would you rather see I, Robot 2 or the Caves of Steel film?

[RandyS]

I say make them both. I'll watch them at least once and then make a judgement afterwards.

Nah, see, I tried that with I, Robot and got a Will Smith shoot-em-up where any similarity between it and the stories it was supposed to be based on was purely coincidental. The director's excuse was "Well, we tried to make a prequel to the book, where Susan Calvin was just young enough to be smokin' hot." I added that last part, but that's where the mentality was.

Well, my point was to go ahead and make both films and I'll reserve judgement until I see them. It was not meant as a comment on the quality of the Will Smith film (my opinion on that movie matches yours for the most part incidentally). I was not commenting on wiether or not they should be made, or making a judgement of quality. The fact that I Robot wasn't a great or even good film has no bearing on wiether a sequel or an adaption of The Caves of Steel will be.

 

[Admiral2]

Nah, see, I tried that with I, Robot and got a Will Smith shoot-em-up where any similarity between it and the stories it was supposed to be based on was purely coincidental. The director's excuse was "Well, we tried to make a prequel to the book, where Susan Calvin was just young enough to be smokin' hot." I added that last part, but that's where the mentality was.

And there's nothing wrong with doing it as a prequel.

Unless the prequel doesn't look like it actually ties into the source material at all. Has being on a board full of "Enterprise" and prequel trilogy critics taught you nothing?

I, Robot isn't a novel, it's a collection of nine separate stories set in the positronic-robot universe, only five of which are even about Susan Calvin (the first four, one complete standalone and three about the team of Powell & Donovan, are framed by new bridging material with Dr. Calvin describing their events to an interviewer). So the title isn't linked to a specific set of events, just to the general concepts of the universe -- positronic robots, the Three Laws -- and the character of Susan Calvin.

Yes, I know. I've read it, but thanks for breaking it down.

And the movie included all those things.

Skewed, Hollywoodized versions of them...

Yes, it tweaked the storytelling to fit the modern idiom of summer action blockbusters with attractive leads, but what else could it have been? No major studio would've been willing to spend money on it if it had been a sedate, talky drawing-room mystery whose lead character was a plain-looking, antisocial, middle-aged woman.

If that's the case, then they have my permission to not spend the money adapting anything else. I never read Asimov for nail-biting action and 'splosions.

So accepting that inescapable reality, the question that matters is, is it a smart action blockbuster,

No, it's a typical action blockbuster.

is it well-made,

For a typical action blockbuster, sure.

and is it reasonably respectful of the concepts within the limits of what that kind of adaptation will allow?

They didn't outright crap on the concepts, but "respectful" confers too much credit.

And I think the answer is yes.

And I disagree, as usual.

Well, my point was to go ahead and make both films and I'll reserve judgement until I see them. It was not meant as a comment on the quality of the Will Smith film (my opinion on that movie matches yours for the most part incidentally). I was not commenting on wiether or not they should be made, or making a judgement of quality. The fact that I Robot wasn't a great or even good film has no bearing on wiether a sequel or an adaption of The Caves of Steel will be.

With Hollywood past performance is always an indicator of future results, and the best written works always seem to suffer when translated to film. It's not as bad if the written work was pablum to begin with - like Twilight. Producers will kill themselves adapting things like that faithfully. Asimov's work is mostly an acquired taste, and you can't acquire that taste watching a breakneck pace two-hour event designed for people desiring to turn their minds off for a while. It's not like I never watch those kinds of movies, I just don't feel anything written by Asimov should be shoehorned into one of them, and I don't expect anything good to come of trying.

 

[Christopher]

Unless the prequel doesn't look like it actually ties into the source material at all. Has being on a board full of "Enterprise" and prequel trilogy critics taught you nothing?

Yes -- it's taught me that way too many people mistake the question "Is this exactly like what it's based on?" for the question, "Is this worthwhile on its own independent merits?" It was never reasonable to expect Hollywood to make a faithful adaptation of Asimov, so all that matters is whether the film is entertaining. If nothing else, Alex Proyas is a good director (Dark City was very impressive) and I, Robot is a damn sight more entertaining than whatever Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich is churning out. Plus you can't go wrong by giving Alan Tudyk a major role in your film, even if it's performance-capture.

