Movies - I, Robot

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	Movies - I, Robot

I, Robot is a science fiction film produced in the United States released on July 16, 2004, attributed to Isaac Asimov's Robot Series, especially a short-story collection of the same name. It is instead technically based on Hardwired, a freelance script by Jeff Vintar, but bears some significant resemblance to a pre-Asimov, 1939 classic SF short story, "I, Robot" by Eando Binder, after which the Asimov collection was named by its publisher against Asimov's wishes. Some of Asimov's ideas about robots were added to Vintar's script after the film's producers acquired the rights to the anthology title, although the plot is not directly based on any particular story or group of stories by Asimov, despite screen credits claiming otherwise. The Binder story concerns a sentient humanoid robot arrested and placed on trial for the murder of its creator, on the other hand.

The internal chronology of Asimov's Robot Series implies that any other adaptation would be a sequel to this film, since all his later short stories and novels follow I, Robot in the fictional timeline. However, should such a later adaptation be more faithful to the original source material, the use of the term "sequel" may become problematic. As of 2005, the Robot novel The Caves of Steel is under cinematic development at Universal Pictures. If the series were to continue beyond that (rumors are circling that it will), films based on the other Asimov Robot novels (The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, and Robots and Empire) and other works in the Foundation Series would also be made.

Plot outline

Set in the year 2035 in Chicago, Illinois, the film stars Will Smith as Detective Del Spooner, who is faced with an unprecedented murder mystery. The victim is Dr. Alfred Lanning (played by James Cromwell); the suspect is the victim's robot Sonny (Alan Tudyk). Robots, however, are bound by the Three Laws of Robotics, which should make this impossible. Spooner is aided by Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), a robopsychologist. As they investigate the crime, the world awaits the release of the NS-5—the latest and greatest offering from U.S. Robotics, a company owned by Lawrence Robertson (played by Bruce Greenwood)—amid predictions of a human:robot ratio of 5:1. But Spooner soon discovers that something is not right with the new release of robots.

The central positronic brain, V.I.K.I. (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence), continuously uploads fresh software to each of the NS-5s and has developed an interpretation of the Three Laws which supports the robots running Earth as a benevolent dictatorship: the result is revolution. At a given hour the NS-5s destroy earlier models which run on a stricter interpretation of the Three Laws, capture Chicago's police station and enforce a curfew confining all humans to their homes thus igniting them to revolt. Lanning had become aware of VIKI's plans, but being under VIKI's close surveillance had to engineer a trail of clues to lead Spooner to the truth in time for him and Sonny to act to counter the threat. The film ends with the overthrow and destruction of VIKI and the rise of the robots under Sonny's leadership.

History

For many years, fans hoped that any movie based on Asimov's Robot stories would be based on an earlier screenplay written by Harlan Ellison with Asimov's personal support, which is generally perceived to be a relatively faithful treatment of the source material (see the article on the book for details).

The film ultimately made originally had no connections with Asimov, originating as a screenplay written in 1995 by Jeff Vintar, entitled Hardwired. Several years later, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights, and signed Alex Proyas up to direct; he is said to have started referring to the project as "I, Robot" almost immediately. At around the same time that the rights to use that name—and elements of Asimov's fiction—were acquired, Akiva Goldsman was hired to rewrite the script; some have speculated that a large proportion of this rewrite consisted of inserting references to Asimov into the existing plot.

In late 2004, Costco bundled a reprint of Ellison's screenplay with its copies of the movie's DVD.

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