I, Robot

[mobo]

It kinda pisses me off that they basically took the laws of robotics, half ignored them, took some of azimovs characters, half ingonred what they were meant to be about & called it after his first book of short stories when in fact it had very little to do with ANY of his books & basically flies in the face of some of the major points he puts forwards....but apart from that...

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If you read Foundation and Empire the robot Giskard formualed a new 1st rule that superseeded all other rules

A robot most not injure humanity or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm

Ok admittedly they have flipped the whole idea on its head.

[Rythmic]

It would never have been made if Asimov were still with us.

Not like that anyhow.

And I don't care about his damn boots - wtf was that all about, apart from product placement,

[Dorza]

Its a pretty good film imo at the end of the day. However it will just be another dvd on my self when it comes out. I wont think its anything special and i wont think its a terrible dvd to buy such as Ali G IDH. One thing tho the visuals are supurb particularly on the robots. Some of the best ive seen.


PS. im sure those cars have TT's under them somewhere, the back lights on one of them looked just like a TT's.

[Michael]

http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=i_robot

[Zathras]

If you read Foundation and Empire the robot Giskard formualed a new 1st rule that superseeded all other rules

Nitpicking the nitpicking but I think you mean Robots and Empire. It certainly wasn't in Foundation and Empire as IIRC there was no robot storyline in any of the Foundation trilogy.

[Flash]

has anyone read the books IIRC they were written over 20 years ago

[Zathras]

They're classic defining sci-fi! Showing their age lots now but for their time they were absolutely groundbreaking. Worth a read if your literary tastes and attention span extend beyond Spot the Dog or Harry Potter.

[KBeee]

They're classic defining sci-fi! Showing their age lots now but for their time they were absolutely groundbreaking. Worth a read if your literary tastes and attention span extend beyond Spot the Dog or Harry Potter.

I dunno...
Harry Potter is getting pretty heavy these days, whereas Asimov was always original, but pretty simplistic in his writing style A---> B---> C---->
He even wrote an apology for having 2 storylines going in 1 book once..

[FarmerJon]

Azimov was a genius. He coined phrases such as robotics & the like decades before their time. His writing wasn't all simple simple, and if you'd have read his entire repetoire (probs the wrong word but you know what i mean) then you'd see that a lot of his stuff gets quite complex. Fair enough some of his detective style stories were quite straight forward, but parts of the foundation series (all seven of them) are quite complex...just my 2 cents

[Leo]

Azimov was a genius. He coined phrases such as robotics & the like decades before their time. His writing wasn't all simple simple, and if you'd have read his entire repetoire (probs the wrong word but you know what i mean) then you'd see that a lot of his stuff gets quite complex. Fair enough some of his detective style stories were quite straight forward, but parts of the foundation series (all seven of them) are quite complex...just my 2 cents

Totally agree with you. Love most of Asimov's work, if not all of it.

[TiG]

Well a few points from me about the film.... Was worried about watching it, thought it was going to be an indepedance day type affair, but it certainly wasn't that.

I loved the coldness of both the leads in different aspects of their lives, the duality of so many of the moments, Smith being half robot himself. Sure there was Hollywood moments, but i thought the acting was great, cold and edgy, which is how i view azimov's writing.

I think the film also touched on some very important points, the social/economic dynamics of robots being rolled out to every home, people losing their jobs to them, the decommisioning scene and destruction of AS4 variants by AS5.

How even simple rules with AI could become to be broken. To understand the concequences of your actions, how if humanity becomes lazy - we will put ourselves in an absolute mess.

Very good film and i'm now full of thoughts ideas and dreams for the future

TiG

[ajbrun]

This may be slightly off topic, but does anyone know where I can buy these books (preferably online)? I've heard that there are many books, have they compiled them all into one, or do I have to buy them all separatly?

I'd just like to read the books because after seeing the film (which I thought was very good), a lot of people said it was nothing like the books, so I'd like to see for myself .

Thanks

[Moonshade]

I like Will Smith too, but haven't seen it yet, but howard..no boring parts, huh?
Hm, then I will really think about seeing it, maybe this weekend.

[daniel_owen_uk]

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Doesn't that audi have spheres instead of wheels? (it does read it in FHM) so where does the grip come from the surface area touching road must be very small.

[Rythmic]

Well - I'm guessing they're not perfect spheres - they've presumably got a "tyre" which will increase the surface area by flattening out at the bottom - Same way as a circular car tyre does (they'd have a very small contact patch as well if they where perfectly circular)

[Rob]

Doesn't that audi have spheres instead of wheels? (it does read it in FHM) so where does the grip come from the surface area touching road must be very small.

"Underneath its body is a traditional mid-mounted Audi engine and drive train. The fully covered wheels connect to exterior panels that spin, giving the illusion of moving spheres."

From HERE