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Will Smith as I, Robot
BuR4N writes "It looks like Asimov's sci-fi classic, I Robot, is going to be a movie. Shooting starts April next year staring Will Smith and directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City and The Crow).
Being a huge Asimov fan I have not made up my mind if this is a good or bad thing.
"
When a movie comes out based on a book, it stirs people to read the book. If the movie never came out, then those people would never read it.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
As a real Asimov fan (I even named my daughter Bliss after the character in Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth) I'm still surprised no one has taken the Foundation series and brought it to the screen. It seems such a natural movie script, with at least four or five great movies to pull out of the series.
Anyone know why it has never been proposed as a project by Hollywood?
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
from the article: The movie is a futuristic thriller in which a detective investigates a crime that might have been perpetrated by a robot, even though that seems an impossibility given those three prevailing rules.
Doesn't this sound more like Caves of Steel?
Interestingly, Caves of Steel has been made into a TV movie before
As HAL is killing the astronauts
Asimov: "They're violating the three laws of robotics!"
Clark: "So strike them down with lightning, Issac."
Kind of tells you something about the two of them, doesn't it?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Besides of having doubts Will being the man for the job, I am quite afraid they will even spoil the original story. I mean that happens in a lot of (American) movies...
Imagine the movie ending with a happy robot-man, robot-wife, two robot-kids (girl & boy), living in a big robot-house, surrounded by nice robot-flowers and a nive big and shiny robot-car... and a Will Smith song...
OUCH.
giel.y contains 2 shift/reduce conflicts
I dunno.
I think theres two options in making this film.
If its authentic to the book, its worth remembering that the book have a sense of humor. Plus with stuff like "positronic brains" and computers the size of buildings , I suspect a tounge will need to be put in the cheek.
*OR* we can completely shuffle the thing and kill positronics etc, and have a dead serious.... and perhaps boring.... film.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Basically Fox bought the rights, transplanted the name onto an existing script and then added a few elements from the book to avoid rejection. Either that or the script was a complete rip-off of the book anyway that they just brought in a few elements that were missing....
Only time and release schedules will tell.
Patriotism is the opium of the masses
Back in 1989, when Michael Keaton was cast for Tim Burton's Batman? And after the franchise has run its course, Keaton is arguably the best of the "Dark Knight" movie versions.
Will Smith has done great drama like "Six Degrees of Separation" (and tried again in "The Legend of Bagger Vance"), so I recognize the potential.
Will Smith will not make or break the movie on his own. Alex Proyas gives me high hopes, and it's still up in the air who will co-star (Joanne Woodward was envisioned when Ellison wrote his version of the screenplay).
Also:
The project originated as "Hardwired," a futuristic script by Jeff Vintar that was amalgamated with elements of "I, Robot" when Fox bought rights to Asimov's landmark book. Subsequent drafts of the script have been done by Hillary Seitz ("Insomnia") and Oscar-winning "A Beautiful Mind" scribe Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the last draft and is expected to be a prevailing presence on the picture.
This script has much parentage, and whether it meshes together as something worthwhile is still a big question.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
One film that you should see before you make any judgements about Will Smith's range: Six Degrees of Seperation. He was absolutely amazing in it, and definitely not comic relief.
I'm not so certain. Smith can act in serious roles, it's just that he's more well known for his comedic characters. My initial thought was Will Smith was a bad choice until I hit IMDB to satisfy the voice in my head that said he's never done a serious role well. Where the Day Takes You was a strong non-comedy role of Smith's. Great friggin movie. And though I didn't like Ali much he did a credible job of portraying one of the most well-known sports figures in history.
-Amoeba
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
Bicentenial Man, at first, I had thought the movie would be another Robin Williams acting like a crazy entertainer, ala Rainbow Rudolph (Death to Smootchy) or Mork.
However, he provided, in my opinion, one of his best performances ever. Whenever I get the chance to see that film, I take it. The story of his character evolving into something much more then what he was before is unbelievably heart-warming.
It shows that to be human is far more then simply being born as a human. It is a collection of thoughts, emotions and self-determination.
