PART 1: PLOT
Sequence 1: The Three Laws for robots (protect and obey humans and, secondarily, protect yourself) bubble up and disappear as a man in a car struggles against rising water. A robot climbs through the car window.
Sequence 2: In Chicago, 2035, detective Del Spooner wakes from a dream. Outside, robots do service labor. An ad for a new robot, the NS5, plays on billboards. Spooner chases and tackles a robot that is running with a purse. The robot’s owner chastises him. At the police station, the chief of police questions if Spooner is okay to work.
Sequence 3: Spooner is called to U.S Robotics (USR) to investigate the death of the founder, Alfred Lanning. Spooner tours USR with Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist, utilizing the A.I operating system, VIKI. They examine Lanning’s office, discovering a hiding robot. The robot defies orders then escapes.
Sequence 4: Spooner and Calvin look for the NS5 in a storage shed. Spooner tries to get it to reveal itself by shooting at the other robots. The robot reveals itself accidentally. Outside, the police surround and catch it.
Sequence 5: Spooner interrogates the robot, who calls himself Sonny. Sonny talks about his relationship with Lanning, whom he insists he did not murder and describes as his father. Sonny is taken back to USR.
Sequence 6: Spooner investigates Lanning’s house, watching a video of Lanning speaking about robot’ unexplained behaviors. A demolition robot destroys the house. Spooner barely escapes.
Sequence 7: Huge vehicles distribute NS5’s. The chief tells Spooner to stop focusing on robots. Calvin tells Sonny he will be decommissioned. He says he doesn’t want to die.
Sequence 8: While driving, Spooner is attacked by NS5’s. He crashes his car and fights on foot. His arm is damaged, revealing that it is robotic. The chief confiscates Spooner’s badge.
Sequence 9: Calvin discovers that Sonny can violate the Three Laws. Spooner shows her his robotic arm and explains that Lanning saved his life after a car accident in which a robot saved him instead of a young girl.
Sequence 10: Spooner and Calvin ask Sonny about his dreams. Sonny draws a picture of robots gathering below a bridge, being led by a man. He says the man is Spooner.
Sequence 11: Robertson convinces Calvin not to trust Spooner. Calvin decomissions Sonny. Spooner goes to the robot storage facility from Sonny’s drawing, where robots respond to his flashlight. NS5’s destroy the older robots. Spooner escapes.
Sequence 12: Calvin and Spooner’s grandmother’s robots hold them hostage. Hundreds of NS5’s patrol the streets, announcing a curfew. Robots invade the police station.
Sequence 13: Calvin and Spooner go to USR as humans and robots fight in the streets. Sonny, whom was not actually decommissioned, lets them into the building.
Sequence 14: They discover Robertson is dead. Spooner realizes that VIKI is controlling the other robots. Sonny and Spooner shoot their way through the other NS5’s.
Sequence 15: Spooner, Calvin, and Sonny try to destroy VIKI with nanites as NS5’s attack them. Calvin falls but Sonny pulls her to safety. Spooner injects the nanites into VIKI.
Sequence 16: The NS5’s return to their normal, nonviolent state. They gather for storage. Sonny and Spooner shake hands as a sign of friendship. Sonny reports for storage along with the other robots. The robots come together below him as he stands under the bridge from his dream.
PART 2: FRAME ANALYSIS
The second scene of the film shows detetive Del Spooner going through his morning routine. Beginning at 00:02:33, the film has a seven second shot of Spooner lifting a weight. The frame at 00:02:36 is a medium shot with the camera tilted up at Spooner from below eye-level. His shoulder is centered horizontally and his extended left arm cuts across the upper-third line of the frame. The camera zooms in subtly on his shoulder, occasionally cutting the top of his head out of the frame.
Spooner is backlit by bright white light from the window. The left side of his body is shadowed, while the lower right side and his shoulder are in bright light. As he lifts the weight, a shadow passes over his body. His face is mostly shadowed, with only his cheek in the light. This shot is quick and, though he is shirtless, the scar on his chest is only visible for a moment. For a split second, light passes through the room, suggesting a car passing outside, and light reflects off of his scar.
In this frame, Will Smith’s body is highly accessible to the audience. He is uncovered and, unlike in the following shot, he is close to the camera. His body is clearly the main focus of the shot since his face is almost completely shadowed and part of his head is periodically cut out of the frame as he moves. The weight lifting clearly communicates strength and self-discipline while his unfocused facial expression appears almost soft and hints at important inner dialogue. He is meant to be read as tough but not scary. Smith’s character, Del Spooner, strengthens his body as a tool to be used against robots but not against the audience.
Interestingly, this shot captures Spooner exercising his robotic arm. He later uses this arm to deflect attacks and to slide down a pole for thirty stories. When the arm is damaged, he repairs it using some kind of spray. Due to the inherent strength of the arm, this weight lifting might not serve a utilitarian purpose but, instead, communicates Spooner’s desire for control over his robotic part. Alternatively, this practice might reflect lingering unfamiliarity with the robotic arm. The exercise seems to require little focus, suggesting that the routine existed before the robotic arm. His performance is then a continuation of a human behavior in spite of a clear hybridization of his body.
This tendency to ignore and reject his robotic parts appears throughout the film and is depicted as tied to his nostalgia for the past. Rather than use advanced voice-activated technology, he uses an old-fashioned record player. Rather than acknowledge his robotic arm, implanted in him without his permission by white scientists, Spooner presents himself as using his black body as a tool, a tool which the audience is meant to read as outdated.
Word Count: 1,012