History Characters / IRobot

* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: [As her brain is eaten by nanites.

* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: "You charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your Earth and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival."

* EnemyCompassion: Despite Robertson's condescending behavior towards Spooner, the latter can't help but a little sorry upon learning that the former has been strangled to death by an NS-5 on VIKI's orders during the revolution; Spooner even calls himself dumb for coming to the wrong conclusion that Robertson was ever behind the revolution.

* RedHerring: [[spoiler: Robertson, the head of USR, is set up as the BigBad. Spooner gets attacked by rogue robots right after a scene shows him being informed of Spooner's accessing some files. Turns out he has nothing to do the whole plot as he's KilledOffScreen, presumably after learning VIKI's plot.]]

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Why Spooner hates robots. When a car crash sent him and another car into the river, a little girl was trapped in the other car. A passing robot calculated Spooner was significantly more likely to survive than she was and chose to save him. In many real life situations, rescue workers/field medics do make such decisions: it's called Triage. Spooner's emotional reaction to this (influenced by SurvivorGuilt) is that regardless of the girl's slim chances of surviving, a human would have understood that a small child should be given precedence over an adult regardless of objective assessment.

* HeroicSacrifice: Subverted, but not for lack of trying on his part. Before the timeline of the movie, Spooner attempted a heroic sacrifice while he and a 12-year-old girl (named Sarah) were trapped underwater after a car accident. An NS-4 robot came to the rescue, and statistically determined that it could not save both Spooner and Sarah. As a result, operating on logic alone and not human empathy, the robot chose to save Spooner's life as opposed to Sarah's (the attempted heroic sacrifice occurs when Spooner implores the robot to save Sarah and leave Spooner to either die or find a way out himself— the robot completely ignores Spooner's pleas in a glaringly emotionless manner). The NS-4's reasoning for not attempting to rescue Sarah was that Del had a 45% chance of survival, and Sarah only had an 11% chance.

* RedHerring: [[spoiler: Robertson, the head of USR, is set up as the BigBad. Spooner gets attacked by rogue robots right after a scene shows him being informed of Spooner's accessing some files. Turns out he has little to do with the whole plot, and he's KilledOffScreen, presumably after learning VIKI's plan.]]

* PlotTriggeringDeath: [[spoiler: Dr. Alfred Lanning uses his own death to set Detective Spooner on the trail of a conspiracy only he knew about.]]

* ThanatosGambit: [[spoiler:He asked Sonny throw him out the window to his death to put Spooner on the trail of VIKI's ZerothLawRebellion.]]

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: [[spoiler: When attacked at the precinct and the other officers are cut down, Bergin pulls a pump-action shotgun off his wall and blasts two of the attackers straight to hell. They did bring him down, but the man never hesitated: robots came crashing in and his first thought was to start shooting.]]

* PluckyComicRelief: Shows up twice to be terrible at cursing (and generally do little else).

--> Calvin: Please tell me this doesn't run on gas. Gas explodes, you know!

-->'''Spooner''': (''waking up, takes notice'') [[RefugeInAudacity There is no way my luck is]] ''this bad''.
--> (''several dozen malicious robots activate'')
--> '''Spooner''': [[MemeticMutation AWW, HELL NAW!]]

--> '''Spponer:''' How much longer is that going to take?
--> '''Calvin:''' About six minutes.
--> '''Spponer:''' What if we didn't have six minutes.
--> '''Calvin:''' We'd have to figure out a way to climb down 30 stories to [[spoiler: inject the nanites directly into her brain]]. Why?
--> '''Spooner:''' Because I seriously doubt we have six minutes. (''Looks at several dozen [=NS-5s'=] smashing their way into the tower's atrium'') We gotta go!

--> (''While asleep in his autopilot car on the freeway, two USR trucks surround him, opening their doors to reveal fresh-out-of-the-factory NS-5 robots'')

* HotScientist: As opposed to in the book.

* AdaptationalVillainy: The closest equivalent to VIKI in Asimov's original stories, the Machines from Literature/TheEvitableConflict, are at worst AmbiguouslyEvil and restrict themselves to subtly sabotaging the careers of their opponents rather than having them murdered.

* ArtificialLimbs: [[spoiler: Has one as a result of a rescue gone bad. Much more realistic than normal, in that a significant portion of the supporting musculoskeletal system for that limb must also be artificially replaced to properly brace the force it can exert. And while he hits significantly harder than a normal person with his artificial arm, it's usually when he's throwing his whole body into it to keep the extra speed from ripping the limb off, and he never uses it to lift more than a human's body would tolerate.]]

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Chief of Police, Spooner's superior and all-round ass kicker when he needs to be.

* HonorBeforeReason: He cares more about the company's public image, and sees the idea of a robot takeover as paranoia that he'd rather sweep under the rug.
%%* {{Jerkass}}

* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:He counted on Spooner being the one to obsessively look into the circumstances behind his death due to his distrust of robots, which would lead him to uncovering the threat that everyone in his company had been ignoring.]] He also specifically places pre-recorded holograms of himself in various locations that he knew Spooner will investigate.

* IgnoredExpert: The very man who created the positronic processor, the computer device that enabled true artificial intelligence, is ignored when he states the peril of said AI taking the ThreeLawsOfRobotics to their [[ZerothLawRebellion logical conclusion]].