I have to rank Bicentenial Man up there as one of the greatest of Hollywood films. Which is typically the case for true cerebral/philosophical films about humanity.
I am unable to recomend this film enough. If you watched Star Trek:TNG and liked the character of Data, then you will seriously enjoy this film. If you despised Data (and Star Trek in general) avoid this film as it covers humanity and the trappings of humanity, there are no crazy action sequences.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
First Law:
A robot may not get jiggy with a human being, or, through getting jiggy with it, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law:
A robot must get jiggy with it under orders given it by human beings, except where getting jiggy with it would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law:
A robot must protect its getting jiggy with it as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I think being a huge Asimov fan is always a good thing. Keep up the good work, chap!
Why not Jodie Foster? She did an excellent job in Contact, and this is a similar kind of role.
"Being a huge Asimov fan I have not made up my mind if this is a good or bad thing."
FFS people who say stuff like this piss me off... How can it possibly be a bad thing if somebody makes the worst possible movie about an aasimov story.... is the Judge Dredd comic any worse because they let stallone do that *thing*? Do the original batman movie or comics suck now because of the torture that was batman forever? Is the postman suddenly a crappy book? I'm always happy when there's a sequel or a book -> film adaptation of something I like, because if it sucks like dredd, I'm no worse off (except my friends wanted to kill for saying we should see it)... but if it rules like LOTR it only heightens my enjoyment of an already great story and universe.
</rant>
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I, Robot is a chronical of the history of a ficticious company, U.S. Robotics and Mechanical Men, that builds robots! (duh).
Having re-read this book just recently I was interested in scoping out how this book would fit into a "Will Smith" movie script.
First Option:The movie is an adaptation of the entire book as a whole. Doubtful. Its a bunch of short stories tied together in the style of "Interview With a Vampire". i.e. a reporter chronicling the history of US Robitcs & MM by interviewing the company's pricipals (most notable the robot-psycologist Susan Calvin).
So, an adaptation of the whole book would leave only one possible "headliner" role for Will Smith, the reporter. But the reporter doesn't *do* anything. So the first option is definitely out.
Second Option:Adapt one or more of the stories in the book to the screen. This is more plausible. Its hard to condense novels into scripts, but its much easier to do this with "short stories". King's "The Green Mile" is an excellent example.
So, which stories would you pick that would give Will Smith the key role and exposure needed?
"Robbie" - the first story in the book is about a robot used as a domestic nanny that becomes the best friend of the owner's daughter. This is obviously the story that was the basis for Bicentennial Man, so its out.
"Runnaround", "Reason", and "Catch That Rabbit" are stories focused on Gregory Powel and Michael Donovan, the robot troubleshooters for US Robotics & MM. These stories are excellent reads and are very good illustrations of the paradoxes and problems that might arise as the robots go about thier existence while adhering the to Robot Laws. But they are, in my opinion too cerebral for the typical Will Smith moviegoer. (read - they would be too boring).
The two stories I believe would work are "Evidence" and "The Evitable Conflict" which present the possibility of a robot with a human appearance. Lots of conflict in the premise that a robot that is physically indistinguishable from a human might rise to a position of power. I thin that would make a good film.
Whether Will Smith would play the robot or be the guy trying to "out" him, it probably doesn't matter. I prefer the former though.
Of course, one they put in the car(flying saucer?) chases and the snappy one liners, it won't really matter which way they go.....
Because if you're the kind of person who likes to share your favorite things with friends, and Hollywood makes an extremely bad movie out of one of your favorite books, chances are the people you know who haven't read the book are going to laugh and scoff when you mention one of your favorite things. Not worth weeping tears of blood over, but disappointing nonetheless.
That, and for some people, movies tend to imprint images on their imaginations that become somehow indelible. For example, Judge Dredd might be terrific, but I find it impossible to even think the words "Judge Dredd" without envisioning Stallone bellowing "I AM DA LAW!"
If they had cast Stallone as Aragorn in the LOTR movie, and I had seen him bellow "YO, ELENDIL!" as he fights some Orcs -- yes, I might very well think of that every time I read Fellowship again. And that would be bad.