X-Message-Number: 12964
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1999 09:09:31 -0800
From: Rand Simberg <>
Subject: Re: Bicentennial Man

At 05:00 AM 12/18/99 -0500, John Clark wrote:

>Some of out "far out" ideas are starting to leak out, even into the 
>conservative pages of The New York Times. 
>I haven't seen the film so I don't know if it's 
>any
>good but I have read the review by Stephen Holden of Bicentennial Man and he
>really hated the movie, the reasons are very interesting. He compares it to 
>a very
>bad Star Trek installment and sneers at its " warm, fuzzy, self-congratulatory
>humanistic vision, nothing in the universe beats being a flesh and blood 
>mortal".
>Holden also says  "The possibility of a machine claiming to have human 
>qualities
>seems increasingly likely. What's not so likely is that a robot, in seeking 
>to be
>human, would embrace mortality." I couldn't have said it better myself but I 
>don't
>think I would have found it in the mainstream press five years ago.

Well, this wouldn't surprise me if the movie is based on the short story
(or was it a novella?) by Isaac Asimov.  Asimov was fiercely opposed to
cryonics, and a devout deathist.
************************************************************************
  * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)  
interglobal space lines  * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org 

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12964