Bicentennial Man

Bicentennial Man (1999)

8 corrected entries

(3 votes)

Corrected entry: In the world of Issac Asimov robots, the three laws are immutable. At the beginning Andrew makes a lavish presentation of the three laws. At the end of the film, Galatea breaks the first law (not to harm) in order to conform to the second law (obey orders). The three laws are hierarchical in that the first law takes precedence over the second. In Asimov stories, the contradiction between the laws most often causes paralysis of the robot in question.

Correction: Galatea is not causing harm. Andrew and Portia are dying anyway, and all she does is let them. Any doctor would do the same, and they also make the same promise, to, if nothing else, do no harm. There's also the fact that Galatea is very much human at that point, so who knows if she is still held to those three laws?

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I'm afraid there's no way to attribute this comment to a specific person - it's about 10 years old and even if someone claimed it was theirs I couldn't confirm it.

Jon Sandys

Corrected entry: The chronology for this film is entirely wrong. At the very beginning of the movie, we are told that it is somewhere in the not too distant future and we see that the family gets the robot. It cannot be too far in to the future, since the family car has a 1999 type California license plate. The little girl, who is about 7, grows up and has a granddaughter and they are both alive at the same time. However, later we find that, while the granddaughter is still alive, the robot has lived 200 years. Either these two women must have lived extraordinarily long lives for this to happen, or the robot was created many many years before the little girl at the beginning of the movie was born. But we are told the year of the robots manufacture which is somewhere around 2012. This means that the robot had to have been created and sat on the shelf 60 or so years minimum and then sent to the family with the 1999 license plate.

Correction: It's made very clear in the movie that the average human life span has been greatly increased by the artificial organs and other medical breakthroughs invented by Andrew. It is stated that, because of this, Portia looks 50 when she is really over 70. In the scene where that is established, she says that she won't go to the extreme of complete organ replacement, even though it would greatly increase her (already much extended) life expectancy. This is the reason that Andrew undergoes the blood replacement that limits his lifespan (as he was an android, that was indefinite). In the world the movie is set in, dying over 200 years after the birth of your grandmother is probably not even very unusual.

Little Miss did not receive any of these organ upgrades. At seventy, Portia says she is breaking down and did not want to have full organ transplant. There is no way they both lived way over 100 years.

Correction: It's very likely she changed her mind so she could be with Andrew until he died.

Ashley Davis

Corrected entry: The blob of artificial skin Rupert starts with is very small and thin, but doubles in amount and thickens considerably.

Movie Nut

Correction: Given that this is a future technology, we have no idea how it works. It could be something that increases in size as it's molded.

Greg Dwyer

Corrected entry: 'Little Miss' (Grace) is shown to be about 5-7 years old at the beginning of the movie, and her sister Amanda is about 5 years older than that. When 'Little Miss' is shown as a young adult 15 years later, she is apparently somewhere around 20-25 years old. However, her 'older' sister Amanda is shown to still be a teenager 'making out' with her boyfriend on his motorcycle. The sister is about ten years younger than she should be according to the storyline.

Correction: Let's say Little Miss was five, and her sister was ten. Fifteen years later, Little Miss would have been twenty and her sister twenty five. Consider these two things: One, children are "leaving home" later and later in life even now. This is the future, and it stands to reason the trend would have continued; especially where these girls' parents are very wealthy. Two, it never says Amanda is still a teenager. She's just immature, rebellious, and acting how you believe teenagers act.

Phixius

Correction: "Little Miss" is Amanda. She is 7 at the beginning of the movie, and Grace, "Miss," is 9. The film jumps ahead 15 years later, making them 22 and 24. Some people can look older or younger than their actual ages.

Ashley Davis

Corrected entry: Isaac Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics" are stringently enforced within this movie. However, when Andrew is told to jump out the window by Amanda early in the film, this would have been in direct conflict with the law that states that a robot "must protect itself and cannot do self-harm unless to protect a human from harm." Andrew jumping out the window cannot reasonably be explained as protecting any human from harm.

Correction: The three laws are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Ordering Andrew to jump out of a window is part of the second law (must obey human orders), and since it doesn't conflict with the first law, he has to do it. The third law (protecting its own existence) doesn't count if a human orders the robot to harm itself.

Gary O'Reilly

Corrected entry: Towards the end of the scene of the party that celebrates the opening of a building that Portia restored, if you look closely at the bottom of the screen, you can see one of the couples dancing with the guy leading with his right hand, instead of his left, like everyone else. (01:33:15)

Correction: It's a party, not a show. There's no reason for the dancers to be choreographed.

Corrected entry: When the clocks all chime at 4 o'clock, the cuckoo on one of the clocks "chirps" 7 times, even though it is only 4.

Correction: It might be set to the wrong time, or Andrew might have decided to be innovative, and have the clock chime three times before beginning to chime the hour. Clocks like that do exist.

Corrected entry: I think we can be pretty sure that Andrew is pretty heavy, but in the scene where "little miss" finds the horse that he made, the bed hardly sinks at all. (00:18:25)

Correction: We don't know the materials Andrew's made of (light alloys for instance) nor do we know how the bed was constructed, what the thickness and composition of the mattress was and so on. There are too many unknowns to consider this a valid mistake.

More mistakes in Bicentennial Man

Little Miss: I have a friend who is very special to me. He's sweet and exceptionally intelligent, but, well - he's not really a - I mean, a relationship between us would be impossible. It would never, could never, work out.

More quotes from Bicentennial Man

Trivia: The song Andrew listens in the player is from an opera named "Rusalka". This opera is based on a water nymph who wants to become human for love. Just as Andrew.

Malaver

More trivia for Bicentennial Man

Question: What year do you think it is when Andrew returns to the Martin family home and meets Portia, as well as the older Little Miss?

More questions & answers from Bicentennial Man

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