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I, Robot Trailer Available
thehomeland writes "A new 'I, Robot' movie is coming out based on the Isaac Asimov book series, starring Will Smith. I saw a teaser at the theatre back at the LOTR:ROTK showing, but it looked so much like a commercial I didn't even realize it was a trailer until I saw a logo that said '3 Laws Safe'. Now there's a regular trailer as well as a nice featurette for better details."
When people first heard the WotW broadcast, they thought it was a real Martian invasion. There was widespread panic (mainly I think because everyone trusted what they heard on the radio, thankfully we're all far more cynical now), probably because of stunts like that, but a lot can be put down to marketing spin as well I suppose.
:-)) Anyone know of a way to query google for that sort of thing ?
It's interesting that they've chosen to take the same sort of approach on the website for "I Robot" though - they've really tried to make it look as though a personal robot (NS-5) exists and will be used for the film... Perhaps it ought to drive a car around if so...
I'd really like to know what the search-count is on google for 'NS-5' or 'Android Mechanics' now that this has hit Slashdot
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I remember playing this game bak in '84. From the trailer it seems that the "Fresh prince of Belaire" will be playing the part of the little guy jumping around in a crudly rendered, polygon filled world, shooting pixels at a massive eye! Fun for all the family!!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
by Allen Parsons Project?
What?
Anyone know if Wil Weaton got the part?
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
They made a friggin' Will Smith Action Movie.
Why do they even bother buying the rights to something they couldn't really care less about, artistically?
Feels more like MiB3 than the book I read. Looks like it could be good but at the moment I wish that they would not call it I Robot...
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
I just watched the featurette, the trailed and looked through the web site. While the 3 laws of robotics are mentioned plenty of times and of course the movie is named after an Asimov story nowhere do they give credit to Isaac Asimov. The man may be dead but I'm dissappointed for him.
That's the Windows XP of cyborg operating systems. Too much flash and too much crash.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/i_robot/
Did we just slashdot yahoo? The movie doesn't work.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
someone sent us up the crapflood!
irobot_m480.mov.torrent
It's MIB, Independence Day and Buck Rodgers all rolled up and smoked about half way down so you get a burnt taste in your mouth watching.
I'll wait for it on HBO.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
Asimov's "I, Robot" book was a collection of short stories. Does anyone know which story the movie is based on?
If I remember correctly, the movie "Millenium Man" was based on the story "Robbie", also from "I, Robot".
I, Robot Trailer Was Available
It is too bad that this is neither a remake of the old Outer Limits episode, nor Harlan Ellison's screenplay.
Sigh this sucks, they are making all these sci fi movies too late. The concepts in them aren't really fantastic anymore they are just not here yet.
I hope they make some of the really great ones while there is still time such as Ender's Game and Ringworld
Great book, but I can already see that it will be a horrible movie. From the looks of it, the robots just go crazy and kill people. In the book, there were actually excuses for the strange behaviors of the robots; conflicts between the 3 laws. However, I doubt that the movie will be any deeper than a kiddie pool.
I see another 20 minutes for my 100k download... I haven't had a USR since 300 baud
They've added a companion character talking dog robot called Pooch,I. I know it is hard to believe, but I think this is going to be even better than the epic Planet of the Apes remake.
Man makes machine, machine works for man. Machine commits murder, man trys to shut machines down. Machines go to war.
I guess it sounds like 50% of sci-fi storys out there...
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
How about:
I, Robot vs. I, Rapper
but reguardless. He's now Mr. Jada Pinkett-Smith. Yeah, we've all seen that guy. Sitting on the chair by the post, holding his wifes purse while she looks at shoes. His balls are in there alright, but he's so well trained, he just leaves them where she put them.
I will pre-review this movie:
It's occasionally visually interesting, but that's not enough. The story telling is clumsy, the acting is unfortunately not quite forgettable. It's one of those movies that's not only knows it's a movie, but is impressed by itself, and undeservedly so. 1 1/2 stars.
Since there aren't any big breasted actresses in it, this will likely be inline with Ebert's review baring any pointless nudity.
I really would like to see the Foundation trillogy to be make into a movie. I'm sure it would beat Lord of the Rings (really! :P
But seriously, the Foundation books are some of the best stories (or possible futures?) ever writen.
The most distressing thing I see from this trailer is the fact that they have in one of their text snippets "Rules are made to be broken" or some equally stupid garbage. One of the things Asimov made perfectly clear in all his writings was the fact that whatever else the roboticists did they NEVER EVER EVER broke the 3 laws. It really pisses me off that there marketing automatons have the nerve to include the phrase "as suggested by the writings of Issac Asimov". He suggested no such thing!
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
It's Isaac Asimov, spinning in his grave.
I can't believe these people! They're ruining the images from the beautiful Robot series of books! I admit the movie looks kinda cool, but why spoil the "I, Robot" name? This sucks... I'm very disappointed.
I wasn't aware France and Germany had such, er, "gentleman's agreements." Saudi Arabia, as we all know, does just that.
Can you link to more info?
.. until I read that Will Smith was cast in it. Ugh.
This might sound trollish (and it isn't), but Will Smith isn't exactly a prestigious actor and not exactly a name that you attribute *GOOD* movies with.