 

[RandyS]

Well, my point was to go ahead and make both films and I'll reserve judgement until I see them. It was not meant as a comment on the quality of the Will Smith film (my opinion on that movie matches yours for the most part incidentally). I was not commenting on wiether or not they should be made, or making a judgement of quality. The fact that I Robot wasn't a great or even good film has no bearing on wiether a sequel or an adaption of The Caves of Steel will be.

With Hollywood past performance is always an indicator of future results, and the best written works always seem to suffer when translated to film. It's not as bad if the written work was pablum to begin with - like Twilight. Producers will kill themselves adapting things like that faithfully. Asimov's work is mostly an acquired taste, and you can't acquire that taste watching a breakneck pace two-hour event designed for people desiring to turn their minds off for a while. It's not like I never watch those kinds of movies, I just don't feel anything written by Asimov should be shoehorned into one of them, and I don't expect anything good to come of trying.

Fair enough, but answer me this, would Asimov's work be better represented as an anthology series for TV, rather than a movie adaption? Personally, I think so. The problem with the I Robot film was that the book was a (non connected) series of short stories, and there was no way to make a movie out of that. At least, not one that I could see.

 

[Greg Cox]

I just don't feel anything written by Asimov should be shoehorned into one of them, and I don't expect anything good to come of trying.

Except that it put the original book on the bestseller list, meaning that hundreds of thousands of new readers discovered Asimov's original book--because of the movie.

That's a net gain, I think.

 

[zakkrusz]

An I, Robot sequel since I like the first one and haven't heard of Caves of Steel.

 

[Christopher]

...and haven't heard of Caves of Steel.

Which is your loss. I recommend a trip to the library.

 

[zakkrusz]

Which is your loss. I recommend a trip to the library.

More like several trips. Or a trip to a book store instead, considering it takes me like 2 or 3 months to read a single novel so I don't find the library very practical for novels. On top of that it would have to get in line since I've got a stack of 78 of them in my room, waiting to be read, that got there first. I like to read but my vision is bad so it takes me while, plus I have other hobbies I use my free time for that I give a greater priority. The only real time I can fit reading in is on my break at work.

 

[Stevil2001]

I don't know that taking over the world by turning on an EVIL red light and corralling humans up is remotely "smart." The problem with I, Robot is that is completely pales next to "The Evitable Conflict," which is one of the best, most thought-provoking, most unsettling sf stories written.

It's all about where you set your expectations. Is it smart next to the classics of prose SF? Certainly not. But that's an unrealistic thing to expect given what kind of movie it was designed to be. The question is, is it smart compared to most summer action blockbusters designed as vehicles for big-name stars? And yes, yes it is. For what it is, it's a pretty good movie. It's no Blade Runner, granted, but at least it's a damn sight better than, say, Wild Wild West.

"Better than a movie I would never watch" is not exactly an incentive to see it. I, Robot has uninspiring performances (though Tudyk is good, and Smith is surprisingly decent), flat humor, dull action set-pieces, uninteresting characters, a cliche plot, and a regressive anti-technology message. It's not even good on its own merits. I do like the visual aesthetic, but Minority Report did that better.

 

[JiNX-01]

Since I, Robot was nothing like Asimov novel (aka: huge disappointment time )... I'd like to see if they could get "The Caves of Steel" right.

 

[Christopher]

Since I, Robot was nothing like Asimov novel ...

But it's not a novel. It's an anthology. People who don't even understand what the book was have no business complaining that the film wasn't authentic to it.

 

[Stevil2001]

I don't have my copy of M. H. Abrams here with me, but I think the definition of "novel" is sufficiently broad as to include I, Robot. If Invisible Cities, Winesburg, Ohio, and A History of the World in 10½ Chapter are all novels (and they are), then I, Robot slides in easily.

 

[Christopher]

^But when people say "It's wrong because it's not the same as the 'novel' I, Robot," they're usually not making some abstract point about the niceties of terminology, but instead are arguing from the assumption that I, Robot told a single specific story that the movie failed to adapt. And that's completely incorrect. I, Robot tells nine different stories that have no single character or premise in common. Their only unifying element is the Three Laws of Robotics, and to some extent the character of Susan Calvin, because the first four stories that she isn't in are presented as events she's describing to a reporter. So I see no reason why the umbrella title I, Robot couldn't be validly used to encompass an additional story involving Susan Calvin and the Three Laws.

