I just watched the trailer to I, Robot, and I am greatly disappointed. I'm surprised that the Asimov estate allowed this movie to be made, since it appears to be something that goes against all the principles that made him create "The Three Laws of Robotics" in the first place.
Isaac Asimov was one of my childhood heroes, he was an incredibly brilliant man and a prolific writer. Here is what he wrote in the introduction of The Rest of the Robots:
". . . one of the stock plots of science fiction was that of the invention of a robot--usually pictured as a creature of metal without soul or emotion. Under the influence of the well-known deeds and ultimate fate of Frankenstein and Rossum, there seemed only one change to be rung on this plot.--Robots were created and destroyed their creator; robots were created and destroyed their creator: robots were created and destroyed their creator-- In the 1930's I became a science-fiction reader and I quickly grew tired of this dull hundred-times-told tale. As a person interested in science, I resented the purely faustian interpretation of science."
Asimov goes on to further say:
"There was just enough ambiguity in the Three Laws to provide the conflicts and uncertainties required for new stories, and, to my great relief, it seemed always to be possible to think up a new angle out of the sixty-one words of the Three Laws."
Isaac Asimov was a genius. Still, I'm appalled by the fact that the scriptwriters for this movie couldn't think of their own puzzle involving the Three Laws instead of what looks like Men In Black with robots. They turned what could have been a very cool sci-fi noir detective story into just another summer blockbuster.
At the heart of Asimov's stories, they typically revolved around 7 major issues:
- Unreasoning human opposition to robots
- Human resentment of robots and the difficulties of introducing robots to Earth.
- The difficulties of giving robots unambiguous instructions.
- Determining what is good for people.
- The distinctions among robots and between robots and people and the difficulties telling robots and people apart.
- The superiority of robots to people.
- The superiority of people to robots.
Choose one or two of those, and you've got a story.
I will probably still end up watching the movie and ranting about it later.
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