I Came, I Saw I, Robot


I went to see the movie I, Robot today. (Only very mild spoilers ahead.)

As you'll recall I'm a fan of Asimov's science fiction stories, but the previews for I, Robot had done a good job of preparing me for a movie which was only loosely based on Asimov's robot concepts and, as the end credits proclaimed, this movie was casually "suggested by Isaac Asimov's book". Fair enough. Aside from the Three Laws of Robotics, and a robot psychologist character named Susan Calvin, this movie had little to do with Asimov's robot universe. Maybe if you squint during the scene where Sonny hides among 1000 other robots you could conjure up images from Little Lost Robot in Asimov's I, Robot short stories but the scene plays out quite differently than that story did. And towards the end of the movie there are some vague parallels to Asimov's Zeroth Law, but the movie's Zeroth Law logic is kinda reversed, running counter to Asimov's Zeroth Law.

Overall though I liked the movie. It was a fine place to spend some of my summer action movie dollars. But I'm still waiting for a good movie adaptation of Asimov. Maybe Foundation will be it?

Posted: Sat - July 17, 2004 at 11:12 PM        

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