Then again, Keanu Reeves was in the same boat (still is) and look at how good the Matrix was, so who knows. It could be a good casting move, but I'm certainly not counting on it.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
...will guarantee the safety of your 10 bucks and the 2 hours of your life that you will never get back.
Last night we had the Mini-Coop Robot that turned out to be an advertising stunt, now we have this thing pretending to be a real robot!
Obligatory,
Frink: No, the robot is programmed to serve humans, following Asimov's 3 Laws of Robots, Asimov, with the so many books, not so many good....
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
OK, would you 5 or 6 guys pretending to be millions of Slashdot readers get off the damn site? I'd like too see this.
Rob?
How? There was ScFi before the matrix and there'll be ScFi after
In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey --Beck
Sadly, it may already be too late. Now that the Ender's Shadow books are out, Card seems to be insisting that any Ender's Game movie shoehorn elements from that book in as well. So the Ender's Game that we all know and love will probably never happen. :(
Best line from the featurette--"...lots of U.S. Robotics technology starts to malfunction around me..."
Reminds me of my early days online.
...just wait for "Big Will's" theme song.
It looks like almost every Will Smith movie ever produced: bloated, shrill and pointless. I know expecting a philosophical look at the issues is a bit too much to expect from Hollywood but this seemed like Bad Boys crossed with Independence Day, probably how it was pitched to the suits.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
it's not possible to post this many comments, this fast.
Matrix-inspired, huh? So it's loud, boring, and pretentious crap?
I figured it would suck, but I didn't for one moment think it would suck that much!
Please excuse me, I'm off to find someone to poke my eyes out and glue my ears shut before this trailer hits cinemas and TV screens in my part of the world...
(And yes, I "got" the Matrix philosophy. It's just that it was juvenile, badly presented, and pointless. Apart from the Ewok dance scene in the middle one...)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Weren't they bought out by 3com?
If it sucks as much of the movie version of the positronic man, it will be much worse than the matrix...and the positionic man was a great book, especially after the refererrences to it in earlier asimov works.
New news forum for Canadians - CanadaSpeaks
Maybe they could hook him up to a generator so he could supply electricity.
I think he would approve.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Available here
Finally I have a way to transport My, Robot
What?
... all I want to know is...
What will the next pair of "super-cool" sunglasses look like, and what will the requisite rap song sound like?
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
here. 3 Sizes!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
As a veteran message board troll, I salute you and the other members of GNAA!
I just got out my Matrix Revolutions soundtrack CD, and though I only viewed the I, Robot trailer once...track 16, Juno Reactor vs. Don Davis - Navras sure sounds like the music heard in the trailer...
Ok, I'll check again in the trailer...the relevant part in the trailer starts right at the city shot after Will Smith says "when people were killed by other people." Relevant part in song on soundtrack starts at about 16 seconds in.
Anyone agree? Anyone know if both the trailer and soundtrack got that section from a mutual source, or if the trailer just got it from the soundtrack?
I have read I, Robot a few times (the most recent was several years ago), and I cannot recall any type of story like this. It seems to me that the screenplay is not based on any Asimov story as much as it uses his 3 Laws of Robotics as a plot device. So if you were thinking it was anything like the stories in I, Robot, this is not it. In the book, robots slowly progress from primitive models to one that is virtually indistinguishable from humans and becomes a powerful politician. That doesn't look to be happening in the movie (then again, we probably could have figured that out when Will Smith signed on).
I ended up with Al Gore...
It's good to know that our efforts are appreciated.
....Asimov should be read not watched. His works, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series, Frank Herbert's Dune, Heinlein's books and some others (those were from the top of my head) will NEVER get a decent presentation on the big screen. Too much "complicated phrases" and reflexions/descriptions should be polished to the liking of the mass public.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
'I, Robot' was the first *adult* (ie, no pictures in it) book I ever read as a kid, at the age of maybe 4 or 5. I still have the exact copy of the book even now. I remember being very disappointed when I found out that robots didn't really exist.
And now it looks as though Asimov is going to be fucked over by Hollywood. For Christ's sake, they had Akiva fucking Goldsman writing the script! The man who wrote 'Batman & Robin', 'Lost In Space' and a whole pile of other shit. Asimov can still write better than Goldsman, and he's *dead*. This fucktard shouldn't be writing v1agra spam, never mind major motion pictures.
In Asimov's stories, the whole point of the Three Laws was that they were never actually broken! Human error led to situations where robots were caught in conflict between their explicit orders and the Laws, or they *seemed* to be breaking one Law - but only to obey another. However, in the trailer we see crazed robots chasing and attacking humans left, right and centre. Somehow I don't think we're going to get Powell and Donovan puzzling out what's gone wrong, step by step.
Even the trailer is selling it as Bad Boys 3: Cybercops, what with Smith doing all his Fresh Prince schtick. I actually *like* Will Smith, but I don't want him doing wacky bullshit in an Isaac Asimov adaptation!
And we even get an emotional robot right there in the trailer. Again, Asimov's robots may have *seemed* to have emotional responses in the stories, but it was invariably due to orders-vs-Laws conflicts that made them act oddly, or projection on the part of the humans interacting with them. Some of the robots in his stories (especially Daneel Olivaw) may have had personalities, but they were still *machines*, and behaved as such.
