Primordial Ooze

I, Robot—I, boycott

I have a real problem on my hands. I’m a sucker for science fiction movies, even bad ones. Furthermore, if it’s a sci fi blockbuster, I’m pretty much there on opening night. Since having kids, that’s not really true, but almost true.

That said, I now have a real dimemna. I just saw the trailer for the motion picture I, Robot, starring Will Smith. From what I can see, they have completely twisted the story from Isaac Asimov’s original work of the same name. What am I supposed to do now? I’ve got to boycott the thing, don’t I? I mean, I grew up on Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels and later his Foundation series. This is like sacrilege.

My main problem with their perversion is the robots seem to go ballistic in the movie… typical of a hollywood disaster. In the books, this would be impossible, of course. In the books, the robots always obeyed the three laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Again, in the books, the robots had no choice but to obey the laws. It was made very clear that these three laws were written into the fabric of the robotic positronic brains. Failure to comply was as impossible as it is for a human to fly.

The point of the rules was to present challenging opportunities for the reader in situations where the only being capable of the crime was… a robot. However, this line or reasoning had to be abandoned since the reader could always rely on the laws being valid. The movie breaking these rules as liberally as they seem to is just plain offensive.

Unfortunately, I’m not the boycott type. I’m not that disciplined. Plus, it’s fun to complain and sound like I know what I’m talking about as I rip into the story. Maybe I’ll just come in 5 minutes late and miss the title scene so I can pretend it’s a different movie.

Arg.