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Asimov's "I, Robot" Gets Movie Treatment

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-see dept.

sdimbert writes "Isaac Asimov's classic collection of short stories about the role robots play in humankind's future is being made into a movie set to release on July 16, 2004, starring Wil Smith. The most notable part of the release build-up is the fact that the movie's trailer, most often seen before screenings of The Returnn of the King plays more like a product commercial (like Apple's flat-panel iMac ads) than a movie trailer. Suffice it to say that most of the audence that saw it with me had no idea they had just seen a movie trailer; they actually believed that someone was going to start selling a "fully automated domestic assistant" some time next year."

5 of 522 comments (clear)

  1. The Missing (Trailer) Link by GeekLife.com · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quicktime Link from Movie-List.com

  2. Re:movie title misleading? by Tango42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Caves of Steel was a novel, I, Robot was a series of short stories. They are both based on Positronic Robots, with the 3 laws of robotics, but they are different stories. Caves of Steel is set much futher in the future, for a start (in fact some of I, Robot is set in the past now, because Asimiov was too optimistic)

  3. That's not a link, dumbass, that's just a URL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a link. AC so I'm not a karma-whore.

  4. Re: You laugh... by A55M0NKEY · · Score: 5, Informative

    But I think battery life is one of the main reasons we don't see more robotic gizmos for sale. That vacuum cleaner disc that they sell on TV looks like it wouldn't hold more than a cup of dirt, and probably has less power than a dust buster. But if it were equivalent to my 12 amp dirt devil upright, then it would look interesting. Batteries are the stumbling block. Blind people already keep their houses 'just so' so that they can use robot-like algorithms to find stuff. ( i.e. the refrigerator is 10 steps to the left of the bedroom door, follow the wall right 3 1/2 steps turn left open a door, one step ahead is the kitchen table, feel it, the fridge is directly behind the secondof four chairs. Quadraplegics might keep their houses Asimo-friendly so that it would be able to fetch things out of the fridge for them or whatever. You could have a simple 'bot for kids that moves any item with a 'toy' rfid tag from the floor to a toybox.
    If there were decent batteries, one might see an Asimo type 'bot around the house or even a segway-style stair climbing vaccum cleaner with decent amps right now.

    --

    Eat at Joe's.

  5. It's really "The Caves of Steel" by ForemastJack · · Score: 5, Informative

    I browse at +3, so if someone's mentioned this, sorry. But it's clear from the IMDB entry that this is not an adaptation of Asimov's I, Robot, but rather Asimov's The Caves of Steel. Here's what IMDB says:

    In the year 2035 a techno-phobic cop investigates a crime that may have been perpetrated by a robot, which leads to a larger threat to humanity.

    That's good, as far as I'm concerned. Lije Bailey was one of Asimov's better characters, and it's the introduciton of a certain R. Daneel. But the imdb credits also list a "Dr. Susan Calvin" as a character -- she's from I, Robot...hm...

    Oh, hell, who knows what they doing. I'll wager that the end product bears no resemblence to anything Asimovian.

    On the other hand, Bridget Moynahan is in the movie, and there ain't nothing wrong with that.