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."

Comments

The bastards!

[Richard Jones]

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?

Re:The bastards!

[code_echelon]

"Why do they even bother buying the rights to something they couldn't really care less about, artistically?"

Possibly, the huge amounts of publicity, the fact that it gets people talking about the product and whether it is good or not a large portion of people will go see it based on the name and their connection to the book. Furthermore, the majority of the executives that are making the important decisions like this don't care about the film artistically, they are just their to ensure profits.

MiB3

[MauMan]

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...

No mention of Isaac Asimov

[elvesRgay]

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.

Re:No mention of Isaac Asimov

[anagama]

It's been a while since I read Asimov, but after watching the preview, it seems obvious that this will be typical Hollywood "sci-fear" rather than "sci-fi". At the end of the trailer, there is a comment by the actor that essentially says the point of the movie is uncovering the "deep dark secret truth" or something like that at US Robotics (what might that be, people don't like modems?). My Guess, this will be yet another Hollywood flick about how scary technology can be. The irony is of course, that in Asimov's world, on Earth robots were rejected as a frightening technology (safety/economic fears). I expect this movie will be a dissapointing abuse of Asimov's legacy.

Re:No mention of Isaac Asimov

[Gumshoe]

Main difference between the book and the movie: Asimov didn't have niggers in his books.

I've read every Asimov SF book and as far as I can tell there are no white folks either. In case you missed my point, the humans in his books can be of any race you wish them to be. That's the beauty of the written word; so much can be said without expliticly stating it.

You seem to assume that no mention of race naturally means that all the protaganists are white. This highlights a very disturbing form of bigotry. I hope that the hood isn't so tight that you can't ever cease your hatred momentarily and begin to educate yourself about biology, genetics, ethics and, let's be honest, plain old common decency.

Re:War of the worlds, take 2

[grasshoppa]

thankfully we're all far more cynical now

*cough*Blair Witch Project*cough*

They've killed Asimov

[anphilip]

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!

Re:They've killed Asimov

[Galvatron]

I also liked (and by "liked," I mean "disliked") how they rewrote the rules to be more accessible. "Rule #3: They can defend themselves." What the hell is this crap?

Re:Pissing on Asimov's grave

[jayhawk88]

You know as I was waiting for this to download I read your comment, and I was sitting here thinking "Oh come on how bad can it be"? Well, I apologize for thinking that.

Jesus. Seriously, who owns the rights to Asimov's stuff? Surely a child or newphew or somebody can sue to get this title changed or something?

I'm with you. That 3 Laws Safe trailer attached to ROTK had enough cool-factor in it that I had high hopes as well. But this is total and utter crap. I'm sure it'll make $60 million, I'm sure the Burger King Kids Meal Toys will be quite wonderful and entertaining, and I'm sure all the old Will Smith "Wild Wild West" action figures still in storage will melt down quite nicely and save Hasbro nearly $5 million in materials cost. But this movie is pissing on Asimov's grave. I seriously wonder if I even want to see this.

Trailer often don't reflect the film . . .

[Kaimelar]

Ok, so it seems the consensus so far is that the trailer implies that I, Robot is going to be an action-driven "Will Smith-takes-on-the-killer-robots" kind of movie. I can certainly see that. But remember the alchemy of trailers -- you can make any movie look like anything in sixty seconds. Bad movies can come across as worth seeing, and good movies can appear bland, boring, or uninteresting. Perhaps the trailer isn't geared toward the Asimov crowd -- perhaps it's geared to the action-movie crowd to draw in people who would otherwise say, "Issac who?". Perhaps it will be like the first Matrix movie -- thought-provoking ideas wrapped in an action setting.

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. :-)

Re:Asimov dated.

[vidarh]

You heretic.... Actually I think Asimovs work is some of the most timeless sci-fi out there due to the way it is written. Very few technical details that aren't an integral part of the plots. Mostly the technology is used as a plot devices for stories that range from detective stories (Naked sun, for instance) to morality stories and exploring human nature (many of the robot short stories), including what it means to be human (Bicentennial man), or large epics (Foundation).

Very rarely is technology itself the focus of the the story - even in the robot stories where a specific robot often seems to be in focus, as one of the main characters in the story, they tend to be only props used to make some point.

This is a common thread with most of the sci-fi that survives long term. HG Wells, the Time Machine stands the test of time because the technology of the time machine isn't relevant to the story line. For that matter, the story could more or less have been told without time travel - just like in for instance Gullivers Travels, the whole journey is just an excuse to set the scene the way the authors wants.

Gibson survives because he's detached enough from technology to write about it in very broad strokes - there are very few details to get hung up about as "dated".

Philip K. Dick survives because most of his stories are about his characters, not about the technology they surround themselves with.

And so on...

The sci-fi that dates badly is the techno-fetishist stuff that is about the technology, as opposed to the consequences of the technology.

A step backwards

[The Monster]

Why do they even bother buying the rights to something they couldn't really care less about, artistically?

Because movie studios exist to make money, not art. This is going to be another Starship Troopers, only it will have even less to do with the book of the same title. The really sad part is that we're going backwards:

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.

Re:A step backwards

[Drakin]

The problem however is that Asimov himself also wrote stories that showed some of the problems with the 3 laws, and of course, introduced the 0th law... which could be the most frightening, as it evolved on it's own within robots... and allowed a robot to use lethal force against humans in limited situations.