I, Robot

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I saw it after a friend of mine said he thought I would enjoy it. I liked it more than Spiderman 2. Not a bad movie at all.

No, it does have little to do with the Asimov stories, besides the 3 laws and a sorta emotionless scientist named Susan Calvin. And a company named USR (well, that's not quite US Robots and Mechanical Men, but anyway). And Will Smith, of course. He was great in the books.

I thought the explanation for the robots amok stuff was not entirely out of keeping with Asimov's robot visions. But the tone of it was far, far different from the charming and thought-provoking robot stories.

I went into it expecting it to be nothing like the Asimov stories. And I had a good time.

Since Monday my roommate and I have spent a few hours discussing the problems with the movie, which is far longer than I've spent talking about problems with other movies in the recent past. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a good movie.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think you should write us a review, Peter. We could use it.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

in order to write a worthy one I feel like I'd need to go read some Asimov. It's been years since I read any of the robot stories.

Hmm...meh. My plate is really full right now. Maybe when I empty it...

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

/me takes Ookla's plate and scrapes it into the trash.

There. It's empty.

[EUOL]

I thought the explanation for the robots amok stuff was not entirely out of keeping with Asimov's robot visions. But the tone of it was far, far different from the charming and thought-provoking robot stories.

Saw it.  My take?  It's the Stephen King version of an Asimov story.  IE, it takes Asimov's vision and twists it into something dark.  This wasn't necessarily bad, since I really never agreed with Asimov's vision either.  (If you've read the entire series, you know that Asimov comes up with something remarkably similar to the elements at the end of this movie as the finale for the robot books.)

I'm not sure it was true to his vision, but the fact that it says it was 'suggested' by Asimov at the end, rather than based on, fixes most of that for me.

I still wish they hadn't called it I, Robot.  I would have preferred something that better reflected that this was someone's spin on an Asimov theme.  "We, Robots" or something like that would have been more appropriate.

[Entsuropi]

 "We, Robots" or something like that would have been more appropriate.

But would have sounded crap.

I fancy seeing this. Never read the books. But it looks interesting.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Saw it.  My take?  It's the Stephen King version of an Asimov story.  IE, it takes Asimov's vision and twists it into something dark.  This wasn't necessarily bad, since I really never agreed with Asimov's vision either.  (If you've read the entire series, you know that Asimov comes up with something remarkably similar to the elements at the end of this movie as the finale for the robot books.)

It made me wonder if it was based somewhat on that concept too, but they didn't license any of the books beyond I, Robot (I think). Since it was grafting the Asimov universe onto a pre-existing script, they must have just come up with that on their own. In which case, I think they did a pretty good job of it.

I wouldn't say Stephen King though. And I wouldn't call the movie dark. It just wasn't..........dark enough to be called dark. It's just an action movie. With some funny lines. And some very cool robot fighting. Fighting robots! Come on, how could you not see a movie with fighting robots. I mean, they fight, and it's cool! So...

Asimov is probably rolling in his grave. Though actually one time (he says in his autobiography) he had a dream that he died and went to heaven, and said "but I'm an atheist," and they said "that's okay, you're not the one who decides who gets to heaven," and he couldn't disagree with that, but after a few more minutes he started looking around for a typewriter. So that is to say that Asimov is probably up there somewhere typing away...

[EUOL]

I wouldn't say Stephen King though. And I wouldn't call the movie dark. It just wasn't..........dark enough to be called dark. It's just an action movie.

I meant Stephen King on the concept.  His stories aren't always horror, but they DO tend to take a potentially good/benign even and twist them until they become a conflict.

Asimov saw this plot element one way.  The writers looked at it from the 'dark' side, meaning they made it a point of contention rather than a blessing.

This is very hard to talk about without giving spoliers.  Oh, and the Asimov parts of this were grafted onto a pre-existing script?