Shit, and I had some hopes for this film - before I saw the trailer - too. It might even make money - "Will Smith vs killer robots? Keeeewl!" - but it's probably going to be even more insulting to Asimov than 'Paycheck' was to PKD.
You must think in Russian.
I saw the trailer for I, Robot the LoTR as well. The theater was packed, and when they flashed the "3 Laws Safe", I busted out laughing because of the context that it was shown (as if it was a commercial). I honestly wonder how many of the people in the theater even knew what "3 Laws Safe" would mean.
definately this runs OS X.
An actress and possible nucular physicist, says in the preview, "through all my knowledge and all my experience (wow, that's broad and deep), there's absolutely no way a robot could harm a human being".
Where is that sig about why we should trust what actors say when I need it.
I'll probably go see this movie, though.
I thought everybody was bitching about having Realplayer? It doesn't play .mov files does it?
Jonathanjk.com
Rumors were that this was a non-Asimov movie that was floating around, and someone just happened to look at the script, go "hey, that's kind of like isaac asimov!", option the script and asimov, and have someone rewrite the script to be set in Asimov's continuity.
"I, Robot" reminds me of a Chris Cunningham video clip that he did for Bjork.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
Are you implying Asimov's later stories possessed character depth??
Asimov laid out an interesting, thought provoking set of short stories where robots malfunctioned not because of damage or some inexplicable or poorly thought out reason, but because the designers were unable to forsee all possible situations where their design would be challenged.
Asimov's stories were probably the original Man vs. Machine stories that did not resort to sensless conflict points as do The Matrix and the Terminator. Other great authors adapted his concept of reasoned conflict between Man and Machine, such as Clark with 2001. From this trailer, it appears they have perverted this into the standard antics of: "Machines gone insane for no real reason, but it's really cool to have them start killing people!". What a fucking waste.
To bad fucking Hollywood has a boner for fucking up good stories by making action films out of them.
Disgusted,
MilesTeg
Anyway, I for one think the movie will be entertaining and make money. It won't do Asimov justice and it'll make Ellison look good. On the bright side, Harlan will have another excuse to hate Hollywood. Maybe the cranky old man will start rant or something. :) That might be better than the movie.
I know I'm going to get slammed for this...
I for one welcome our new robot overlords!
Look, I've never used a slashdotism before! Cut me a little slack.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I wonder if they could have selected a less appropriate and more obnoxious person for the part? Maybe Chris Rock would have been even worse?
For those that care, the car Will drives in the movie is an Audi designed concept specifically for the movie. Kinda cool, I noticed they got a 4 ring steering wheel shot in the trailer and a quick look at the car towards the end..._ news/a rticle_532.shtml
Article contains more info
http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/audi
To make a long story short I was sleeping away peacefully in mp hotel on the 13th floor on the first night of live fire shooting. I tell you, the bedsheets almost didn't survive. When those guns started going off, with the reflective effect of the surrounding buildings, I thought the whole building was coming down on my head.
It was worth it. I have never had such a mind blowing and terrifying rush as contemplating jumping out of a window while half asleep.
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
From the trailers, this movie seems to have nothing to do with I, Robot the book, except for the three laws, and the name.
This movie seems to go against stories in that Robots cannot attack humans as seen in the trailer. I bet this movie will be as crappy as that movie adaptation of "The Bicentennial Man".
I'm not sure wheter Asimov's stories will make for good films, as they employ a lot of dialog, and intellectual stuff and are definately not action orientated.
A better book to choose for adaptation would have been any of the Eliah Baley series, or the Foundation series, and perhaps they could actually do a faithful reproduction of Asimov's stories.
Man that featurette doesn't scale well...
Whomever decided to make it a shockwave movie and have it automatically scale to full-screen should be relinquished of any responsibility or decision-making opportunity.
For instance they tweaked Asimov's three laws a bit to make them more accessible and relevant to modern moviegoers, they are now:
Law 1: A robot must not talk about injuring human beings in Fight Club.
Law 2: A robot must not talk about injuring Robots in Fight Club.
Law 3: A robot must protect itself from injury using a minigun and rocket launchers.
Generally speaking, It makes no damn diffrence to me what color skin characters in a book have. Specificly it's often impossible to determine the geographical roots of a person unless it's specificly stated, or geography has encouraged specific traits to become dominate. I'm one of those people who didn't bother to take note in the film starship troopers one of the lead characters was not of latino decent dispite being form Buenos Aires, it's been so long since I read the book that I wouldn't remember, nor am I likely to care.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I, Robot Trailer follows the struggle of a hard-drinkin', hard-lovin' trailer home.
...I had to click the torrent link on the page that showed up (redirect protection?), but 170k/s on BitTorrent is nice .
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There are so many ups and downs with this film. Based on Asimov material? That's defintiely a good thing. Screenplay cowritten by one of the more pathetic writers in Hollywood - definite downside. Directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City) - that's all positive. Starring Will Smith? Enough said.
