Posted on 07/20/2014 8:18:05 AM PDT by null and void
Stockholm (AFP) - He has no special interest in science fiction, but the creator of a Swedish sci-fi drama that pits robots against humans has struck a nerve among viewers.
"Real Humans", by screenwriter-actor Lars Lundstroem, stars humanoids called "hubots", a word mixing humans and robots. They are merchandise, bought and sold, run on electricity, but can think, make choices, have sex with humans, even fight for their own freedom and rights.
Their owners want to keep them in their place as docile, high-tech consumer products, be it servants, workers, sex partners, even replacements for lost family members.
Other people, a political movement called "Real Humans", feel all has gone too far. They want to return to a society without hubots.
For Lundstroem, "the main premise in 'Real Humans' is: what is a human being?"
The lines between real and robot are deliberately blurred to ask: is it possible to build a human? What is a soul? Are we just some kind of biological machines?
"It is a tough question to answer, almost impossible, and it is very rare we are confronted with questions about the kind of creatures we are," he told AFP.
The series, set in a parallel, modern-day Sweden, came out in 2012 and was quickly bought up in more than 50 countries from France to South Korea to Australia.
It also caught the eye of American xBox Entertainment Studios and Britain's Channel 4 who are developing an English-language adaptation called "Humans" set to premier in 2015, according to the entertainment bible Variety.
Lundstroem cannot even remember how he came up with the idea.
"Maybe it was after seeing one of those human-like robots they have made in Japan, but I really don't know," he told AFP.
"I just thought it was a great starting point for a drama series, something that could generate a lot of story."
The show is chock full of action, intrigue and romance: programmers breaching legal protocols to make the hubots even more human-like, others -- derided as "hubbies" -- breaking taboos on having sex with hubots.
Lundstroem's plots are less science-driven than metaphors for contemporary social issues -- prejudice, minorities, immigration, slavery, relationships.
It's been described as everything from creepy to startling to superb sci-fi.
"This Swedish show about an abducted sex robot is creepy as hell," sci-fi expert Charlie Jane Anders said in December 2012, adding that it was both "beautiful" and "disturbing looking".
Some critics have said that what makes the series scary is that the hubots are so similar to human beings.
In the show, household robot Mimi almost becomes a new member of the Engman family.
While the son falls in love with her, his sister starts to fear that the mother likes Mimi better than her.
"One reason why people could find the show scary is that it presents a future where robots are so similar to humans that they could end up replacing people," Swedish TV critic Rosemari Soedergren said.
"People have always had some kind of fear and suspicion about technology and machines."
- 'So mentally tired' -
Lundstroem admits he has no experience in the genre.
"I have consciously not consumed a lot of science fiction, because I was afraid I could be influenced by it," he said. "I saw my lack of background as a strength."
The show premiered on Sweden's public broadcaster SVT in 2012 and has run two seasons. Lundstroem said production costs are high and though he's working on a third season, he has faced difficulty in finding financing.
The same fine line between humans and hubots that sparked Lundstroem's interest became a challenge for the actors.
Those playing hubots have won praise but it was surprisingly exhausting, said Lisette Pagler who portrays Mimi, one of the more developed robots in Real Humans.
"We had to deal with tiny, tiny nuances," she said. "If it was too machine-like, the dialogue became uninteresting, and if it was too human, we were not credible as robots.
Mime artists were brought in to teach them how to control their movements.
We "didn't realise how frustrating it can be to remove all the human tics we have, to control them all the time. You need to be aware of when you blink, you can't scratch yourself, you can't make quick movements.
"I had never been so mentally tired after doing so little physical effort," she said.
"Sometimes we modified their voices, but it was mainly little noises and sounds and ticks which were really helpful in creating the illusion," Lundstroem said.
His team interviewed a robotics researcher at Stockholm's prestigious Royal Institute of Technology for help, but "we couldn't use any of it."
"Technology hasn't come as far as it had in our series, there is no science to rely on," he said. "We only had our fantasy to imagine what would happen if something like that were invented and began to be sold to people.
"But that's also what made it exciting," he said.
(With source URL)
People wanting to see the photos are invited to got to Drudge for a link to the Yahoo version of this story.
ping
>>”I saw my lack of background as a strength.”<<
TV Writer or POTUS or SoS?
Red Dwarf ping!
RIMMER Yeah, but what do you know? Your a chicken soup machine repairman, not Hank Handsome, Space Adventurer. Don't get ideas above your station, and your station is Git Central.
LISTER Hey, I've been surviving in space five - six years. When it comes to weirdy, paradoxy space stuff, I've bought the t-shirt.
KRYTEN He bought it and I ironed it for him.
LISTER Exactly.
RIMMER So, you're saying the future's the future and, like your underpants, the chances of change are remote? Well, I'm sorry, I don't accept it.
LISTER Hey, I'm not happy about it, man.
CAT None of us are. You dying is the last think we want, especially me. Hell, I'd probably have to help dig the hole.
RIMMER Right, so to summarise: six years of space adventuring, six years of experience and knowledge, has led you to the conclusion that I'm totally stuffed?
KRYTEN Mister Rimmer has a point, sir. Your greater knowledge is making you pessimistic, while his ignorance and almost doe-like naivety is keeping his mind receptive to a possible solution.
LISTER Shut your stupid, flat head, you.
[KRYTEN shrinks under LISTER's admonition, but KOCHANSKI has picked up on something, and sounds intrigued]
KOCHANSKI So, you're saying, when you don't know enough... to *know* that you don't know enough, there's no fear holding you back? You can achieve things which people with more brains can't?
KRYTEN Precisely.
[KOCHANSKI smirks in RIMMER's direction]
KOCHANSKI He's got the 'power of ignorance'...
KRYTEN And with ignorance that he's got, that makes him one of the most powerful men that's ever lived! Harness your stupidity, sir; employ your witlessness, use your empty-headed, simplistic moron-mind and find a solution.
[RIMMER's face hardens defiantly]
RIMMER Okay! I've got an idea.
Hahaha!! A great exchange! Love Red Dwarf!
That sounds like a Progressive’s excuse for the 0bama administration.
Meh
Ghost in the Shell is far better, even in the English translation....
would Laz hit it?
TV series sounds like Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” which was much later produced as the movie “Blade Runner”. In the movie, the robot Rachel doesn’t know she’s a robot. In the book, we find out at the end everyone and every creature is a robot.
That reads like Dick Cheney describing a low-information voter.
I’d say that was a fair bet. A probability in the high 80s.
Oh yeah. Motoko Kusanagi.
Woof.
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