See, for me this is a tough one. I liked I, Robot quite a bit, despite some shortcomings, put a different spin on the three laws. But I'd also like to see Lije Baley on screen.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
would you rather see I, Robot 2 or the Caves of Steel film?
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
- Start date
The Caves of Steel.
Either would be okay, as long as it's at least as good as I, Robot. Naturally either would be done as a blockbuster action flick, but I, Robot managed to be reasonably intelligent and faithful to the basics of Asimov's universe within those parameters, and I'd hope either of these would do the same.
I think Caves of Steel would end up looking, to most people, like a remake of I, Robot, with Lije Baley replacing Del Spooner. One problem with Caves is that it's fairly simplistic as a mystery; Ebert's "Law of Economy of Characters" really works against it because the cast is small and the plot is straightforward. I think you'd have to ramp up the stakes in a Caves movie -- if Baley can't solve the crime and crack the conspiracy before such-and-such a time, the Auroran spaceflight will start shelling Chicago from orbit -- to make it more cinematic.
Going back to the original question... Do I have to choose? I'd want both.
Caves of Steel any day.
Is this a "Death is not an option!" type question?
Actually I'm changing my vote to "both." The more Asimov movies we get, the better the odds that we'll get at least one really good one.
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. 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. And the movie included all those things.
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. So accepting that inescapable reality, the question that matters is, is it a smart action blockbuster, is it well-made, and is it reasonably respectful of the concepts within the limits of what that kind of adaptation will allow? And I think the answer is yes.
And yet, Harlan Ellison never grasped this simple fact.
His I, Robot screenplay is an interesting piece of work. I enjoyed reading it. It would have made an interesting art-house science fiction movie. But no studio exec in 1980 would have kept his job if he'd commissioned that script; Ellison himself admits it would have been stupidly expensive to film at the time, and it would have been a financial disaster at the box office on the scale of Heaven's Gate or Ishtar for the very reasons you state.
Thanks for a great post.
I liked I, Robot (film) quite a bit, and you largely touched on why. The other reason I liked it was that I had heard that Asimov intended his Three Laws to be shared, or may be it was that I heard that a lot of other writers adapted them and made them universal. The point is that I am willing to see different takes on how they can be used in a story, and it doesn't have to only be Asimov's take.
In the Asimov stories, at least as I remember them, when Daneel learned about the Zeroth Law from Giskard - which caused Giskard to malfunction - he took it with him for generations so he could help protect humanity. It was a good thing that he adapted it.
However, the screenwriters of I, Robot were quite clever in figuring out that the Zeroth Law (which is basically unnamed, but kind of what VIKI adapted) might not be a good thing, particularly because it was never adapted as an official law, and she instead was forced to make judgement calls as to what was good for humans and what wasn't based on the laws, while Spooner had learned that - them being robots - they would lack empathy, the ability to really see moral dilemmas from a human standpoint. What was logical becomes arbitrary. Spooner realized that it didn't matter if the robots were actually doing good or bad if they were following the laws, their dogmatic obsession was following the laws for the sake of the laws (it could be analogy of religious dogma) and that empathy - an ability to assess each individual situation and make the right choice, a human choice - trumps dogma. This was an intelligent way to take Asimov's ideas, if if it wasn't a story he would have told. (I would actually argue that he wouldn't tell it, because he would never make it so that a robot like Sonny coul exist. Sure, Sonny was a very Daneel-like robot in his personality, but Asimov would say that each robot, no matter what, would have the Three Laws, and what ever story they would find themselves in would have to work around this fact - but, as I am getting at, it didn't bug me at all that Sonny, who wasn't programmed with the Laws, wasn't an Asimovian robot. I welcome the deviation)
And sure, there's gunfire, bold action scenes and one-liners, because we all still want to see a big, awesome blockbuster. It's all good. I like how - in this story - Will smith had a reason for his cynical sense of humor, and that it came from a darker place than say, his somewhat similar turns in Men in Black and Independence Day.
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.
The film's plot arguably owes as much to Jack Williamson's The Humanoids as to Asimov. The Humanoids was about a world where the titular androids' "Prime Directive" to serve and protect humanity led them to coddle and control humanity much as VIKI sought to do here.
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.
It still is pretty thought provoking. Maybe not profound, but better than one might expect.
Take the first action bit. Having written the three laws in text, the film then shows them at work, as Spooner thinks that one has stolen a purse and won't obey his order to stop. Through action, not pure exposition, the filmmakers have illustrated the laws very well in a fun, funny scene. They've also illustrated Spooner as a character.
Caves of Steel, I'd prefer to see something new than a potentially weak sequel.
