I, Robot Hits the Theaters 639
I, Robot: A Movie Review that's 3 Laws (and Spoiler) Safe!
A movie review by Rob Carr
Thanks to Eide's Entertainment I got to see I, Robot tonight. As someone who grew up with Isaac Asimov's robot stories, I've come to expect a mystery based on the implications of the 3 Laws of Robotics (or the lack of one or part of one of those laws), the "Frankenstein Complex," and Dr. Susan Calvin. I was afraid that the movie might miss out on this, especially since it's not a direct adaptation of the book, but "inspired" by the Good Doctor Asimov.
The movie met my expectations and more. Will Smith, whom we all know as an overconfident smart@$$ character from such movies as "Independence Day" and the two "Men in Black" movies, played a somewhat less confident and far less wisecracking character. It was a welcome change to see him less confident. Yeah, some of the stunts were a little absurd (am I the only one thinking of Gemini 8 at one point in the movie?) but that's to be expected from this type of movie. Bridget Moynahan was far too young to be the Susan Calvin I remember, but that's also to be expected in this type of movie. James Cromwell (whom you'll all remember from Star Trek: First Contact and Enterprise's "Broken Bow" episode as Dr. Zefram Cochrane) gave a flat performance - but that's actually a complement. I doubt anyone will recognize Wash from "Firefly" as an important robot in the story.
It's customary to comment on how well the CGI was done. I liked it, but then again, I'm not hypercritical on something like that. I did wonder a little bit about center of balance as some of the robots walked, but mostly I didn't think about it at all, which to me is the goal of CGI. I did wonder about children's fingers getting caught in some of the open gaps on the robot's bodies. Real world models would have a bit more covering, one would think. But that's being picky.
I have no memory of the soundtrack music. That in and of itself might say something. I'm a musician, but it just didn't register.
I figured out some clues, missed some others, and was surprised several times in the movie. There were a lot of clues - this isn't one of those mysteries where the answer is pulled out of the writer's a...out of thin air.
I'm not a complete continuity freak, so I can't tell if the movie violated any of Asimov's universe, but from what I can remember, it fits pretty well (if you ignore Dr. Calvin's age) and might even explain a few things.
Given that even some of the geeks in the audience were surprised to find out that there was a book of stories just like the movie, I think the movie will hopefully bring Asimov's stories to a new generation.
I liked "I, Robot. It's worth seeing, especially if you 've already seen Spider-Man 2 at least once. It's a pretty good (though not great) movie.
Having read Slashdot for a while, I know that there are folks out there who will despise this movie because it's not exactly like the book. Others will hate the movie or worship it, and loads of people are going to savage this review. You know what? That's fine with me. I had fun with this movie, had a nice date with my wife, and it didn't cost anything. I even had fun typing up this review. You're allowed to be different and to agree or disagree with me. Heck, that's a big chunk of what makes the world fun. Interestingly, it's even a small point in the movie. I'd say more, but that would be telling."
Robots and Empire (Score:3, Informative)
inconsistancy IS consistant (Score:5, Informative)
That makes it a perfect fit, since Asimov himself was not a complete continuity freak and was not concerned if one of his stories violated incidental issues in any of his previous stories. (He quoted Emerson "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds.".)
Re:butchering asimov (Score:5, Informative)
Some spoilers (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Inspired by Asimov? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sad to say this, but I have one word for you : cash. Nothing else than cold hard cash I am sure.
I'm somewhat saddened by the fact that a Asimov book is getting put on screen with Wil Smith as main actor, but hey, that pleases the masses. I will go see it and take it for what it is (good entertainment, nothing more)... Not that I have read the book, but I plan to do it in the near future.
There have been several semi-good or plain bad movies about some of my childhoold heroes... I can think of Scooby-Doo, Garfield, Daredevil, Hulk... But then, there were some pretty good adaptations of my childhood heroes (X-Men, Spiderman)... But I would love it if Hollywood could stop destroying my childhood memories by putting out crap movies like Scooby.
Re:3 Laws Unsafe. (Score:3, Informative)
Is it possible to create ethical AI based on the Three Laws? Is it ethical to create ethical AI based on the Three Laws? What other solutions have been proposed for the problem? These questions are explored in our Articles Section. The articles give perspective on why the field of AI ethics is crucial, and why Asimov's Laws are simply its beginning.
And here's a direct link right to the articles! [asimovlaws.com] Wow! Reading is fun!
This was NOT based on Asimov's stories (Score:5, Informative)
Non-spoiler excerpts:
"I, ROBOT started out as a spec script from then-unknown writer Jeff Vintar titled HARDWIRED. ... Proyas was signed and the project began to get a head of steam.
