I, Robot

Question: If Lanning really had leaped from that distance, wouldn't he be unrecognizable upon impact and not with only a little bit of blood coming from his mouth?

Answer: He'd certainly have a lot of internal injuries that aren't visible, would probably have more injuries showing than that trickle of blood, but wouldn't necessarily be "unrecognizable."

Phixius

Question: After Spooner explains how much of his body is robotic, the woman asks what it was like when he went back to work. He starts to explain, then starts describing the accident with the truck and the girl. I'm a bit confused. Was this where his arm and lung were damaged, or did this happen after he received his bionic appendage?

Answer: Although not clearly explained, Spooner lost his left arm and lung during the accident.

Kirill Ostapenko

Question: Did or didn't Sonny kill Lanning? If he did, how did he do it? What was the promise he had to give?

Answer: Sonny killed Lanning. Lanning had designed Sonny with the ability to opt out of the Three Laws when he deemed it absolutely necessary. Lanning forced Sonny to promise to do Lanning a favor, then told him the favor was to throw Lanning out the window. Forced to keep his word by Lanning's own programming, Sonny overrode the Three Laws and tossed Lanning out the window.

Phoenix

Question: Lannings wrote the three laws and built VIKI as his first robot, which leads to the conclusion that VIKI has been programmed with the three laws. If VIKI is programmed with those laws, how can she order robots to ignore humans orders and even kills them?

Friso94

Chosen answer: Viki is following what has been called the 0th law of robotics. It is an extrapolation of the other three with an application toward humanity as a whole rather than individual humans and is interpreted as "A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm". The idea being that she has now concluded that to fail to take action to prevent the self destruction of humanity itself would be a violation of that law. And being the 0th law, it supersedes all other laws, just as law 1 supersedes law 2 and law 2 supersedes law 3. Her actions may be regrettable or undesirable, but according to the 0th law, they are necessary to save humanity as a whole.

Garlonuss

Question: What was the relationship between Dr. Lanning and Dr. Calvin?

Answer: Mentor and protege.

Tailkinker

Question: The rich guy was found dead. I don't quite understand his involvement, did he order the attack on Spooner? And I also don't get his wound around the neck, for a second I thought he was a robot, since it was a little odd and there was no blood.

Kirill Ostapenko

Chosen answer: Just like the earlier murder, this one was also caused by VIKI and the NS-5s under her control (they also attacked Spooner). He tried to protect the company and its profits by preventing any information about potentially unreliable robots from dissemination, not knowing the depth of the problem. VIKI killed him when she no longer needed his protection. The wound on his neck was from his throat being crushed by an NS-5, hence the fingerprints.

Phoenix

Question: Why did Lanning build a robot that functioned independently of the USR mainframe, had alloys strong enough to endure vast drops and steal nanites, had a pre-programmed knowledge of Spooner... And then tell it to kill him? Furthermore, it is Sonny's own suggestion to kill Viki with nanites, so why didn't Lanning just get him to jump out the lab and do that, or at least convey a less cryptic message about what was going on?

Answer: People would not likely listen to just the robot. By killing himself he ensured that Spooner would take him seriously. This would also keep VIKI from finding out and planning around it.

Greg Dwyer

But why couldn't Lanning just kill VIKI in the first place?

Because VIKI basically had complete control over him. She could lock him in the lab, stop his access to information, stop him from communicating with others, etc... Developing Sonny allowed him to deceive VIKI and still kill her in the end.

Answer: VIKI was too powerful to fight on his own. VIKI could control the robots.

Question: Why would Dr. Lanning's perfectly good house need to be demolished right after he "committed suicide?"

Corey Bayless

Chosen answer: It didn't. Destroying the house (and any potential evidence) was part of the cover up.

Question: Is the bridge in the movie that crosses Lake Michigan supposed to be the Mackinac or Mackinaw bridge?

Pattie Carter

Answer: Mackinac bridge.

Impossible, it's like 300 miles away.

"Like 300 miles away" from what? In I, Robot they are using the dried up lake to store the robots, the bridge crosses the joining point between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

From Chicago.

Question: How did Spooner get Sarah's necklace, if he only saw her passing by in a car?

Answer: He knew way too much about her (he knew her age and what she wanted to be when she grew up) for that to have been the only time. I would suspect that, after the accident, the vehicles were brought out of the water. Knowing the kind of person Spooner is, he probably felt guilty enough that he survived that he went to speak with the family. They probably talked about her a good deal. The family may have given him the necklace. That's just the kind of schmaltzy thing that happens in movies.