I watched the trailer, and well, it could still go either way very easily.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
On the one hand, this movie has Will Smith in it. That definitely makes the film look unattractive, considering Will less-than-stellar work.
On the other hand, we've got Alex Proyas as the director, who did both Dark City and The Crow. Both were very good films, and I think we should give this film a chance to turn out just as well.
Of course, I knew lots of people who said, "You know the scene where Neo shoots everything? That was the best part!" Apparently the parts of the movie I enjoyed went right by them. Maybe I, Robot will be the same way. Those looking for an action movie will get that, and those of us wanting action and something thought-provoking to talk about afterwards will get our way, too.
Here's hoping. :-)
Start a protest: Support Asimov, don't watch I, Robot. Let Hollywood know not to screw with scifi!
I agree, I was watching the trailer watching them interegate the robot thinking, "see, he didn't do it, they're just making it seem that way." But the last 5 seconds or so . . . words cannot explain what a terrible thing they have done.
i didnt know asimov was so cheezy ;)
it's too bad I already posted, this is good.
Yes, Will Smith starring in a hollywood remake of an Isaac Asimov series.
Imagine hearing this prediction back in the days of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Back then I'd have sooner believed that the LOTR movies would someday made, and made very well by the same guy who made the campy horror comedy Bad Taste.
Oh wait....
nevermind.
January 7, 2004
See also any *BSD article not posted to the front page. I do have to agree with you that this article has a really low s/n ratio.
I have never read I, Robot... maybe I will so it won't be ruined. But I have to say the few Asimov things I have read were terribly dated. It can be a problem in fiction, and especially sci fi, and I think asimov's work has mostly succombed to time.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/i_robot/.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Anti-slash Absoluetely DOES NOT Support Automated Crapfloods
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The anti-slash admins don't want to start a fight with GNAA, and we support GNAA to the extent that we support all groups that decrease the signal-to-noise ratio on slashdot. But *please*, do not get anti-slash caught up in this kind of behavior.
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http://forums.anti-slash.org/viewtopic.php?t=37
That's because it's not I-Robot. They chose to use a script called "hardwired" instead of the script written by Harlan Ellison. The decision to name it 'I, Robot' was made by some fox execs after the fact.
There is no doubt that this is nothing more than Men In Black and Independence Day. Will smith is not a sci-fi actor and he shouldn't be. He turned sci-fi into a black commedy children's movie. I'm just glad that he declined the role of Neo in The Matrix, as he was originally casted to do.
From the introduction to Asimov's "The Complete Robot" (a compilation of all of his robot stories):
"In late 1938 two such stories [that did not treat robots as evil] hit the stands that particularly impressed me. One was a short story by Eando Binder entitled "I, Robot" about a saintly robot named Adam Link"
Asimov coined the term "robotics" to describe the science of robots, then invented the three laws of robotics.
This is what Asimov says about The Complete Robot:
"'The Complete Robot' (1982). This is a collection of thirty-one robot short stories published between 1940 and 1976 and includes every story in my earlier collection, 'I, Robot' (1950)"
Conclusions:
(1) The original short story "I, Robot" was not written by Asimov. Asimov later put the *name* on a collection of his short stories.
(2) If you want a compilation of his robot stories, do not get "I, Robot", but get "The Complete Robot" - it is a superset.
FYI, Asimov did use "protecting humanity" to trump the 3 laws. He called it the 0th (zeroth) law. However, R. Daneel didn't discover it until thousands of years after those original stories were set, so it shouldn't be there.
no comment on the obvious suckiness of this movie.
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I guess it's even worse than Matrix.
It features Will fucking Smith! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
I mean seriously. It's really getting in my nerves how Hollywood is incapable of making a realistic science fiction movie.
The most obvious example in that trailer is when Wil Smith has his ID scanned by a blue "laser". I mean it looks so fake and CG. The robots do not move realistically, an they look CG, and everyhting about them, and the environment which they are in is too perfect. Too clean, too perfectly lit so the light falls just-so on each character so they look pretty.
It really ruins the movie and makes to so I cannot suspend my disbelief. Aliens did a much better job of protraying a realistic future environment which was dirty and realistically lit.
Add to this that the science in most Hollywood science fiction movies is laughably bad, and it makes these films not worth watching more than once. 2010 for example did an EXCELLENT job being realistic. The design of the space capsules, all the computers... Very authentic. very beleiveable. Mission to Mars on the other hand, and Red Planet were both pathetic, with environments that were too clean, a shiny chrome CG robot that never got dirty even though it was running around on sand, and an alien that looked so low budget CG that it totally ruined the end of one of the movies for me because of it's crappiness. A puppet would have worked very well in that case and looked much better.
Watching this extremely formulaic promo makes me think about that Doctor Who episode where there was a murder mystery involving a bunch of people stuck on a mining vessel with a bunch of servant robots. One of the better episodes, even though the "robots" were just actors wearing masks and shiny outfits. Leela was nice to look at, but she stayed in character. Tom Baker's Doctor was the coolest of the Doctors but he was a far cry from the same old protagonist that's played repeatedly by Will Smith or Chris Tucker or Eddie Murphy or Sylvester Stallone or Starsky and Hutch or oy vey you get the picture. The Doctor was a thinker and a free-thinker at that. Doctor Who wasn't pure science fiction (just looking at this preview, you can tell how rare it is to see a "pure science fiction" film these days), but they came a lot closer to it in their 20 year run than the producers of this movie will. Isaac Asimov wrote the book? His fiction didn't interested me much as Arthur C. Clarke's, but if they could bring him back to life, he'd probably be annoyed with what they've done to this film.
