Tuesday, July 20, 2004

I, Robot

I saw I, Robot this past weekend, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. The previews give the impression that the movie is a "Frankenstein's monter" style story — the very sort of thing Asimov was rebelling against when he developed the Three Laws of Robotics. In reality, the story actually fits reasonably well into the framework of the three laws, however. While it doesn't have the same plot as any of the stories in the book I, Robot, I think it was a reasonably faithful "Asimov-style" robot story.

Spoilers

The movie had some elements of the Zeroth Law, from Robots and Empire. The whole "ghost in the machine" idea was also a theme that Asimov explored a few times, like in Bicentennial Man and "Light Verse" (a short story which appears in the books Robot Dreams and The Complete Robot). The movie actually reminded me a lot of Isaac Asimov's Caliban (which despite the title, is by Roger MacBride Allen, not Isaac Asimov). Overall, I was pretty happy with the movie.

posted Tuesday, July 20, 2004