Slashdot Mirror
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!
by Allen Parsons Project?
What?
Anyone know if Wil Weaton got the part?
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
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".
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.
Seeing that they took Will Smith that movie will most likely have nothing to do with anything Isaac Asimov ever wrote anyway.
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
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. :(
You'd need to have a crack team to do a screenplay. Asimov himself admitted that his earlier stories lacked character depth. Note the difference between the original Foundation/Robots series and 'Foundation's Edge' or 'Robots of Dawn'.
Even so, you're not going to have 2 hour in-cabin discussions on the basics of relativity, hyperspace, or robot theory (as Asimov would often do). It made for interesting reading, but not good movie material.
Now, 'Robots of Dawn' would make an INCREDIBLE movie because it has everything a MOVIE would need to make it a hit (sex, violence, dramatic tension, good special fx with a point, etc.) If the original series are ever done as movies - prepare for major rewrites aka, LOTR.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
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 think this title is perfectly suited to the plot. To denote one's self as 'I' is implying that one has a consciousness, as the robots in this movie have been developed to have. This is, of course, dependent on your own conception of consciousness.
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
Funny, did you know the trivia that Will Smith was being considered for the role of Neo but turned it down to do Wild Wild West?
I'm surprised that no one's cheering about the choice of director -- Alex Proyas, the same guy that made Dark City and The Crow. Surely he's got enough sci-fi cred to pull this off.
Asimov wrote multiple books and stories based on the Three Laws. Hell, he even worked them into the Foundation series. But the fact that there's a Dr. Susan Calvin character implies that the movie follows Asimov's stories at least a little.
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.
It sounds like these robots had the same problem as HAL in 2001...
What?
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.
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.
Looks like no one's mentioned the "Zeroth Law" yet, which I think was added towards the end of the Foundation series (I want to say in Foundation and Earth, for some reason, but it's been most of a decade since I last read the books, so I really have no idea any more, now that all the books are blurred together in my memory...).
...or some such similar wording. And, naturally, the other three laws were modified so that the "Zeroth Law" took precedence over them. I guarantee this won't come up at all in the movie, but as long as we're on the subject of Asimov, might as well mention it, right?
0: A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
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.
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.
US Robotics took their name from Asimov's stories.
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.
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
What about in foreign countries? How do you know small firms in Taiwan or Croatia won't make chips that don't obey the three laws? Considering the flaws of current sofware and hardware, I expect supposedly safe robots of the near future will be full of lethal bugs and failures. Expect early-generation robots actually allowed any real degree of lethality and AI to malfunction or be hacked with lethal consequences.
Yes, but humans are by their very nature rather illogical beings, hell-bent on emotional-based responses.
Asimov's creatures were logical without emotion, and were governed by the three laws to prevent them from becoming, say, Skynet.
The fact that only the most advanced robot(s? it's been a while) could create and follow Law 0 insured that things would continue along a very logical, non-emotional path.
Now I'm getting all nostolagic, there are some Robots/Empire crossover/glue novel(s) I got around to reading...
But on topic - I got a very deep sinking in my stomach while watching that trailer. I hope it's something more than "buy rights to name, slap story around name" nonsense. Fscking Hollywood needs to have a mass-enema, right after RIAA members...