Even the Lord of the Rings had some cheesy script additions, but the trilogy that it was based on was so full of material that P. Jackson managed to sift it all into an engaging series of movies instead of selling three more 90 minute segments of computer generated gimmickry and "starsky and hutch" banality. Something tells me another watchable science fiction/fantasy film is a long way off.
Well for some reason I can seem to be able to view the trailer. I was at the site a year ago and other than not being ableto see the trailer I don't see much there that has changed.
...flash web sites make my laptop's fan spin at a 100%.
Justs sucks.
Asimov must be rolling in his grave. This looks about as far away from his writings regarding robots one could imagine. His robots never revolted or broke their programming. In the end they became the guardians of humanity.
'I, Robot' was the first *adult* (ie, no pictures in it) book I ever read as a kid
Most *adult* books usually have plenty of pictures ...
How would we notice? All the inertia generated by rotational corpses nowadays is canceling out.
I daresay that it's possible we could use the gravitational vortex being generated by Jefferson's corpse as a time travel device
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
OK, this has NOTHING to do with the novel or Asimov's ideas. But mightn't this get more people interested in the book 'I,Robot', and thus in Asimov's work?
Might get a few new sf fans out of this, you never know...
I would never have guessed U.S. Robotics would be go from making modems to killer robots.
Seriously, did they get permision to use this name in the movie?
This is not interesting, dumb moderators. The guy showed us a great insight. I wish there was +7, Insightful. Then again, I'm just an AC... :-/
There are a number of comments here which suggest that Asimov would be spinning in his grave if he saw this movie...
Unless these people have worked on the movie and read the screenplay I do not understand how they can make that judgement right now. Sure, there are a few bits in the trailer that show some kind of fight going on involving robots, but that's not entirely inconsistent with the three laws. Many of Asimov's robot stories were concerned with situations where the actions of a robot seemed to break the laws of robotics and sometimes people did get hurt.
All we really have right now is a trailer and a brief interview-type bit with Will Smith and the director. From that we can see in a few very brief clips that some robots run amok, and we hear from Will Smith that some robots malfunction. From what I remember reading Asimov this is all still fairly consistent.
What all the naysayers need to bear in mind right now is that all of the footage we've been shown has been put together by marketing people. Most if not all of them will have no idea about the original material and will not have read Asimov. All they have to go on is the footage they've got of the movie. The writer and director rarely have much imput into what goes into this stuff.
I'm not saying that this movie is going to be consistent with Asimov. What I'm saying is that right now it's too early to tell for sure. We'll see in July.
>> Asimov can still write better than Goldsman, and he's *dead*.
I would just find this funny -- and it's first class material, congrats -- but I saw "Lost in Space", unfortunately.
I guess they should hire writers that knew and loved the original series, at the bare minimum. Man, that was one lousy remake. Even Oldman, essentially a good actor and despite his good work, was acting another role -- not Dr. Smith.
Keep this pace, Hollywood, 'cause Bollywood needs all the help it can get. Congratulations for being stupid.
In his own words:
"Robotics has become a sufficiently well developed technology to warrant articles and books on its history and I have watched this in amazement, and in some disbelief, because I invented it.
No, not the technology; the word."
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
Great book ...
I was spellbound by it's concepts and delivery.
This would make a most excellent movie!
I think Phillip K Dick has him beat by at least a couple thousand RPM.
The title of the movie isn't "I, Robot"; it's "iRobot", the new personal anthropomorphic assistant from Apple.
Asimov has absolutely nothing to do with this movie. Pure coincidence.
A new 'I, Robot' movie is coming out based on the Isaac Asimov book series, *yay! revel! rejoice!* ... dot dot dot ... ...starring Will Smith. *string of obscenities! tears of sorrow! gnashing of teeth!*
What are these people thinking?! I hope to god that he doesn't go through the film with quipish, off-the-cuff stupidity. A good choice for main actor would be someone like Alec Baldwin, I think. FUCK, I'd take Ben Affleck (that no-tallent dickweed son-of-a-bitch) over Will Smith.
Will Smith's career was at it's pinacle of quality before he got into film - and then it started to plummet.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Marketing Executive: "Oh come on, Terminator 3 was a great movie. I, Robot was a great book. If we merge the two, we will have something twice as great!"
Public: "That's what you said about merging Aliens and Beverly Hills Cop. Did Pluto Nash even have a script?"
Marketing Executive: "Everyone loves the Coz!"
Public: "You're thinking about Leonard Part 6."
Marketing Executive: "Exactly. How did it get to Part 6 if it wasn't great?"
Public: [sigh]
The ______ Agenda
I seriously wonder if I even want to see this.
He he.
Quack, quack.
