue it. I don't like it and find it weak, but let's leave it alone.

2. The memory backup and associated issues are a complete non-starter and are indefensible. From a holistic point of view, a robot is an expensive and useful commodity, one that people would quickly grow to depend on. To go to the pharmacy and get the meds, to go shopping, whatever. You would need to know where it is at all times, and you'd have a way to track it. If it were stolen, hit by a bus or fell into water, you would need a new one and you'd need it up and running immediately. Kind of like an iPhone... and similar to an iPhone, which backs itself up to a cloud (if you set it to), the robot, by design, would be doing the same thing. It's not backing itself up to a local HD... it's backing itself up automatically, silently and continually to a remote-based cloud. You'd never think twice about it, but it'd be happening, the same as any computer properly set-up to do so (or iPhone or iPad or iWhatever)

It would make no sense for robots to be autonomous and have their memory only internally. There are many reasons not to do that, and not a single one where that makes sense, unless you're planning on doing something with the robot that you don't want anyone to know about. As indestructible as it may be, it can simply get damaged or destroyed or stolen. If that happens, I want to know where the robot is and/or remotely wipe its memory and/or upload the most recent footprint of that memory to my new robot so we can keep going where we were with no need to start from scratch.

This is a very key point that no one seems to understand... the importance of being able to migrate your robot (ie its memory and programs) onto a new one in a hurry, if needed. Imagine if every time you got a new car or rented a car, you had to learn to drive again because everything was totally different. Or that when you buy a new phone, you have to manually type in all your contacts and their numbers. Ludicrous. And the infrastructure needed to support the proper existence of these robots would completely preclude the robot's ability to carry out a crime and get away with it. I'd assume any criminal investigation of the future would begin with a GPS dump of all known robots in the area at the time of the crime.

All of this is tied together... these robots would be terrific accessories to crime, and therefore, every safeguard in the world to prevent that would be in place. Getting the robot to kill someone or rob a bank or mug a stranger... not only would you not be able to program it do to that, but with the GPS and continual backup, you'd know you'd never get away with it. And the security on such a feature would be such that if the robot were unable to "call home' and/or update the central knowledge base with "here I am and here's what I'm doing", it'd likely have a "shutdown now" automatically done.

Let's forget Asimov's laws of robotics... let's assume that when sentient robots are finally among us, we're going to have to flesh out the rules significantly beyond those three simple ones.

I'm not looking to hate on this movie. As I said originally, I can't stand it when a movie is based on flaky premises because the story doesn't stand up and stay true to itself. It can't. I'm happy to suspend belief and watch flying cars and time machines and hobbits and tigers in boats... because they're true to the story and faithful to the universe in which they operate.

This movie is based on a bunch of premises inconsistent with they story being told, and it makes the whole thing fall apart. They story depends strongly on a few points that are inconsistent with the universe created by the story-tellers. That's why it doesn't work.

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Wow... interesting that my original post is generating such strong "shut up and just go with it" reactions, especially given the weakness of the counter-arguments that are being written.

For any movie to work, as I originally stated, the premises have to work. Otherwise, it's just as possible to pull a rabbit out of a hat at an opportune moment and render the entire plot useless. "So what?", you say, "it's fantasy... why can't a rabbit get pulled out of hat?" -- sure, it can, but it makes for a bad movie.

I will again re-state my objections, this time with some targeted replies to those calling my original post and/or comments stupid.

1. I stated I didn't believe that someone with Alzheimer's could remember in such vivid detail, and at a moment's notice, such detail as remembering to spray-paint a security camera... while at the same time forgetting his former wife and mother of his children. I'm told Alzheimer's can play out in many different ways and that this is possible. OK, let's not argue it. I'm not a neurophysiologist and neither are you. Your sister's husband's friend's associate's brother is, and he told you... ok, fine, I won't argue it. I don't like it and find it weak, but let's leave it alone.