 

[Admiral2]

Unless the prequel doesn't look like it actually ties into the source material at all. Has being on a board full of "Enterprise" and prequel trilogy critics taught you nothing?

Yes -- it's taught me that way too many people mistake the question "Is this exactly like what it's based on?" for the question, "Is this worthwhile on its own independent merits?"

Measuring a movie's quality against the original source material is a perfectly valid practice since the whole point of an ADAPTATION is that it should have at least some kind of passing relationship with what it's based on.

It was never reasonable to expect Hollywood to make a faithful adaptation of Asimov,

Define reasonable. There are plenty of movies that demonstrate Hollywood is capable of getting close to the original content, so I think it's perfectly reasonable that when adapting I, Robot they'd at least attempt to make it more like the stories than like "Independence Day".

so all that matters is whether the film is entertaining.

It was entertaining. So was "All In the Family." That don't mean either was Asimov, and that's important if you're going to say it's based on his work!

If nothing else, Alex Proyas is a good director (Dark City was very impressive)

Dark City was dense.

and I, Robot is a damn sight more entertaining than whatever Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich is churning out.

Wrong. It's just in the same league, since instead of the type of thoughtful hero you have in Asimov's works you have a rapper solving his problems with robots by gangsta-firing automatic weapons at them.

Plus you can't go wrong by giving Alan Tudyk a major role in your film, even if it's performance-capture.

What makes Alan Tudyk special?

Well, my point was to go ahead and make both films and I'll reserve judgement until I see them. It was not meant as a comment on the quality of the Will Smith film (my opinion on that movie matches yours for the most part incidentally). I was not commenting on wiether or not they should be made, or making a judgement of quality. The fact that I Robot wasn't a great or even good film has no bearing on wiether a sequel or an adaption of The Caves of Steel will be.

With Hollywood past performance is always an indicator of future results, and the best written works always seem to suffer when translated to film. It's not as bad if the written work was pablum to begin with - like Twilight. Producers will kill themselves adapting things like that faithfully. Asimov's work is mostly an acquired taste, and you can't acquire that taste watching a breakneck pace two-hour event designed for people desiring to turn their minds off for a while. It's not like I never watch those kinds of movies, I just don't feel anything written by Asimov should be shoehorned into one of them, and I don't expect anything good to come of trying.

Fair enough, but answer me this, would Asimov's work be better represented as an anthology series for TV, rather than a movie adaption? Personally, I think so. The problem with the I Robot film was that the book was a (non connected) series of short stories, and there was no way to make a movie out of that. At least, not one that I could see.

The problem is that's already been done.

There was a TV show that came on way back when called "Probe" that was a essentially an anthology series of the type of science mysteries that Asimov was known to write about. He was one of the producers.

It only lasted seven episodes.

To work, you'd have to mix episodes based on the stories with new episodes, and it might be hard to preserve the quality, and it still might not draw viewers.

I foresee the writers trying to save it by opening with Elijah Baley standing next to a body on a slidewalk and saying, "This commuter is missing his stop." before he and Daneel Olivaw put on sunglasses and walk out of frame.

 

[Christopher]

Measuring a movie's quality against the original source material is a perfectly valid practice since the whole point of an ADAPTATION is that it should have at least some kind of passing relationship with what it's based on.

It does have a relationship to what it's based on. It's a story which, at its core, is driven by the existence and consequences of the Three Laws of Robotics. Yes, it's a different kind of story about the Three Laws than Asimov would have told, but it's still a story about the problems that arise from the Laws, and that's what Asimov robot stories are all about.

Dark City was dense.

I can't tell whether you mean that in a positive or negative sense.

Wrong. It's just in the same league, since instead of the type of thoughtful hero you have in Asimov's works you have a rapper solving his problems with robots by gangsta-firing automatic weapons at them.

