I, Fan

I've been caught up in Isaac Asimov's stories ever since my library membership here began. Even if I found them in different library branches, Asimov's books were still very accessible that I couldn't pass them up, especially since I've wanted to read his Robot books for so long.

I've only gotten started on the Foundation and Empire series, and the Robot books I've read are Robot Dreams and The Complete Robot.  The Robot novels are almost always unavailable, on loan.

A couple of weeks back, I suddenly remembered that I haven't watched the movie I, Robot.  Last weekend, I finally did.  Here are my thoughts (I took notes while I was watching =p):

• It's a swell Will Smith movie.
• I read that some people hated the Converse product placement -- I thought it was amusing.
• The liberties the movie took with Asimov's characters (okay, specifically -- or maybe, just Susan Calvin) were a serious disservice to the fans of the books. What endeared Calvin to readers, her cold attachment to robots they stripped off, and I didn't like her slight interest/fascination(?) with Will Smith's character. The Calvin in the movie was simply.. someone else.
• I didn't think they should've played off the robot-as-monster theme, since.
• I know that Asimov did write some action scenes (though not in the Robot stories), but the way they did it in the movie just didn't work for me. For example, I hated the revolving cameras in the final action scene.
• Forgivable changes:
• What happened to Lanning in the beginning of the movie. It fit the plot quite smartly.
• Robertson's A-hole-ness.
• It was nice how they integrated the central ideas of many of the robot stories:
• the lost robot
• robot + detetive -- weeell, I wouldn't call it a partership, just a pairing
• the dream
• the different interpretation of the Three Laws
• I was hoping to see a Powell and Donovan cameo. =p

(WTF -- Ctrl+P in Blogger's editor means Publish.  But I'm not done yet!)

Overall, I still liked the movie.  =)

So, naturally, I felt that I had to re-watch that other movie based on Asimov's Robot stories:  Bicentennial Man.

And it was AWESOME.

I haven't read the novel, The Positronic Man, yet, but it was quite faithful to the short story. The parts that differed from the short story were subtle changes that didn't touch the core of the story. While I was watching it, I felt the same way as when I was reading it.  Simply fantastic.