I haven't been going to the movies much lately, but I made a special point of seeing "I Robot" a couple days ago. After reading mg's thoughts on it before the release and seeing the trailer, I wasn't optimistic, but I was certainly intrigued. It can be entertaining to see how Hollywood and the television industry often take something with the potential to be great and completely destroy and/or make it unrecognizable. (For a really good time, try reading Heinlein's Starship Troopers and then seeing the movie.) As it turns out, I Robot the movie wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared/hoped.
As stated in the credits, the movie is "suggested" by a book of short stories of the same name by Isaac Asimov. Much like Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, "I Robot" is a compilation of stories on a similar theme, not all of which are directly interrelated. As such, it could be explored and retold by Hollywood in virtually limitless ways.
This is not the first I Robot inspired movie. Remember Bicentennial Man. That was based on a specific story in the book and influenced by themes from some of the others. The Outer Limits also did two television adaptations, one from the old series and one from the new series. Both featured Leonard Nimoy as a guest star. Doubtless there have been other "I, Robot" adaptations, but these are the only ones I know.
As I said above, I thought the movie did an adequate job of faithfully capturing something of the essence of the book and its ideas. It is unfortunate that the trailers do not reflect that. Despite the fact that it was made into an action flick starring Wil Smith, who spends quite a bit of time with guns blazing blasting hordes of attacking malevolent robots (something which never occurs in any of Asimov's stories), I thought it did a good job of articulating at least one of the central ideas of the book.
This is the dilemma: Society reaches a point where powerful anthropomorphic robots can easily and inexpensively be mass-produced. Because these robots are physically as capable, and in some respects superior, to humans, they make the ultimate servant class, and society becomes increasingly dependent on them to maintain itself. But robots are not people. They have no inherent sense of morality and cannot be held accountable in any meaningful way for their actions. With millions of robots all around having a fair degree of autonomy, what is to prevent them from harming us humans? How do you keep them from being used for criminal activity by other humans (perhaps as bank robbers or assassins)? And what about the occasional error in judgement that could cause them to hurt people? For example, suppose that a robot babysitter unable to get little Johnny into bed decides that the best course of action available to it is to physically render him unconscious.
One answer is to give them rules, hardwired into their postitronic brains. They need to be simple enough so that they will be applied in predictable ways in the complex outside world, and they need to be stated in straightforward human language, so people understand them and can feel reassured by seeing that they are observed. It's unfortunate that the movie dedicated no time to exploring the circumstances that led to the gradual process of implementation and modification of the rules over time which was so much a part of the book. Instead, the movie begins with the three rules fully articulated and implemented with no exploration of why they are formulated in exactly that way.
In any event, although the rules prove essential for the continued functioning of a society hugely dependent on robots, the fact still remains that robots are not people. Giving a complex digital brain analog rules to adhere to in the even more complex world of human society will have unpredictable results. That is a given. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that the robot incident in the past of Wil Smith's character illustrates this fact very clearly. The robot had to make a choice, and although it did not do anything that would get it condemned in a court of law (were it human), it nevertheless did not make the choice that most humans would consider the right one.
Now here are the things that could have improved the movie:
--Wil Smith is the only person in the entire world to be suspicious of robots? That seems a tad farfetched.
--Leonard Nimoy should have been given a rôle, since he has been in both of the Outer Limits adaptations. He could have played the hologram of the murdered scientist. That would have worked well for him.
--There was way too much CGI. The robots seemed much more organic than robotic.
--Wil Smith should have had a clever "I told you so" moment at the end with the police chief.
--The robots (other than Sonny) should have been developed much more as characters. There was almost no sense of what regular everyday robots are really like as individuals.
--Once again not wanting to give away anything, I'll just say that the villain, although unexpected, was not an idea that worked well.
--That whole thing with the wink was overly predictable. I knew from the beginning that Sonny would eventually wink at Wil at some critical moment later in the film, and I spotted the moment well before the wink occurred.
--I was a bit confused by the ending. Are the robots going to form a new independent society? How does that follow from the rest of the movie?
--I was a bit put off by the scientists daughter who goes through the entire movie constantly on the verge of tears but never actually crying.
There were also a few minor details that I liked:
--Wil Smith was not automatically paired with a black female lead, which is what usually happens in American movies.
--The phrase "ass spankin' hot" was a new one. Perhaps receptionista's tea towel lingo is destined to make inroads in the robot infested future. There is also a cat in the movie who seems to be there for absolutely no reason, but he looks and acts much as I imagine Parsons does.
--Much of the dialogue was well-written and well-delivered. That surprised me.
Roger Ebert notwithstanding, I'll give the movie a thumb up.
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