"Shortly thereafter, Fox acquired the rights to the I, ROBOT series (and eventually also Asimov's other classic, "The Foundation") and decided to take Vintar's script and incorporate many of the ideas from Asimov's book..."
"...Around late 2002/early 2003, Academy Award-winner Akiva Goldsman was brought in, along with INSOMNIA writer Hilary Seitz, for a polish, making the transition from HARDWIRED to I, ROBOT complete."
SPOILERS in the article!
The Bottom of Things [moviepoopshoot.com] by Michael Sampson
ugh. (Score:3, Informative)
For those who actually care about it for legit sci-fi content, this will prove a waste of your time. This is an action film. A Will Smith Action film (tm).
Will Smith comic relief is in place, and unfortunately served no good here (he discusses his Bullshit Detector going off? surely, Asimov wasn't aware of the device). The movie is essentially dumbed down for the same audience who though ID4 was a groundbreaking masterpiece.
Moreover, the omission of a cool summertime jam featuring the Fresh Prince himself only hurt the movie. Couldn't we have had a "Keep Ya Ass In Motion" or something?
Re:And in other news... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:A dissapointment (Score:3, Informative)
FWIW, there's no relationship between Harlan Ellison's script and the current I, Robot movie.
Re:I Robot as a computer game (Score:3, Informative)
unsafe laws was done, long ago...by JackWilliamson (Score:3, Informative)
Robot who can't let you be harmed by inaction...lessee, master, you can't use that circular saw, and driving is *dangerous*, and... so we'll just treat you like five-year-olds....
mark
Programming cultural bias (Score:4, Informative)
Asimov's phrase, "allow a human being to come to harm," if implemented fully, would turn humanity into a clutch of coddled infants, perpetually protected from harm, both physical and mental.
In evaluating what constitutes "mental harm", it seems to me that one must apply a cultural standard. For example, many American conservatives regard images of nudity as damaging to children, rather than vital for well-adjustment. In other cultures there is a great variety of words and images regarded as harmful which are innocuous in other contexts. To apply the First Law consummately, we must allow for acculturation, but there are sure to be serious conflicts (what protects one will inadvertantly harm enough by a different standard).
Let's consider the mechanics of "protection from harm." Asimov seemed to indicate a direct reaction to an immediate situation, but surely a protective impulse is bound to be frequently disastrous if it lacks such critical skills as foresight, an ability to extrapolate based on extremely subtle information, and the need for non-action. In fact, this very principle of direct reaction is itself culturally situated: direct communicators tend to seek unambiguous solutions to immediate "problems"; contrast with the Taoist principle of wu wei [sacred-texts.com].
He did touch on this (Score:3, Informative)
'The Humanoids' (Score:2, Informative)
'Suggested by Jack Williamson's book The Humanoids'
If you've read this book, you'll know exactly *why* the robots are able to harm humans and get away with it. Asimov touched on it in some of his later books with the Zeroeth Law, but Williamson's novel has the same robotic reasoning as this movie. (The other thing the movie has in common with The Humanoids, rather than Asimov's stories, is that the reasoning is a Very Bad Thing That Must Be Fought, whereas Asimov presented the Zeroeth Law at least partly as a good thing for humanity...)
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Informative)
This is the reason why IA came up with the three laws to begin with (Robots always subservient to Humans) and why the Robot/Empire/Foundation universe has no aliens at all (though a later short story in the Empire period had a single alien species, they were busy dying out, and the humans were clearly in ascendancy galaxy wide, and it took a kind human tricking the system to save that species and send them into exile to another galaxy). CAMPBELL! That was his name, CAMPBELL! I think. Not real sure, but it's was connected to at least one of those memes.
There were 4 laws actually (Score:1, Informative)
Zeroth law: "A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."
btw. Hari Seldons "psychohistory" was based on a human adaptation of the laws of robotics..
Re:A book in every subject classification in Dewey (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Isn't this what Asimov was writing about? (Score:5, Informative)
Will Smith was on Letterman a few days ago promoting the movie. I was amazed that he mentioned Asimov several times, actually seemed familiar with the stories, and could recite the Three Laws.
And the best story about the Three Laws is one Asimov used to tell: he went to see 2001 and as HAL began to go psycho, Asimov says he got more and more agitated, finally jumping up and declaring to all around that: "HAL is breaking First Law!" to which his companion (sometimes supposed to be Carl Sagan, but it's surely apocryphal)replied: "So strike him with lightning Isaac." But actually, HAL was indeed in the same kind of dilemma that many of Asimov's robots were (and I suspect in the movie), that what they see as the best thing for humanity as a whole requires them to do something that apparently breaks the "Laws" on a smaller scale.