2. The memory backup and associated issues are a complete non-starter and are indefensible. From a holistic point of view, a robot is an expensive and useful commodity, one that people would quickly grow to depend on. To go to the pharmacy and get the meds, to go shopping, whatever. You would need to know where it is at all times, and you'd have a way to track it. If it were stolen, hit by a bus or fell into water, you would need a new one and you'd need it up and running immediately. Kind of like an iPhone... and similar to an iPhone, which backs itself up to a cloud (if you set it to), the robot, by design, would be doing the same thing. It's not backing itself up to a local HD... it's backing itself up automatically, silently and continually to a remote-based cloud. You'd never think twice about it, but it'd be happening, the same as any computer properly set-up to do so (or iPhone or iPad or iWhatever)

It would make no sense for robots to be autonomous and have their memory only internally. There are many reasons not to do that, and not a single one where that makes sense, unless you're planning on doing something with the robot that you don't want anyone to know about. As indestructible as it may be, it can simply get damaged or destroyed or stolen. If that happens, I want to know where the robot is and/or remotely wipe its memory and/or upload the most recent footprint of that memory to my new robot so we can keep going where we were with no need to start from scratch.

This is a very key point that no one seems to understand... the importance of being able to migrate your robot (ie its memory and programs) onto a new one in a hurry, if needed. Imagine if every time you got a new car or rented a car, you had to learn to drive again because everything was totally different. Or that when you buy a new phone, you have to manually type in all your contacts and their numbers. Ludicrous. And the infrastructure needed to support the proper existence of these robots would completely preclude the robot's ability to carry out a crime and get away with it. I'd assume any criminal investigation of the future would begin with a GPS dump of all known robots in the area at the time of the crime.

All of this is tied together... these robots would be terrific accessories to crime, and therefore, every safeguard in the world to prevent that would be in place. Getting the robot to kill someone or rob a bank or mug a stranger... not only would you not be able to program it do to that, but with the GPS and continual backup, you'd know you'd never get away with it. And the security on such a feature would be such that if the robot were unable to "call home' and/or update the central knowledge base with "here I am and here's what I'm doing", it'd likely have a "shutdown now" automatically done.

Let's forget Asimov's laws of robotics... let's assume that when sentient robots are finally among us, we're going to have to flesh out the rules significantly beyond those three simple ones.

I'm not looking to hate on this movie. As I said originally, I can't stand it when a movie is based on flaky premises because the story doesn't stand up and stay true to itself. It can't. I'm happy to suspend belief and watch flying cars and time machines and hobbits and tigers in boats... because they're true to the story and faithful to the universe in which they operate.

This movie is based on a bunch of premises inconsistent with they story being told, and it makes the whole thing fall apart. They story depends strongly on a few points that are inconsistent with the universe created by the story-tellers. That's why it doesn't work.

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[deleted]

This is a little late on your post, but I'd like to take a stab at a few of your issues. First of all, I'd like to state that you are indeed entitled to your own opinion, so what I'm saying is not that you are wrong or that your post is "stupid," only that I do think that most of these points are addressed within the movie.

1. Frank not knowing his ex-wife. I can see what you're saying about him remembering his children, but the fact that he doesn't remember his ex-wife strikes you as funny. What I think you must take into consideration is that they have been divorced for 30 years (Hunter mentions this in his first visit). Frank seems to keep going back to a certain time. He repeatedly asks Hunter how Princeton is. Hunter tells him that he graduated 15 years ago. 15 years ago, his wife was out of the picture. In the end of the movie, when he talks to Susan Sarandon and realizes that she is his ex, she says that "when she came back" he didn't remember her. That means that she moved away for some time. We don't know where or for how long. I don't think that it's implausible that that gap of time would be sufficient enough for him to forget her or at least what she looked like, given his current state. He obviously remembered that he had a wife at some point. I have dealt with people with early-stage dementia and it does stand to reason that some things would be remembered, while other things forgotten. And it doesn't happen on a scale of least to most important. What I mean is that dementia doesn't work that way. It would be a lot more convenient if it did. Sometimes it's the most important memories that are the first to go. Even if he figured it out at some point, realized that she was his ex-wife, it's possible that when he woke up the next morning, he would forget again.

2. The robot memory back-up. Perhaps in normal circumstances, the robot would back-up its memory on a regular basis, but I can't remember seeing a hard-drive or computer on site. It's difficult to back up the robot's memory without a device to back-up on. It's possible that there was a device built into the robot itself, but then the manual wiping of the memory could still have taken care of it. What I'm trying to say is that you can't just say that the robot would back-up its memory, because you have no idea what a robot in the future would do. This plot hole isn't as big as you think.