That's not the movie I saw. And it's laughably inaccurate to characterize Will Smith as a "gangsta" rapper. His work in that genre was characterized by its light, humorous tone, and his upbringing was wholesome and middle-class. This is a man who doesn't even like to use bad grammar. (Seriously. It's a whole thing with him.) Not to mention that he's had far more fame and success as an actor than as a rapper.

What makes Alan Tudyk special?

That's... just... such a sad thing to hear. I can't even respond to that.

There was a TV show that came on way back when called "Probe" that was a essentially an anthology series of the type of science mysteries that Asimov was known to write about. He was one of the producers.

It wasn't an anthology series except in the sense of having a "case-of-the-week" format. It was an ongoing series with a regular cast, starring Parker Stevenson as reclusive, eccentric genius Austin James and Ashley Crow as the sidekick who pulled him out of his shell and got him involved with the world. (It's kind of like if Walter Bishop and Astrid from Fringe had their own show, except more sedate.)

 

[Mysterion]

I'd rather first see a more faithful adaptation of I, Robot, myself. Preferably using Harlan Ellison's excellent script as a basis.

 

[Christopher]

^What would constitute a faithful adaptation of I, Robot, though? Which stories would it adapt? I suppose maybe you could do an adaptation of "Evidence" and "The Evitable Conflict," focusing on Susan Calvin and Steven Byerly, but then that's just an adaptation of those two stories, not of I, Robot as a whole. Maybe you could find a way to fold in Powell and Donovan.

Here's what Wikipedia says about Ellison's script:

Ellison's script builds a framework around Asimov's short stories that involves a reporter named Robert Bratenahl tracking down information about Susan Calvin's alleged former lover Stephen Byerly. Asimov's stories are presented as flashbacks that differ from the originals in their stronger emphasis on Calvin's character. Ellison placed Calvin into stories in which she did not originally appear and fleshed out her character's role in ones where she did.

But to me that seems just as artificial as the interview conceit that unified the stories in I, Robot to begin with. My problem with the idea of "an adaptation of I, Robot" is that I, Robot isn't really a single specific or unique thing. It's just a selection of nine of Asimov's thirty-plus positronic-robot short stories. It contains fewer than half of the stories about Susan Calvin; it's basically the Powell-Donovan stories plus a selection of Susan Calvin stories plus "Robbie," which had nothing to do with either in its original form (though the version in the collection has a scene with the teenage Susan Calvin tacked on). And Asimov didn't even choose or want the title; he objected to it because it was already the title of a story by Ernest and Otto Binder (the basis of the Outer Limits episode of that name and its later remake). Asimov wanted to call it Mind and Iron, which frankly is a far more awesome title. So I, Robot doesn't really constitute a single unified or cohesive thing. It's a semi-arbitrary sampling of a small percentage of Asimov's robot stories.

I think if you're going to do a movie that's a compilation of Susan Calvin's life story, you shouldn't base it on the stories in I, Robot and rewrite them to include Susan; it would make more sense to base it on the dozen-ish Susan Calvin stories as a whole regardless of what collection they appeared in. But I'm not sure adapting an anthology, trying to craft a single narrative out of a bunch of separate stories, is really a good idea. Richard Matheson made a respectable attempt at it in the 1980 TV miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, but even that didn't really feel like a cohesive whole.

 

[Stevil2001]

^But when people say "It's wrong because it's not the same as the 'novel' I, Robot," they're usually not making some abstract point about the niceties of terminology, but instead are arguing from the assumption that I, Robot told a single specific story that the movie failed to adapt. And that's completely incorrect. I, Robot tells nine different stories that have no single character or premise in common. Their only unifying element is the Three Laws of Robotics, and to some extent the character of Susan Calvin, because the first four stories that she isn't in are presented as events she's describing to a reporter. So I see no reason why the umbrella title I, Robot couldn't be validly used to encompass an additional story involving Susan Calvin and the Three Laws.

^What would constitute a faithful adaptation of I, Robot, though? Which stories would it adapt? I suppose maybe you could do an adaptation of "Evidence" and "The Evitable Conflict," focusing on Susan Calvin and Steven Byerly, but then that's just an adaptation of those two stories, not of I, Robot as a whole. Maybe you could find a way to fold in Powell and Donovan.