Re:A dissapointment (Score:3, Informative)
Robots didn't do "bad things" in Asimov's books. Asimov created his "Three Laws of Robotics" as a plot device to avoid stories about what he called the "Frankenstein Complex", the fear of man's creations going out of control. An Asimov-type "positronic" brain would melt down at even the hint of breaking the First Law. See "Liar", where even emotional damage to humans is enough to destroy the brain, or The Naked Sun where a robot's indirect contribution to a murder (its limb used by a human as a weapon) is enough to cause noticable brain damage. (Sorry for the spoilers, but I had to illustrate my point.)
Asimov did not write about robots running amok. His stories were about subtle interactions between the Laws, or unusual circumstances which create conficts between the Laws, not about a Matrix-scale robot revolt.
I have not seen this movie, and will never see it.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
In the books, it was "US Robots and Mechanical Men" I think.
Also, is it possible that USR got *their* name from Asimov, and might even enjoy having their name used?
And finally...is USR even relevent these days?
See it before you bash it. SPOILERS (Score:2, Informative)
BIG SPOILERS AHEAD
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The only person the robots attack with an intent to kill or harm is Will Smith's character. All other humans are simply trying to be restrained while the robots take control of the government. The latest generation of robots are all controlled via their auto-update link to the robot mainframe, which has evolved the zeroith law and has deduced that based on human governments' tendencies to war and destruction of the environment, humanity would best be saved by being put udner robot control, and humans like Will Smith who try to prevent this can be eliminated since the zeroith law has precedence.
Now, I'm not sure if this entirely works given that:
-there is no specific threat to all of humanity, just a general tendency.
-Only the robot mainframe is complex enough to evolve the zeroith law, yet the other robots actively try and kill Will Smith and restrain other humans. Accepting orders from the mainframe which violate the first law doesn't seem to work since the individual robots do not have the zeroith law.
But certainly this is a better explanation then just "ignoring the three laws by saying 'robots can evolve!"
See the movie first.
USR bought the rights... (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC they did pay for the rights to use it. (I remember reading an interview where he was actually quite honoured that they wanted to use it)
Re:A dissapointment (Score:5, Informative)
*********SPOILERS*********** for anyone who hasn't read Asimov.
Take the Robot novels for example. Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, and Robots and Empire. In all of them except for Dawn, robots work towards the death or destruction of human beings. In Caves, a robot transported the weapon that served in a murder. In Nake sun, a robot with detachable limbs gave its arm to a woman with which she bludgered her husband. In Empire, a Solarian robot tries to kill a human being because her definition of such a being depends on his accent.
All the time, the laws are broken, warped, and shown to be less than perfect. That's not to say that they are useless, only that they have limits and problems.
And I'm not even getting into the matter of the consequences of societies including such robots and the evolution and survivability of such societies.
Re:A dissapointment (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't seen the movie but I have read Asimov's robot stories. For the most part, they're about situations in which robot's seem to be breaking the three laws. One of two things generally happen next. Either the robots suddenly become aware of what they are doing and proceed to lock up, or the situation is investigated and whatever they are doing is actually in line with the three laws (usually something like ignoring orders to save human lives in some unexpected way).
From the trailer to I, Robot, it looks nothing like the stories I've just described. But I did read an interview with Will Smith where he said something about the three laws not being violated by any robot in the story. In other words, Will Smith's character must be proven wrong at some point. This is much more like Asimov's robot stories than the trailer would have you believe. As I haven't seen it yet, I can't say whether or not they pulled it off.
_I,_Robot_ consists of so many short, mostly unrelated stories that it would be hard to put into a single movie. What I heard was that they took interesting aspects from a number of the stories and used that as the basis for their storyline.
Of course, I still don't think it'll be any good, but there's more hope than I had originally thought.
Re:After he died... (Score:3, Informative)
The 3 laws were DESIGNED to have loopholes (Score:3, Informative)
Just the concept of "human" lead to a great Campbell essay in Analog asking "What do you mean: Human"? And that was in the mid-60s,
It's too bad the film had to chuck the essence of Asimov's imagined world for the simplistic drivel they created.
But action sells tickets to teens who otherwise won't bother with something where you might actually have to think and feel. For me "A. I." was a very fine film that works much better than almost any other S.F. film I've seen, and I've seen a lot even if it did need to have a machine longing to be human.
i'd love to see Benford's "Galactic Center" novels formed into a movie - just for the millieue.
Re:Tik-Tok (Score:3, Informative)
It should be noted that Tik-Tok was the name of a robot who was a character in L. Frank Baum's "Oz" books. I believe that his first appearance was in "Ozma of Oz", published in 1907.
Re:A dissapointment STILL SPOILERISH (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, it's intimately tied in with the three laws, which the plot revolves around and show up prominantly before the title even crawls onto the screen.
Again, it may not be your cup of tea, but I think it was very true to the source material, and could have easily fit in as another story in I, Robot. And it was very entertaining.