# Finally saw I, Robot. I guess Hollywood hates Asimov **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 22, 2005, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697 "2005-03-22T10:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sleeepy2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@sleeepy2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeepy2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/1 "2005-03-22T10:03:20Z")
I avoided all the press about this flick 'cause I was reading the book. I’m not a hardcore sci-fi fan, but I was _really_ impressed with the book. I was very skeptical about the movie based on the ads, but holy crap, what an insult to the book. They literally took the title, the three rules of robotics, and the name of one character, and made an entirely new movie. An entirely generic weak movie. An important point in the book was that robots are not allowed on Earth, yet in the movie, Earth was crawling with robots. I really don’t know what else to say, what a piece of crap. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/2 "2005-03-22T12:51:55Z")
I agree. It was a perfectly mediocre action flick without the Asimov tie-in, and I would have enoyed it fine. But using Asimov’s name to sell tickets was just low. It’s no wonder the movie was “inspired by” as opposed to “based on” _I, Robot_. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/3 "2005-03-22T13:02:26Z")
…Marking the 16th _I, Robot_ thread to say the exact same thing… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/4 "2005-03-22T13:35:31Z")
> [@sleeepy2](#): > > They literally took the title, the three rules of robotics, and the name of one character, and made an entirely new movie. . No. They made a movie, decided they wanted to name it “I, Robot,” then bought the rights and reshot a bit of dialog. There was no real Asimov connection. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/5 "2005-03-22T13:58:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > They made a movie, decided they wanted to name it “I, Robot,” then bought the rights and reshot a bit of dialog. There was no real Asimov connection. No. The original writer wrote an Asimov-influenced screenplay. FOX bought that, and later got the rights to Asimov’s stories. The two were then tailored together. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingDragonFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c89c15/32.png) [@FlyingDragonFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingDragonFan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/6 "2005-03-22T15:01:57Z")
> [@sleeepy2](#): > > They literally took the title, the three rules of robotics, and the name of one character, and made an entirely new movie. Little-bitty spoiler: There was also a hint of the scene from the short story titled (I think) 'Little Lost Robot," in which a modified robot hides in a group of visually similar but unmodified robots, and the humans have to cause it to reveal itself. Of course, in the book they didn’t start shooting the robots, but the idea was similar. ---
**Author:** ![sleeepy2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@sleeepy2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeepy2)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/7 "2005-03-22T17:43:05Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > …Marking the 16th _I, Robot_ thread to say the exact same thing… 😉 Ya search “I, Robot” on this site and ya get a bunch of Futurama hits. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/8 "2005-03-22T19:06:32Z")
It had little to do with the Asimov story, but it was a pretty good movie on its own merits. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finally-saw-i-robot-i-guess-hollywood-hates-asimov/295697/9 "2005-03-22T19:19:41Z")
I haven’t seen “I am not Robot” yet, but I just had an idea. Why doesn’t somebody who _likes_ Asimov’s book gather a bunch of film makers and have each do a short movie based on one of the stories and release it as a compilation? It could work.