Being a big Asimov fan, I am admittedly, rather perturbed by the making of the new movie “I, Robot”. It seems to me to be just another robots-taking-over-the-world movie, and will lack the philosophy and complexity of the Asimov novels.
Why use the title “I, Robot” if the movie will have no real base in the way Asimov intended to portray robots, namely as dutiful to humans?
Does anyone have an inside scoop on the plot of this movie? Does anyone share my disappointment in the making of this movie or want to tell me why I should embrace it?
One of the screenwriters is the guy who gave us Batman & Robin and Lost in Space. Need I say more?
BTW, further discussion can be found here: I, Robot: Will not suck?.
Thanks, Jeff Olson. As you can tell, I’m new and still learning how to get around. Didn’t realize this had already been discussed.
All I can figure is that they hope to sucker in a few people whgo have heard of Asimov’s book, along with a few diehard fans who are hoping against hope that the movie will somehow resemble the book.
I’m annoyed at this trend – I don’t know of any other genre where moviemakers can get away with so severely changing the plot and even the mood and philosophy of the ostensible source material as in science fiction. We’ve had more than our share of grousing on this Board about the abomination that is starship Troopers, but it’s also true of just about every adaptation of the works of Phillip K. Dick. There are huge changes between his stories and the films Bl;aderunner, Total Recall (which seems to be based more on Robert Sheckley’s “The Status Civilization”), and Minority Report. (It may be true of Paycheck and the movie based on “Second Variety” – but I haven’t seen them yet.)
Older SF workd fare even worse. Any similarity between the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allen Poe (yes-- he wrote SF. And Verne acknowledged his debt to Poe) is probably coincidental, except for a very few well-made exceptions.
Quite welcome.
Not really your fault, you can’t search until you pay your dues ($14.95/year). Although, in this case the previous thread in question was only on the next page.
Welcome to the SDMB too, BTW. Enjoy your stay.
Nice username.
God bless Cal Worthington.
By the way, the title of this thread recalls the book Oi, Robot, published by the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It contained the results of various contests they ran, and the one referred to by the title was a contest where you had to add one letter to an SF title to get something new. A lot of people apparently submitted Hi, Robot, and the choice of Oi,Robot (using the Greek Oi, rather than the Yiddish Oy) must have stood out from the pack. I suspect that "Oy, Robot is gonna be a good comment on the film.
One refreshing exception being Confessions d’un Barjo, which is the most faithful adaptation of a PKD novel (Confessions of a Crap Artist) to date – if you can get past its being a French-language film. (And that it’s not a science fiction story.)
Holy cow, stately plump buck mulligan! How did you pick that up? I didn’t even remember the dealer’s name. I was just a kid and I remember hearing those commercials and always thinking, “is he saying ‘pussycow’?” I eventually came to the conclusion he was saying “Go see Cow”. Which still didn’t make sense. He was saying “Go see Cal”. But I thought it was just me. Gosh man, I am impressed.
I suspect that the movie may in fact suck, but I take comfort in the thought that some people who had not read the book might do so now, and then might read other books by Asimov. (The book is 19 on Amazon.com’s list of bestselling paperback fiction.)
AND…!!!
If they read Monkey Planet, Lord of the Flies, and watch Romero’s movies…
THEN THE FLYING ROBOT ZOMBIE MONKEY BUTLER REVOLUTION CAN BEGIN!!!
Barring friends dragging me, there’s no way I’ll see I, Robot. But if somebody made Oy, Robot, I’d be there in a heartbeat. The villain could be a robot Mel Brooks- it’d be great!
Ooh. I like that idea. And if the robots tried to break one of the laws they’d start schvitzing and short-cicuit themselves. ;j
Any Doper Asimov nerds seen it yet?
A Doper has seen in but I wouldn’t go calling Johnny Bravo a “nerd” if he’s anything his namesake.
I saw “Paycheck” and thought it was pretty good. However, I never read the story.
For starters there weren’t nearly as many motorcycle chase scenes.
Yeah, but VALIS kicked ass! Am I the only one who saw that?
That was a real movie, right?
Guys?