[Trailer] I. Robot

[Wombat]

After seeing the trailer, all I can think is "UGH".

I have never been that much of an Azimov fan (I prefer character-based and character-driven stories, and Azimov was always "Ideas first, characterization a very distant second"), but at leas the I, Robot stories dealt with some intriguing ideas.

This just looks like yet another cheesy boom-em-up, action adventure film with a title that corresponds to a book, but nothing else.

May later previews and reviews prove me wrong...

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Saw the trailer, looks okay I guess, but other than the title I'm not sure what this movie has to do with the book. I was hoping for something better than another action flick.

I just finished I Robot, by an interesting coicidence, and I actually do see several paralels. Specificly with the first 'hyperdrive' story where they use modified first law robots. (on a side note, I REALLY hope they give the textbook three laws at some point in the movie, as "they can't hurt us" just sucks. ) A couple of things in particular that jumped out. The robot saying "I did not murder him", and the fact that the man was apparently killed by falling were quite evocative of Calvin's hypothetical of a robot with only the positive aspect of the first law (No robot may harm a human being) dropping a weight on a human, knowing that action would not itself harm him (because the robot could grab it back) but then choosing not to grab it back and 'letting' the human die due to the force of gravity. She talks about the robot superiority/inferiority complex and how the full law is needed to keep festering resentment from leading to such rule lawyering sabotage. The Robertson character shouting about the lack of a conspiracy backs up that there might be some tweaking of that nature. The robot model used in the movie is of the same generation (NS, though not the number) as the modified fist law robots.

While not shown in the trailer, the movie web site indicates that they definitly have all the major players in the robot stories - Robertson, Calvin, the murdered man is one of the senior researchers, etc. I think the feel is similar to some of the robot stories, though not neccassarily the chronology of I Robot itself - There are disparities in the many stories about the prevelance of humanoid robots on earth at different times and their acceptance level, but the feel is what I easily could have imagined for Bicentenial Man.

I'm also reminded of a short story in the Bicentenial Man anthology which plays with the need for robots to make value judgements in implementing the laws and deciding who is the "superior human" in cases where two humans are in danger or are giving contridictory orders. In that case, the robots charged to think in that fashion eventually decided that THEY were the best qualified humans.

yeah, its gonna be much more of an action movie than anything asimov would write, but that doesn't entirely bother me. If the backstory matches, they can resolve it with as many motercycle flips as they feel like. I'll see it, and thats more than I said when I saw that they were doing Bicentenial Man (but then I loved that one so much any disparities would have been traumatic. )

Kahuna Burger

 

[s/LaSH]

Hm. The trailer looks interesting, and it's at least paying lip service to the Laws. I get a good buzz from it (the trailer's nicely constructed), but it's too early to tell.