3. The robot doing illegal activity. Whether or not you buy it is your own business, but they very clearly address this issue in the movie. Frank asks the robot about doing illegal stuff and the robot replies that it was programed to look after his well-being. It knows about the laws, but is not inclined towards following them or breaking them. Its only function is to take care of Frank. The robot even asks Frank if he would like to modify the its programming to obey the law. You may not think this is plausible, but that isn't the point. The point is that they ARE honest with us about the parameters of the plot and the movie exists within those parameters. You also might want to take a look at the fundamental rules of robotics. I think you might have misread them.

4. The cops could have asked the robot and it would have been compelled to tell the truth. Yes, the COULD HAVE, but no they did not. It's not beyond the realm of all possibilities to think that they missed that option. The same way they could have kicked down the door after he ran back into the house and locked them out. Personally, I think it was a bigger issue that they bugged his house and then later searched it, without presenting any sort of court order or warrant. When they bugged his house, it was the day after the robbery, hardly enough time to come up with probable cause and to procure a warrant to tap the premises. And, the so called "probable cause" that they used to search his house was extremely thin, and I don't think it would have held up in court, but he did run from the cops, at that point, they have the right to detain him, which would include kicking in the door when he ran from them. I'm no lawyer, but I also think they would have needed to get another warrant to download the contents of the robot's memory. These are all just semantical things though. What you are saying is that the cops could have questioned the robot, but the fact is that they did not. It's simply that if you had made the movie, you would have written the story differently, but you did not. You may not like that point, but it's not a hole. At least in my opinion.

5. The bit about GPS. Even IF there was GPS in this robot (it's not fair to assume that there "certainly" was) and IF we can assume that that history would have survived the memory reboot, that merely places the robot inside of the house, not Frank. While you can logically state that if the robot was there, then so was Frank, and if Frank was there then it is logical to state that he must have stolen the diamonds, law is not based on logical assumptions. Law is based on facts and proof. Without the diamonds, or some evidence of Franks involvement in the heist, there is no way that the GPS information would have been enough to even have Frank arrested.

In my opinion, none of the points you made did anything to unravel this story. I can see why you might question a few of them, but you have to accept the answers that the movie gives. If you watch it again you will certainly find that most if not all of these issues are addressed. The film sets out the "rules" for the plot and then, its job is to exist within those rules. I think it does to such a degree that you can forget that this movie takes place in a make-believe society some time in the future and just focus on the story itself, which is both heartwarming and sad at the same time.

Ok, that's just my bit.

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Most of your thoughts have serious errors, robots memory stays on the robot... the copies can be made if the owner wants them to be made regularly. Cops can't just access robots memory, cause it doesn't just float in clouds or is backed up at some mainframe.

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Since this is all made up anyway, yeah, it is. Why? I said so. Why? Because the movie didn't say so, and it would only make sense, given everything I wrote but which you managed to avoid reading.

If you think people in the future will be happy to shell out a hundred grand or so for a robot like this and then just say, "oh well" when it falls into a lake and forgets everything it ever learned, go ahead and believe it.

And if you were to buy a new robot, you'd have to start again but wait, you'd be dead because the robot was on its way to get your heart medicine -- well, then... yes, you're right and I'm wrong. But I'm choosing to believe that people in the future, like people today with their iDevices, count on the fact that they're commodities and not one-off devices. They serve a purpose, and when people depend so much on them, they want to be able to replace them instantly and not lose a step with respect to where they were.

I'm having a hard time understanding why people are so reluctant to accept this point, other than, for some reason, they want to believe the movie makes sense.

Even today, one of the first things cops check for a cell records... where was the victim's phone in the 24 hours leading up to the murder? Where was the suspect? Geo-location is everywhere -- there are cars reporting their position continually. That whole GM thing... you're in an accident, and they instantly know where you are.

But we're to expect that won't exist in the future, with leading-edge technology like autonomous robots? Come on.

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There are so many flaws in your thinking here... First of all, who is to say that by the time this movie is made, technology hasn't improved to the point where the memory wouldn't need to be backed up. It's certainly plausible that advances will be made to the point where a spill in the lake, or a fall down a mountain wouldn't be enough to make the memory unrecoverable. Perhaps in that case, the only real way to lose the memory for good would be to erase it manually. The truth is that it's all conjecture. Just because it isn't addressed in the movie doesn't mean you can just decide how it should be. Maybe it wasn't addressed, because it really is a non issue.

