Thread: I, Robot
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Old 12-18-2007   #5 (permalink)
Iandefor
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Default Re: I, Robot

I'm still wondering why they called it "I, Robot" when it bore almost no resemblance to the collection of short stories upon which it was supposedly based.

It really only had a small similarity to the last story, I think called "The Evitable Conflict", wherein the idea of the First Law compelling robots to take the reins of human society was discussed.

Even then, it bore almost resemblance to the way the idea was portrayed in the movie. In the book, it was discussed as a very subtle and generally positive change- the robots are clearly competent to govern effectively and are fundamentally benevolent entities- better than any human could ever govern. In the movie, it got turned into a b-movie "Frankenstein's monster" kind of scenario- man's creations getting out of hand and all that.

There were some interesting ideas surrounding Sunny's personhood that Asimov didn't really explore in his original work, but I think they would have done better to distance themselves from the original book.
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