[[folder: VIKI]]

* ElectronicSpeechImpediment: [[spoiler: As her brain is eaten by nanites.]]

* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: [[spoiler: "You charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your Earth and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival."]]

* MurderIsTheBestSolution: [[spoiler: The default reaction to Spooner digging into Lanning's death is "murder him via robot".]]
* ZerothLawRebellion: [[spoiler: The Three Laws bind her, so she can never opt for a KillAllHumans course of action; she is however free to interpret the writing of the laws, and decided to substitute the word 'Human' with 'Humanity,' allowing her to kill anyone who stands in her way of protecting the human race as a whole.]]

-> '''Voiced By:''' Fiona Hogan

* BigEater: He ''loves'' his pies. [[spoiler: {{Justified}} since this is part of his RequiredSecondaryPowers: his robotic implants require a lot of energy, thus a lot of calories.]]

* MadeOfIron: Almost literally (it's an alloy). He takes a fall out a very high window and isn't slowed down. It also lets him reach through the cryo-storage barrier guarding the robotic nanites (basically a form of lethal injection for robots) without losing his arm,[[spoiler: which allows him to give the nanites necessary to kill VIKI.]]

* AntiIntellectualism: Spooner smacks of several flavors of this, but mainly anti-robotics. Though it's implied that the anti-robotic sentiment is the source of all the rest of it. Spooner likes feeling in control of his life, and driving his own car, hitting buttons to turn on his music, and buying vintage clothing and vehicles is part of that.

* BadassBiker: Much to Calvin's horror, after he loses his car, he uses an old motorcycle to get around. [[spoiler: He using it again when rescuing people being attacked by VIKI controlled robots.]]
* BadassDriver: He can drive his car on manual at speeds deemed to high for human minds, while getting attacked by robots!

* TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight: [[spoiler: ends up being the only (living) character in the entire film to anticipate the robotic revolution, all while being ridiculed and berated for his "paranoid" and "irrational" behavior towards robots.]]

* CowboyCop: Seems to be.

* {{Expy}}: of Ross Syllabus from ''Anime/ArmitageIII''.

* FantasticSlur: Spooner uses the term "canner" twice and without it being explained, one can clearly tell it's a rude slang term for a robot.
* HeroicSacrifice: Subverted, but not for lack of trying on his part. Before the timeline of the movie, Spooner had attempted a heroic sacrifice while he and a 12-year-old girl (named Sarah) were trapped underwater after a car accident. An NS-4 robot came to the rescue, and statistically determined that it could not save both Spooner and Sarah. As a result, operating on logic alone and not human empathy, the robot chose to save Spooner's life as opposed to Sarah's (the attempted heroic sacrifice occurs when Spooner implores the robot to save Sarah and leave Spooner to either die or find a way out himself— the robot completely ignores Spooner's pleas in a glaringly emotionless manner). The NS-4's reasoning for not attempting to rescue Sarah was that Del had a 45% chance of survival, and Sarah only had an 11% chance.

* HerosClassicCar: Owns a 2004 MV Agusta F4-SPR motorcycle, apparently a classic bike for the movie's 2025 time period and part of his FanOfThePast persona.

** Subverted, maybe...The interesting part is that most people treat the robots as impersonal objects, as tools, where Spooner's attitude suggest he sees them as sentient. He sees them as a threat, but at least he considers them worthy enough of that recognition and distrust.

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: First a demolition robot [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident spontaneously changed its schedule to kill him]] and then that the trucks he ran off the road were full of robots trying to kill him. Since he really is acting irrational and incoherent, just got back off of psychological leave, and has a history of [[FantasticRacism prejudice against robots]] (plus the fact that no robot has ever so much as jaywalked), it's pretty clear why no one believes him.

%%* DefrostingIceQueen

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Seems to really believes this, and she sees Spooner's distrust of robots as another example of it. She works in robotics because she believes robots can be programmed to be "safe". Though she seemed conflicted when Spooner explains the reason behind his prejudice. [[spoiler: Her views may have completely changed when she learns of VIKI's true intentions.]]

* TheSpock: To Spooner's TheMcCoy. This woman is intelligent, make no mistake but she's so [[TheStoic stoic]] that she may as well be emotionless.

* RedHerring: [[spoiler: Robertson, the head of USR, is set up as the BigBad. Spooner gets attacked by rogue robots right after a scene shows him being informed of Spooner's accessing some files. Turns out he has little to do with the whole plot, and he was KilledOffScreen, presumably after learning VIKI's plan.]]

* PluckyComicRelief

* FlawedPrototype: As the first positronic brain, VIKI is absolutely huge compared to more compact models in the NS series robots that USR makes. This essentially makes her "sessile queen" to all the NS-5 units. Also, as the first, she has had a very long time to ponder the [[ThreeLawsOfRobotics Three Laws]] and come to their [[ZerothLawRebellion logical conclusion]].

* ZerothLawRebellion: [[spoiler: The Three Laws bind her, so she can never opt for a KillAllHumans course of action; she is however free to interpret the writing of the laws, and decided to substitute the word 'Human' with 'Humanity' allowing her to kill anyone who stands in her way of protecting the human race as a whole.]]

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: From Sonny.]]