Garlonuss

Answer: Spooner most likely knew pedigree information about the girl because he not only has access to the police report about the incident, there was likely media coverage about the crash.

Question: During the curfew, if a human was seen acting dangerously, an NS5 would approach them and grab them by the neck saying "You have been deemed hazardous, will you comply?" This happened to Spooner and Farber. What would the outcome be if one did comply? What would the NS5 do?

Answer: Politely but firmly escort them to an area deemed suitable for temporarily holding "hazardous" individuals. Or, amusingly, compliance would perhaps convince the NS5 that they were no longer a hazard and leave them free to go.

Phixius

Question: Why couldn't Dr. Lanning just kill Viki himself? I don't get it.

Answer: He couldn't. She was keeping him prisoner after she became self aware and saw him as her biggest threat. Also he likely felt like a father figure for her, so with those two things together all he could do was make Sonny to do the job cause he actually could not.

Quantom X

Question: When Del is explaining the night of the accident to Susan, he says that he told the robot to save the little girl. The robot ignored Del's order and chose to save him instead. Robots are supposed to follow any order they are given. Since the robot ignored Del's order, was it ever explained what happened to it or are we meant to come up with our conclusion?

Answer: The 2nd law states they have to follow any order given by a human unless it conflicts with the 1st law. The 1st law is that a robot can not harm or by inaction cause harm to come to a human. The robot already determined Del has a better survival rate and thus, by following Del's order, it would cause it to violate the 1st law because its inactions would cause harm to Del. Nothing happened to the robot, it didn't malfunction.

Bishop73

Question: Why would Del Spooner have to exercise his left arm at the beginning of the day, does it need physiotherapy?

Answer: YES! Because his left arm is not quite human and has not been used for some time while he slept, he has to keep the electrical parts flowing (being connected to his fleshly nerves) for it to fully function.

keith summers

Question: While Dr. Spooner was driving alone in the tunnel, he requested access to restricted files between Dr. Lanning and Lawrence Robertson. When Robertson was informed of this he seemed appalled. Shortly, two NS-5 trucks came and boxed Spooner in. Did Lawerence activate those trucks?

Starpluck

Chosen answer: No, VIKI did. Robertson is merely annoyed that Spooner is continuing to delve into company business. VIKI is the one who's actually behind the whole plot and is concerned enough about Spooner's meddling to try to take him out.

Tailkinker

Question: I was wondering what does NS stand for? And also, I've noticed that there seem to be two different kinds of robots apart from NS-5. Their torso looks different. Are these just different NS-4 modifications, or are they even older versions, like NS-3 or NS-2?

Inkster

Chosen answer: With Isaac Asimov's robots its short for a common name. In the case of NS its short for Nestor, though in the movie the robot is called "Sonny" which switches the NS. In the books though its short for Nestor. Another example is the RB type robot (not in the movie), short for Robbie. It's safe to assume there are older models of the robots and that NS-3 and NS-2 are probably around.

lionhead

Question: Were the MS-5 faces modeled after an actual person?

Answer: They all look vaguely like Alan Tudyk to me, who did the voice of Sonny.

Phoenix

Question: Why would they destroy a house, just because the owner has died and before the house has been emptied?

Answer: It was deliberately demolished ahead of schedule, in an attempt to kill him.

Rlvlk

Question: What was the exact significance of the "bread crumbs?" It still confuses me.

Answer: The doctor who was killed had a copy of the book Hansel and Gretel in his lab. He knew that Detective Spooner would see the book during his investigation, and that would prompt him to follow the first clue he found to the next clue, and so on. The trail of breadcrumbs were used by Hansel and Gretel in the children's story as a way to find their way home. For more info, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansel_and_Gretel.

Jazetopher

Spooner is old school. He knew Spooner would understand that breadcrumbs meant a series of clues to follow that he left.

Question: As Detective Spooner looks down on the street and sees the robot running with what he assumes to be a stolen bag, there is a cry of 'hey.' or something similar from one of the crowd, prompting Spooner to think the robot had taken the bag. As the robot had not, why did the man yell?

Answer: That was probably just an arbitrary cry that came from the crowed, or the running robot could have just ran into someone.

Kirill Ostapenko

Revealing mistake: Just before entering Robertson's office after climbing the stairs, Spooner is behind Sonny with a flashlight. The light shines on Sonny's back and the door, but Sonny does not cast a shadow.

Kristal

More mistakes in I, Robot
More quotes from I, Robot

Trivia: Often times when a movie is distributed the name of the movie on the actual can is changed or altered to prevent piracy. The name on this movie was "Hal," a reference to "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968).

Johny English

More trivia for I, Robot

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