Also, you could not be more wrong about your supposition that "one of the first things cops check for" being cell records, in order to tell where a person was for the last 24 hours. Phones just don't work that way, unless they have a program or app specifically designed for that. We could get into some conversation about government conspiracies and Big Brother, but I'd rather not. The technology to even tell where a phone is NOW, at this very moment is still very new. I lost my iPhone in Mexico and had an app that was supposed to be able to tell me where it was so that I could recover it, but whoever took it just disabled the cellular connection and that was that. No phone for me. The GM thing as you call it is designed to tell them where you are... like NOW, not where you've been. They have as much information about where you've been as they have about where you're going.

You bash everyone else for not acception your "logic" and finding this movie implausible, but the reasons that you have given don't hold water. If there was a GPS system in the robot, there's no evidence suggesting that it would keep a record of locations visited and the times of visits. Your feeble attempts to give modern-day proof that it happens are just plain wrong. If there was a GPS system, perhaps Frank would have been smart enough to tell robot to just disable that part of his programming for the duration of the heist. Or, maybe GPS was an optional feature that Hunter couldn't be bothered to add to his robot package, because he never thought he'd need it. There are so many holes in your so called plot holes, it's like freaking swiss cheese over here....

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Alright, I'll grant you the memory thing. It makes no sense to me whatsoever that you wouldn't be backing up that memory effectively continually, but if you insist so heartily on it, fine. I do ask, however, what you'd think would ask when the robot gets stolen? You send it out to do errands and it simply doesn't return. Too bad? Now what? As a consumer, what sorts of tools would you want at your disposal to deal with that? I think it's safe to assume anything you can come up with in 2 minutes of thinking about it would probably be included in the base model. Plus an awful lot more, of course. You can decide if any of that would be along the lines of what I've proposed. Indeed, I didn't create the universe this movie inhabits, but there are humans and cars and rivers and mountains and thieves, and the future would need to deal with it just as we do now.

Cell records tell you what tower or cell site a phone last connected to. It's not perfect GPS technology and it won't help you find a phone that's turned off, but if a phone is on and communicating, it's connected to a cell site somewhere, and there's a permanent record of that. Even in Mexico. Yes, of course if the phone is off or in airplane mode or whatever, that won't work. But it's not much of a phone at that point. The moment someone tries to use it, you'll have a good idea where it is.

My opinion is that the movie is no good because of some fundamental flaws. Clearly you don't agree, and continue to make excuses that hold even less water. Yes, the Alzheimer's patient, the technophobic one... yes, he disabled the GPS on the robot. Are you even listening to yourself?

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What you said about cell towers is true. But if you have ever seen the show The Wire, you will know how truly difficult it is to narrow down the exact location of a phone, because it has nothing to do with GPS, it has to do with phone calls made. There are records stored on the towers themselves that routed the call, not on the phone. If you had an area specifically in mind, you could narrow down the radius of where the person was when they made the phone call to the radius of the tower, which would not give you the pin point location, but a general area. However, that is beside the point, because you are talking about a device accessing a server or satellite, and there is no indication that this robot is wired to do that. Even if it is (and I think it might be reasonable to assume that that possibility exists), the robot would have had to had accessed that server or satellite during the heist in order for the records to have been made, AND the police would have to have known to search for them. A lot of ifs and many different scenarios.

Now, if the robot was stolen, there are plenty of things. Most GPS devices are passive, not active, so if we can say that there was one in the robot, as a base model (I'm not sure we can guarantee it, but for this scenario, I will bite) then you can activate the GPS, assuming the thief didn't know how to disable it, and locate the robot. Like I said before, GPS, the way we know them today can tell you where something is in a real-time basis. There are specialized GPS tracking devices out there that keep a minute by minute log of locational coordinates, but those are specifically designed for surveillance. I think it would be a stretch to assume that they would make that technology standard in a piece of recreational, or healthcare equipment. It's also possible that you could remotely send a kill code to disable the robot, to keep the thief from accessing the robot or using it, which wouldn't help you recover it, but if the robot was insured, might be a stipulation for having it replaced to alleviate the possibility of fraud. Another option is that there could be a program installed in the robot for it to shut down if it has been taken or to notify the authorities if any of its directives have been overridden. This is just me spit balling, but there are plenty of ideas that don't break down the fundamental framework of the movie's plot.