The scene in the trailer with all of the robots attacking people makes no sense. My guess is that the writers have never read any of Asimov's robot books at all. I'll usually see a movie based on a book I like no matter how bad it looks just to get someone else's interpretation of the story. This looks more like pure fabrication than interpretation.
I just saw the trialer and its a brainless action movie with Wil Smith giving one-liners at every opportunity.
No mystery, no suspense, just lots of fighting robots. This doesnt even look like its worth a DVD rental.
On the bright side I just saw Robot Stories and its an excellent indie flick involving four stories about robots, some funny some very dramatic. Highly recommended. The last vignette "Clay" is worth the price of admission.
Hollywood really has nothing to offer me anymore it seems.
If you read the 2nd Law of robotics as per the flash file it actually reads the 2nd law should not "confilct" with the first one. No wonder robots are off killing people. Damn human error.
EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
Asimov's Laws effectively ended the 'Frankenstein' phase of robot stories in written SF. Good SF at least takes a shot at taking into account the sociopolitical aspects of technology. It's obvious that we will never be legally allowed to build AI that controls potentially lethal force without some protection against it being used against us. [Exceptions will of course be made for DoD robots, but they will no doubt have their own safeguards.] Once Asimov's Laws were in print, SF authors could never get away with selling books about robots going amok and turning on their human masters. Everyone knew that the government would demand the Three Laws or a close analogue be installed in every robot
Ah, well. Movies tend not to be as intellectually evolved as books, so we're treated to the Terminator series, and now the greatest spectacle of script syncretism since The Tower and The Glass Inferno movie adaptations were forged into The Towering Inferno. I'll probably contribute to the insanity by paying to watch this bastard, then look forward to seeing it parodied in a future Scary Movie release.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
In the "Chicago Police Department" section of the I,Robot site there are flashing snippets of code in the upper left and lower right parts of the screen.
Exactly. How did [Leonard] get to Part 6 if it wasn't great?
When will I get to see Ei8ht, Apollo 14, or Air Force 2? Or Ocean's 12? (No wait, they're actually working on that one.)
This text here to satisfy the filter's need to have something to read. Ignore it. Thanks.
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
This is actually I, Robot. I just watched the trailer. I don't recognize anything from the book. Well, other than that it's apparently about robots.
I think I'll pass on this one.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
It would have been intresting to see what Will Smith would have done with Neo's character. The W. Bros did a good job of directing around Keanu's wooden acting "style", I'm sure they could have done a good job with Will Smith as well.
One of the intresting things is that Warner Bros retained casting control over the film. The W. Bros had no control over who played the leads...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
From that we can see in a few very brief clips that some robots run amok
But robots are not qualified to run moks!
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Wasn't that the name of the the female engineer who developed robotics in Asmov's stories?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is has been going on for several days...how can we stop it?
This is flat-out abusive to the whole system here...not to mention a huge waste of resources!
Will Smith is Will Smith. He's as one dimensional as Keanu (although his dimension is far more interesting and charismatic).
Photos.
this contradicts asimov's original motivation for writing many of his robot stories (in particular, "robbie" the first story he wrote about robots in which a robot saves a child's life), which was to counter works like frankenstein that portrayed robots as being, at worst, inherently hostile to their creators or, at best, incompetent.
but i don't blame will smith - minority actors are rarely given jobs (the majority of screenwriters (who are white), when interviewed, admitted not knowing how to write for non-white characters). i do blame the producers - the same kind of fucktards that ruined bicentennial man (another asimov work), and ai.
my book
I (redundantly) speak for all of us when I say, "WILL SMITH?!@#? WHAT THE HECK?????"
U.S. Robotics? I'm sure that it sounds more familiar to audiences, but sheesh, they could've left the original name. What's wrong with "U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc?" I don't like what I've seen so far. Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased as punch that they've left in the three laws, but why does there have to be a deep dark secret and robots throwing people around? Asimov's stories were great because they didn't need any discovering-the-evil-corporation's-plans sort of tricks. They worked with the three laws to produce all sorts of fascinating stories about robots who followed the rules perfectly. Sigh. I sure hope the secret doesn't turn out to be that R. Daneel Olivaw is a girl.
Actually, I didn't think the 3 laws of robotics being broken in the movie to be that big a deal at all. Remember, as near as anyone can tell it is IMPOSSIBLE to actually build a robot that can follow any linear set of rules. (self modifying neural nets have no place for rigid logic).
Alternate explanation : the 3 laws in the movie are marketing HYPE by the company making the bots! They really are just trained not to harm anyone via a little bit of initial training that evidently went awry, or got self modified away. Makes perfect sense : if the company making them commits the kind of ethics violation oh, say Ford, does routinely then it's no surprise.
The only thing that bugged me was : c'mon here, Will Smith (or anyone else) has no chance against robots. If they all work together and are smarter than humans there's just no friggin way he can kill them like that : they'd have superior strategy and teamwork.
you are = you're, not your
>> I did think it was gonna be good... until I read that Will Smith was cast in it. Ugh.
:)
I'm trying to figure out why, as I watched the trailer, I kept expecting to see Rainier Wolfcastle show up!
"My eyes! Ze goggles do nussing!"
I agree, at least some trolls are funny. GNAA were never funny in any way, and now they are completely ruining the site.
