I, Robot Hits the Theaters

tyleremerson writes "With today's film release of "I, Robot," the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence has launched a new website, 3 Laws Unsafe. 3 Laws Unsafe explores the non-fictional problems presented by Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. The Three Laws are widely known and are often taken seriously as reasonable solutions for guiding future AI. But are they truly reasonable? 3 Laws Unsafe tries to address this question." Reader Rob Carr has submitted a review of the movie, below, that he promises is spoiler-free.

I, Robot: A Movie Review that's 3 Laws (and Spoiler) Safe!

A movie review by Rob Carr

Thanks to Eide's Entertainment I got to see I, Robot tonight. As someone who grew up with Isaac Asimov's robot stories, I've come to expect a mystery based on the implications of the 3 Laws of Robotics (or the lack of one or part of one of those laws), the "Frankenstein Complex," and Dr. Susan Calvin. I was afraid that the movie might miss out on this, especially since it's not a direct adaptation of the book, but "inspired" by the Good Doctor Asimov.

The movie met my expectations and more. Will Smith, whom we all know as an overconfident smart@$$ character from such movies as "Independence Day" and the two "Men in Black" movies, played a somewhat less confident and far less wisecracking character. It was a welcome change to see him less confident. Yeah, some of the stunts were a little absurd (am I the only one thinking of Gemini 8 at one point in the movie?) but that's to be expected from this type of movie. Bridget Moynahan was far too young to be the Susan Calvin I remember, but that's also to be expected in this type of movie. James Cromwell (whom you'll all remember from Star Trek: First Contact and Enterprise's "Broken Bow" episode as Dr. Zefram Cochrane) gave a flat performance - but that's actually a complement. I doubt anyone will recognize Wash from "Firefly" as an important robot in the story.

It's customary to comment on how well the CGI was done. I liked it, but then again, I'm not hypercritical on something like that. I did wonder a little bit about center of balance as some of the robots walked, but mostly I didn't think about it at all, which to me is the goal of CGI. I did wonder about children's fingers getting caught in some of the open gaps on the robot's bodies. Real world models would have a bit more covering, one would think. But that's being picky.

I have no memory of the soundtrack music. That in and of itself might say something. I'm a musician, but it just didn't register.

I figured out some clues, missed some others, and was surprised several times in the movie. There were a lot of clues - this isn't one of those mysteries where the answer is pulled out of the writer's a...out of thin air.

I'm not a complete continuity freak, so I can't tell if the movie violated any of Asimov's universe, but from what I can remember, it fits pretty well (if you ignore Dr. Calvin's age) and might even explain a few things.

Given that even some of the geeks in the audience were surprised to find out that there was a book of stories just like the movie, I think the movie will hopefully bring Asimov's stories to a new generation.

I liked "I, Robot. It's worth seeing, especially if you 've already seen Spider-Man 2 at least once. It's a pretty good (though not great) movie.

Having read Slashdot for a while, I know that there are folks out there who will despise this movie because it's not exactly like the book. Others will hate the movie or worship it, and loads of people are going to savage this review. You know what? That's fine with me. I had fun with this movie, had a nice date with my wife, and it didn't cost anything. I even had fun typing up this review. You're allowed to be different and to agree or disagree with me. Heck, that's a big chunk of what makes the world fun. Interestingly, it's even a small point in the movie. I'd say more, but that would be telling."

Comments

Re:Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is my favorite Slashdot comment, ever.

Re:not faithful

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Welcome to the George Bush world. If it's not identical to the average American then it's evil and some how linked to 9/11

I'm still waiting for Bush to some how link the plane makers to terrorism and want to put spyware in everything related to planes (oh like Computers, TVs and the like)

Re:Linux Kernel: Remote DoS with IPTables(rejected

[Sunspire]

Remote vulnerabilities are always annoying. But in this case the target is an obscure optional Netfilter module, not something that will bring down just any Linux machine. There is no distribution that ships a default iptables script that uses a tcp-options based rule (unless you've recently released your own distro ;). I'm not even aware of any popular iptables generator frontend that would make use of tcp-options. It's not really a big deal.

All relevant distros have already released updates packages... last month! In that way Gentoo Security is a latecomer to the party. In no way is this bug deserving of its own Slashdot story at this point, maybe when it was fresh but even that is debatable.

Re:A dissapointment

[Marxist Hacker 42]

you must be very poor.

Yes- I am to some extent. 26 months of unemployment followed by a 40% decrease in pay will reduce what you're willing to spend money on.

Re:A dissapointment

[Marxist Hacker 42]

40% decrease from what I was getting before I was laid off. It's actually quite common in a depression economy such as this. What I am getting is actually about twice what I got on unemployment, if I can get enough hours in (I also went from being salary before, to hourly now). I also became a father for the first time while unemployed.

Off topic on the topic of movies

[The Infamous Grimace]

Might I suggest old 'neighborhood' theaters? I just moved (back) to Spokane, WA, and just up the street from me is a cool old theater known as the Garland. All shows $2.50, every show different so there is variety, with one free show every day. The free movie changes every week, and it's always kid-oriented, and one or two of the others change as well. Not sure what other movies are playing, but the last of the day, at 9:30p, is 'Hellboy'. Not a bad alternative to big theater, especially when you consider that its got AC :-)

(tig)

Re:A dissapointment

[Volmarias]

Starship troopers is my favorite to bitch about. They took a great coming of age story that had heaps of morality, and turned it into a WWII propoganda film / teen fuckfest. I mean, they even MADE UP A CHARECTER FOR HIM TO FUCK! Anyone want to join me on a hollywood rampage?

Re:A dissapointment STILL SPOILERISH

[Wolfrider]

--Thus proving ONCE AGAIN that Hollywood is incapable of doing justice to a given Asimov story.

--I *walked out* of Bicentennial Man a few years ago and demanded my money back. This one wasn't quite that horrible, but it still bears almost *no* relation to the original Asimov story OR concept.

--I really objected to their treatment of Susan Calvin. Nuff said.

SIGH

--There was a lot more that I wanted to say, but I'll settle for the fact that interest in Asimov's original stories has gone up again, and people that are intrigued by the movie are picking up his books.