Also, I would like to know what you think would have been different about the movie, if the GPS thing were a factor. Worst case scenario, the police are able to put the robot at the scene of the crime. It's not enough to convict or to even charge a crime. It wouldn't stand up in court. It could easily be lawyered away.

Also, just a thought, but even if there were a back up memory somewhere, and they did end up retrieving it and finding Frank guilty of his crimes, he wouldn't go to jail anyway. They don't throw people with dementia into prison. They put them in facilities to take care of them. It's likely that he would have ended up at the brain center anyway, just under a court order. Hell, they never tell us how he got there. Maybe it's open to interpretation.

Also, I didn't say that he disabled the GPS, it was just one idea of many that popped in my head. The point was that I don't think the holes that you're poking in the plot are really holes, just lapses in understanding. Anyway, I do agree that we have different opinions, but these boards are about dialogue, the sharing of ideas, and maybe even about further understanding, based on multiple points of view on the same subject. I have no stock in this movie, no vested interest in its success of failure. I just happen to be able to accept some of the things that you cannot. we can continue to have dialogue, or not.

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Frank has no knowledge of his former wife


Dementia, senility, look it up.

a robot like this would be backing up its memory daily or hourly or continually, much like any computer or device today does


Not if it's owner doesn't require it, much like any computer or device today.

there's no way these robots would be programmed to allow illegal activity.


You saw the way, it's not part of the programming.

the cops could've asked the robot what it knows about the robbery. What's it going to do


It could be programmed to keep secrets, or password protect secrets, or it could get deleted before the cops had a chance, just like you saw in the movie.

a robot would also have some sort of GPS/tracking in case it gets lost.


Not if it's owner doesn't require it, much like any computer or device today. Especially not one that has GPS recording.

Did you see the movie?

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I'm going to assume you didn't read any of the follow-up messages before writing this "response".

Yeah, I saw the movie.

I'm still baffled by people who so desperately want this movie to "work" that they're willing to overlook such glaring problems with it. That's fine, of course -- we'r not going to convince each other to the contrary.

But waving in your hands in the air and exclaiming, "it's just a movie!" doesn't really make things better. It just makes what could've been a great movie into a bad movie.

All of your excuses above are feeble attempts to pry some plausibility into something that makes less and less sense, the more you think about it. We haven't even touched on the fact that there would be footprints and tracks all the way to and from the house/crime scene. And we're led to believe not one single person saw them. The list gets longer and longer, and I understand how the movie came to it -- you have the crux of the movie, the climax, the money shot... and you need to get there somehow, so you build a house of cards of shaky premises and ideas to get there.

If you like the message of the movie enough, you'll forgive everything that doesn't make sense. That's fine, you're entitled. You think it works. I think it doesn't.

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there would be footprints and tracks all the way to and from the house/crime scene.


May be is not would be. Even if would be, then they *would be* cleaned by the experienced criminal.

It's called logic. Try it.



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Yes, let's try the logic!

An experienced criminal will remember to do that!

Of course, he doesn't remember his wife of decades and mother of his children, but he'll somehow remember (and be able) to completely scrape and remove two sets of tracks running through roads, dirt, grass and whatever else, for miles... and clean them up in such a way that there's no trace of either track the entire way. And do it in such a away that even though these tracks go through town, not a single person saw anything. Not one.

Yeah, logic. Try it. You desperately want the movie to make sense, so you're willing to forgive all that. Like I said, that's fine -- believe what you want. But don't insult anyone's intelligence by calling it "logical'.

It's anything but logical. In fact, it moves the movie from science fiction to science fantasy. And if you enjoyed it, good for you. For me, what holds up the story couldn't hold up a feather.

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he doesn't remember his wife of decades and mother of his children, but he'll somehow remember (and be able) to completely scrape and remove two sets of tracks


Right, because the movie establishes what science has already established, namely that age-related memory loss doesn't arbitrarily follow your assumed rules.

You're not a neurologist, you're not a robotics engineer, you're not even a credible film critic.

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Oh, do go on with the personal attacks. The final nail in the coffin of "if you can't argue the arguments, at least insult the arguer". Good stuff, well done.