Here's what Wikipedia says about Ellison's script:

Ellison's script builds a framework around Asimov's short stories that involves a reporter named Robert Bratenahl tracking down information about Susan Calvin's alleged former lover Stephen Byerly. Asimov's stories are presented as flashbacks that differ from the originals in their stronger emphasis on Calvin's character. Ellison placed Calvin into stories in which she did not originally appear and fleshed out her character's role in ones where she did.

But to me that seems just as artificial as the interview conceit that unified the stories in I, Robot to begin with. My problem with the idea of "an adaptation of I, Robot" is that I, Robot isn't really a single specific or unique thing. It's just a selection of nine of Asimov's thirty-plus positronic-robot short stories. It contains fewer than half of the stories about Susan Calvin; it's basically the Powell-Donovan stories plus a selection of Susan Calvin stories plus "Robbie," which had nothing to do with either in its original form (though the version in the collection has a scene with the teenage Susan Calvin tacked on). And Asimov didn't even choose or want the title; he objected to it because it was already the title of a story by Ernest and Otto Binder (the basis of the Outer Limits episode of that name and its later remake). Asimov wanted to call it Mind and Iron, which frankly is a far more awesome title. So I, Robot doesn't really constitute a single unified or cohesive thing. It's a semi-arbitrary sampling of a small percentage of Asimov's robot stories.

I think if you're going to do a movie that's a compilation of Susan Calvin's life story, you shouldn't base it on the stories in I, Robot and rewrite them to include Susan; it would make more sense to base it on the dozen-ish Susan Calvin stories as a whole regardless of what collection they appeared in. But I'm not sure adapting an anthology, trying to craft a single narrative out of a bunch of separate stories, is really a good idea. Richard Matheson made a respectable attempt at it in the 1980 TV miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, but even that didn't really feel like a cohesive whole.

I don't think anyone in this thread has said the film should have been 100% faithful to the novel. (And if they have, I agree with you that they're wrong.) I think what most people have been saying is that the film wasn't faithful enough, which is a different thing. Having read books and seen films, I am well aware that the structure and format of I, Robot make it ill-suited for a direct adaptation. (Reading the Ellison script only reinforces that.) But we could have had a more faithful adaptation than we got.

Though "more faithful" is probably just code for "better in quality."

 

[Christopher]

I don't think anyone in this thread has said the film should have been 100% faithful to the novel.

And I'm not saying they did. I'm saying that I, Robot isn't a single cohesive thing to begin with; it's a loose sampling of a fraction of Asimov's positronic-robot stories, specifically the fraction written before 1950. So even defining what "faithful to I, Robot" means in the first place is far from elementary. Faithful to what parts of it? What aspects of it? There's no single plot to be faithful to. Ellison's screenplay is evidently more or less faithful to the unifying conceit of the collection, the interview of Susan Calvin as a framework for the stories, but that frame is a somewhat artificial imposition on the original works.

I guess I just don't have any intellectual or emotional loyalty to I, Robot as a distinct and separate entity. To me it's just the earliest piece of a larger whole, a loose agglomeration of the first nine of several dozen stories in the series. I don't see it as something that's complete within itself, just as a sliver of something bigger.

So tell me, what is "faithful to I, Robot?" What does that actually mean when we're talking about a loose and non-comprehensive anthology like this? It doesn't have to be fidelity to the plot, because there are nine plots, ten if you count the frame. Fidelity to the characters? Sure, I can see that. Creating a film that's built around Susan Calvin and Alfred Lanning and Steven Byerly and Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan would certainly be more faithful than one that's built around Del Spooner and Susan Calvin and Alfred Lanning. But there are Susan Calvin and Steven Byerly stories that aren't part of I, Robot because they were written after 1950. I, Robot is a nebulous concept. So I think if someone wants to tell an original story arising from the Three Laws and including Susan Calvin and Alfred Lanning, and they decide to call it I, Robot, I think the definition of what I, Robot is in the first place is fuzzy enough that I don't have a problem with that.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Instead os making a super great thoughtful film with profound notions, they made a blockbuster for the popcorn eating crowd, and then made them think.

I think they knew what they were doing.