Isaac Asimov

Rating: Null/10 (29 July 2004)

The late Isaac Asimov has been called the Dean of Science Fiction for a simple reason: he IS the best. There has never been, and will never be, one like him.
Among his prolific SF work (not to mention the even more prolific non-fiction work on a wide variety of subjects from science, to Shakespeare, to the Bible) the best is the two converging series which started as entirely unrelated stories several decades ago, and came together in one grand finale, in converging plots that developed/evolved through a time span of well over 30 years. The Elijah Bailey series on robot stories (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, Robot and Empire) and the Foundation series on the Galactic Empire (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge) converge in the book Foundation and Earth, bringing together this two series of masterful stories which started out totally unrelated (but with suggestive hints that grow stronger as we move along).
The movie I Robot, however, originated from a different segment of Asimov's SF work, short stories on the subject of robots. While these short stories are unrelated to the Elijah Bailey stories, the same three laws apply. As well, these shorts stories are all independent, but are loosely linked by the background of U.S. Robots and Susan Calvin. Asimov's ingenious and boundless imagination is richly demonstrated in these short stories, found main in three books, `I Robot', `The rest of the robots' and `The bicentennial man' (title story made into a movie starring Robin Williams). Here are but a few examples:
`Robbie'  a little girl's love for her nursemaid, a non-speaking robot
`Runaround'  a robot `drunk' as a result of an equilibrium between the 2nd and 3rd laws
`Reason'  a robot that believes that he is better than human
`Liar'  a mind-reading robot telling lies to please people
`Little lost robot'  a robot with modified first law and superiority complex
`First law'  a robot with maternal instinct
`Let's get together'  ten Russian robots infiltrating the U.S.
`Lenny'  Susan Calvin's baby robot
`That thou art mindful of him'  robots that consider other robots to be human beings, thereby circumventing the first law
`Feminine intuition'  a female robot with `intuition'
NOW TO THE MOVIE  with SPOILERS !!!
Isaac Asimov's books are marvelous to read, but not quite suited to making into movies, because the beauty of these SF work is in the logical reasoning embedded in each story, appealing to the mind rather than the senses. That is why under writing credits, it says `Isaac Asimov (suggested by book)'. The screen script, however, is a nicely done job, taking the backbone ideas from Asimov to build a standard but entertaining Hollywood flick. As usual, the necessary ingredients are taken from proven successes: a six-million- dollar-man arm, John Woo style twin pistol, robot-fu, great CGI, Will Smith comedy etc. The suspense and twists are quite predictable but that doesn't take anything away from the fun.
For those interest, here are two more Asimov references.

VIKI the computer that tries to control human beings is modeled after Multivac, from the short story `The life and times of Multivac' in the book `The Bicentennial Man'.
The zero law that puts `humanity' above human beings is from Robots and Empire, the 4th book in the Elijah Bailey series.