I'm delighted to be talking to a neurologist and robotics engineer who also happens to be an accomplished film critic! Wow, you're awesome, thanks so much for taking the time to reply to my petty nonsense! I feel so validated!

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Are you crying about being "attacked" now?



The movie establishes what science has already established, namely that age-related memory loss doesn't arbitrarily follow your assumed rules.

Deal with it.

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[deleted]

I think this movie has some flaws. In your list I don't see any of those. You assume to know how the robot from this movie should act. The movie it's explaining you how it works, forget about I,Robot.

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That's exactly right. I assume how the robot should act and I assume to know how the robot's creators would've made it. And the robot in the movie is lacking significantly what a real robot, created by real people, would look like. And therefore, it makes the entire movie unbelievable.

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'And the robot in the movie is lacking significantly what a real robot, created by real people, would look like.'

You've obviously never seen 'ASIMO'.
http://asimo.honda.com/

Maybe 'The World's Most Advanced Humanoid Robot' was created by aliens?

Your picking of holes in this film is based on supposition and assumptions.In other words-complete speculation.
Frankly,it reads like the mad musings of The (once great)Simpsons' character,Comic Book Guy.

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Read the context -- this has nothing to do with what the robot looks like physically... it has to do with the features and characteristics.

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Ok,it has nothing to do with it's physical manifestation.
So then,what non-physical features and characteristics does it have to do with?(Bearing in mind ,the 'when' of this movie is never solidly established.)

Again,your criticism derives from an opinion of how robots will operate in the near future.Well,that is just criticism based on guesswork.

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Sure, I freely admit that. I disagree with the universe this movie creates, because it's unrealistic and then it depends on that unrealism to tell its story.

Let's just say there's a movie made that takes place today and it's about UFOs. And in this movie, a busload of people in the middle of nowhere suddenly get stuck. And suddenly a UFO lands and a bunch of aliens appear. Then the UFO goes away and the bus is found the next day and all the people are there telling their story, so someone asks "did anyone get a picture? video?". And all 40 people on the bus say "oh gee I forgot, oh gee my phone battery is dead, oh gee I don't have a phone".

Would you call the believable? If the whole plot of the movie relied on the fact that these people did see something but not one can prove it because not one got a picture of it... would that be acceptable? In today's day and age? Sure, argue "it could happen". But I'm sorry, I don't buy it for similar reasons as to why I don't like this movie.

It suspends belief that out of 40 people in 2013, not a single one would have a functional, working phone or camera or video recorder on them. And if that premise hinged the entire movie, the movie would fail.

Back to this movie, I don't need to dissect it point by point. Fundamentally, we're expected to believe that an old guy with Alzheimer's and a robot walked miles from one house to another, robbed the house and walked back. And not only did nobody see anything, the police are unable to gather, from any source, and sort of credible evidence. I'm sorry, I don't buy it. And since that's such an important part of the movie, it wrecks it. For me, yes, for me. If you don't have a problem with it, I'm sure the movie was wonderful for you.

For me, the story doesn't add up.

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we're expected to believe that an old guy with Alzheimer's and a robot walked miles from one house to another, robbed the house and walked back.


He is senile, he is not crippled you dolt.

But it's good to see your initial hysteria has been reduced to "old guy walking kinda far".



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I feel bad for you. You missed the whole point of the movie by hanging it all on details. It's a human story. About people and identity, relationships and what makes us human. Who cares about a few plot holes? Your post is more farfetched than the actual plot holes, if any.

For example, you obviously do not know anything about Alzheimer's. Not a lot of people do. And yet instead of looking it up, you come here bitching how it "ruined" the story for you, that they'd come up with something so unbelievable.
Guess what? You're wrong. Sadly it's not unbelievable. That's what the disease does. Memory is a funny thing. It's not a data bank. We still have no idea how it works or how electrical impulses and chemicals can combine to store anecdotes, images, smells inside our brains. My grandfather was diagnosed early, and treated. His memory seemed stable for a long time. For almost everything. Except he sometimes believed he was still in WWII and he completely forgot about his wife (who was still living with him) and his 3 kids and 7 grandkids. Even when they were right there. Fact of life.

My point is: you'll enjoy things more if you look below the surface. Not everything is meant to be analyzed and rehashed on an intellectual level. Feelings are important too.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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