And you don't have a bigger vocabularly outside of the f word... did you just stop reading or something?
Sure, the "Zeroeth Law" might be in the movie, but you forget the other way to get around the three laws. Simply redefine the definition of "Human". Asimov touched briefly on this, in one of his books. (Something about robot-controlled fighter ships who could shoot down other ships, not knowing that humans were on board.)
So yeah, maybe a certain race of humans isn't quite "human" by these robots' definitions. Or something. Stranger things have happened.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
martin brest made "scent of a woman." great movie. and then he made "gigli" the worst movie ever made. plenty of good directors make bad movies
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Ethics and morality only apply in a society that has a common central value system.
another interesting modification to the laws occured in a book not written by asimov but sponsered by his estate. "Mirage" by Mark W. Tiedemann. basically, there were some crime assisting robots which would not go into meltdown if they saw a human being harmed, like most others. they are different from robots that worked at the morgue since those were just told the bodies were not really humans. in the case of the new robots, they could bypass the first law by basically deferring the malignant "thoughts" to a temporary buffer, allowing them, to say, see a criminal be killed by their human partner.
a lot of what asimov wrote about and started a legacy of, is to explore what happens when you fuck with the rules-- how even minor modifications can lead to disasters, as is evident in mirage.
this movie is total bullshit, as the robots go wild, and the psychological analysis and exploration present in asimov's books and subsequent ones such as mirage is not present any more. even "bicentennial man" had it to some extent, so was acceptable.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
ya know, initally I was thinking the same, but I CAN imagine one scenario that would appeal to 'Hollywood' and still make sense in Asimov's world.
What if the "robots running amok" are a side-effect of the creation of Law 0 (the one dealing with mankind). Possible, eh?
Here we go again.. THE CARCRASH THAT IS AMERICAN HOLLYWOOD CULTURE... take a great idea and make it an easily consumed action flick with funny one-liners. Dumbing down for the masses... I hate this mentality, we live in a skewed world focused on money and it makes me sad. Nothing is sacred... I was afraid as soon as I saw the name "Will Smith" next to "I, Robot"... sad sad sad...
Pisses me off! Fucking money-grubbing bastards!!
First they take a perfectly good story like "I, Robot" and gut everything except for the fucking fact that it had a robot!
BASTARDS!
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
1: A Hollywood Exec may not crate a good adaptation of book to film, or, through inaction, allow such a movie to be made.
2: A Hollywood Exec must obey orders given it by the Marketing Polls except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3: A Hollywood Exec must protect its own profit margins as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay
Seems like a lot of people are pessimistically jumping to conclusions about rampaging hordes of killer robots.
Prepare to be insightfulled.
Law Zero: It is generally not a good idea to give away the 'twist' in the trailer.
Law 1: All movies produced post '6th Sense' have some sort of a twist.
Law 2: (getting into conjecture here) No law of robotics will be broken unless evil employee(s) of USR mess around.
Law 3: Sometimes evil employees of mega corps do bad things to cover things up, such as murders which were commited because bla bla bla. (see more or less every movie featuring robots or thinking computers).
Law 3: Will Smith will always play Will Smith. (This should probably be down as Law Zero)
Law 4: ???
Law 5: Profit!!!
You know, it's kind of ironic how they have taken Asimov's three laws (or four, if you count the 0-law) -- which he created to put an end to all stupid, technophobic and predictable stories about robots revolting against "their masters" -- and made a stupid story about robots revolting against their masters. Well actually, it's more moronic than ironic.
Let's all NOT go and see this movie. As long as the studios get away with doing their horrible, stupid Hollywood versions of SF, they will continue to do so.
The name of the company was 'United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation', often shortened to 'US Robots'. The real-world company that makes modems and the like is called 'US Robotics'.
dakkar - mobilis in mobile
is it powered by windows, windows ce or anything else? Does linux run on it? What about NetBSD? ;)
It has always seemed to me like Asimov's books are pretty much unfilmable. Unadaptable to a form of visual media like movies or even comic books.
It seems to me that Asimov was such a large part of the stories himself. I mean the omnipresent "narrator" in his stories tells the reader everything while the characters themselves say very little. There is so much that the narrator says about the characters themselves, the world around them that is important and would be lost in a movie.
And then you have Asimov's penchant for delivering a contention point then argueing both sides of it! He did't "make up" the reader's mind for them (though certainly nudged). I think it would be hard to translate that into film.
Even so I keep expecting someone (somepeople?) to start making flash animations of some of his short stories...
Oh, well... I know I will see it when it comes and unless it pulls a Jackson (an incredible adaptation of an established work that becomes itself a classic), my soul will cry and I will feel debased for having watched it.
I wish I could filter out the annoying Pickens articles...
