Review of I, Robot

I, Robot (2004)
1/10
STUPID Frankenstein
6 January 2008
For any fan of Isaac Asimov, this film is a total fraud.

Dr. Asimov went to great lengths to explain his motivation for writing his robot stories in the introduction to "The Rest of the Robots", an anthology published in 1968. In Dr. Asimov's words, "... there seemed only one change to be rung on this plot -- Robots were created and destroyed their creator; ... I quickly grew tired of this dull hundred-times-old tale. As a person interested in science, I resented the purely Faustian interpretation of science".

The film is totally at odds with the philosophy Dr. Asimov defended, and totally different from all the robot stories he wrote. Only a few names and the "three laws of robotics" were copied, but the central point in all his stories, that a robot could never be made to violate the three laws, was not respected. The Asimov robot stories are fun because they try to find situations were there is enough contradiction in those laws to create interesting situations.

"I, Robot", the movie, is just one more remake of that old, old, old story Isaac Asimov hated so much, it's Frankenstein again. If you insist on seeing that same story again, better get Mel Brooks' version, it's funnier.

Let's close with Asimov: "Never, never, was one of my robots to turn stupidly on his creator for no purpose but to demonstrate, for one more weary time, the crime and punishment of Faust".
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