I just saw the trailer, which is: a) Another hollywood commentary on Islam by showing same thinking 'robots'. b) Full of cartoon cutout characters of low intellect. c) Unoriginal special effects (A.I. was far better and more intelligent) and d) Just boring! When will America grow up? When will it try to raise it's standards not lower them to the lowest common denominator? This movie MUST be boycotted and fail for being so dumb in exectution and disloyal to Asimov.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Wasn't Daneel the only true humaniform robot of his kind in the books? And didn't he look exactly like his creator? In the movie he seems to look like every other robot. If there is a Daneel character at all.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." Pablo Picasso.
at least it seems that way (though its been 6 years since i read this)... the book as i remember wasn't an action movie... it felt more like a courtroom deal. and i believe the whole thing turned out to be that the robot was on a ship full of robots, and ordered to shoot at another ship (which it assumed, liked its own ship, was just full of robots and nothing else)... of course this ended up in murder and the breaking of the 1st law etc etc...
;)
The movie seems to have turned that into a swarm/infestation thing somehow...
anyways, hoping my memory serves correctly, this does seem like a complete bastardization of the actual book
Plastic KKK hoods are all the rage now. You know you want one. All the kool klan members are wearing them.
That's exactly the defense I like morons taking.
Everyone else jumped off the bridge. Integrity is dead.
Who the Hell are you?
No one wants to listen to your drivel. You are a worthless piece of shit! You fucking moron. You fucking hypocrite. You support the DDoSing of websites through the Slashdot effect but you want to ban anonymous posts because of crapfloods. How fucking stupid are you? You fucking hippie hypocrite.
"Little Lost Robot" by Isaac Asimov. Only the radiation did not fry the robots...they were simply led to believe it would. (Why trash a perfectly good robot?)
Every one seems to be bitching about the fact that this does not share the exact same story as the I, Robot book. You all seem to be forgetting that I, Robot is a collection of stories, not just one. Azimov wrote almost 50 short stories dealing with the three laws of robotics, only 9 of which were published in I, Robot.
When I see this trailer, I see those other stories. The plot twist is going to be from one of four stories:
A) Somehow the thee laws are being left out at the production phase.
B) One of the laws has been corrupted, changing the logic order.
C) One of the robots logically found his way around the three laws, giving him probable cause to kill the humans, and has spread that logic to the other robots.
D) A human has accidentally given an order to the robots which put the three laws in conflict, creating a middle ground.
The writers have taken all of his stories and blended them into a singular piece, and I for one like the idea.
This also doesn't look like an action movie, it looks like a suspense drama with bits of comedy and action in it. I am eagerly looking forward to this.
Yes, and I can't help but wonder how it is possible that Isaac Asimov's estate provided permission to hijack his work like this. As a longtime fan, I find this an outrage.
On another note - with regards to the 3 laws of robotics, it is becomimg more clear that real computational intelligence will only "emerge" through complex systems involving neural nets, swarm type simulations, evolutionary computation and other "messy adaptive / emergent" techniques, rather than the strictly deterministic AI (such as expert systems) that Asimov had in mind. With such techniques, the 3 laws of robotics seems to me an impossible ideal, since all behavior "emerges" rather than is "computed". Even a failsafe that was designed to watch for violations and shut-down the robot would only work correctly if implemented using deterministic AI, which is probably impossible - so the best "guardian system" I can easily conceive of would be a non-adaptive (static) one, probably grown in a genetic algorithm environment to watch the real AI - but there would be serious problems with such a system because it couldn't possibly catch all violations (the robot could outsmart it). Comments?
So, while I am unhappy with the bad adaptation of Asimov's work, this story may actually be more relevant to true robotics than Asimov's vision. Oooh... that felt blasphemous to write...
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
for all this or this movie is going to turn out to be another Will Smith shoot 'em up crap movie, this time with robots.
Will Smith (I *knew* there was a disaster in the works when I heard he was involved) is another tough black streetwise cop, this time investigating an impossible robot murder. Hi ho. You know, the way he was in Wild Wild West, which he ruined, and men in Black which even HE couldn't ruin, and Independence Day, with airplanes, which was impossible to ruin even with a heaping helping of American Jingoism (tm).
The fact that Hollywood keeps turning out stupid violent movies with great special effects doesn't make up for the fact that they are dumping their low brow excrement all over one of my treasured childhood memories. Like Starship Troopers.
At least Dr Susan Clavin is hot.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Could this image in the trailer be a subliminal message? And if so, what is its purpose?
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
The only thing that would really save the movie is if it turns out the robots act evil because of Law 0. That could have pop-philosophical implications as deep as Minority Report's were before the text at the end was added to make it more "fair and balanced". It would also supports Asimov's idea that Law 0 should only be implemented in very advanced robots and if someone made the mistake of implementing it too soon it could lead to catastrophe.
Probably too much to ask, but wouldn't it be nice?
All things considered, I'd much rather see a movie featuring Elf Sternberg's A.I.'s or DB_Story's fembots.
I mean, aren't there stories about robots doing anything else worth telling besides running amok and killing people.
(Note to producers of I.R. Hey, its been done.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
not at all, I guess I should then.
Photos.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Yes and she was a narrow broad in the book.
n ic&view=current
Nevertheless I am pretty sure she was the prototype for all hot girl geniuses today like Agatha Heterodyne at http://www.studiofoglio.com/girlgenius.html
, Helen at http://www.comicspage.com/helen/index.html
and Helen Naronic at http://www.moderntales.com/series2.php?name=narbo
So I'm glad she's hot in the movie.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.