*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Thursday, August 21st, 2014 2:43am PDT - promote requested by eric3579.

Ha... beat me to it !

Yea this is an exact duplicate of "I Robot" with a twist of Blomkamp....
Not a bad cocktail though...

Exactly. that is a good thing

I, Robot (the books) is some great sci-fi. The movie has resembles them only in name

Yes. Asimov is one of the best... and the "I Robot" series is one of his best.
It's insane that almost none of his work has been adapted.
There are some vintage BBC Sci-fi episodes that did however, back in the 60s

Really? What stories did they do?

There's been a rumour floating around the Foundation books becoming a mini series, but I don't think they'd work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Unknown

Out of the Unknown.

I've seen 'Liar' which is from "I Robot". It was excellent, in a Dr.Who vibe.
There is another "The Prophet" that I would love to see, with a score by BBC Radiophonics heroine Delia Derbyshire. But the film was destroyed. Soundtrack exists.



These are the Asmiov Eps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_%28Asimov%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_Guaranteed_%28short_story%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Bait

Other notable episodes are "The Machine Stops" and “Thirteen to Centaurus” (J.G.Ballard!!).
Simply amazing sci-fi

I Robot was the first sci-fi novel i ever read and Asimov's Science Fiction was the first magazine I ever subscribed to. Boom.

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Looks good. Though after Transcendence I've lost faith in Hollywood getting complicated modern science and ethics right.

Yeah, but this isn't really Hollywood so it might not suck

Yes, that was an awful film. After reading your post it occurred to me that Transcendence without Johnny Depp (or any other love interest / human A.I. component) might actually have worked...

I just remembered another Asimov robot film...

Bicentennial man, starring Robin Williams

I haven't heard anything about a film, but I just happened to notice a news article about this a few minutes ago:

http://www.seldoncrisis.com/

Though I'm surely forgetting some more obscure work, I certainly can't think of any Aisimov novel or short story that has ever been transitioned into a decent film.

It's possible, as ChaosEngine alluded to, that the Foundation "trilogy" could make a decent film trilogy or miniseries, but it would require an exceptionally good screenwriter and director to make it work--and a LOT of creative liberties. It just covers too great a timespan, too many characters with complex and cross-generational relationships, and frankly very little of real significance happens during reasonable spans of time. Frankly, and though I can't claim to have read all of his works (though probably most), Asimov is probably best left in the realm of literature.

What we really need is a film version of the damn Sprawl Trilogy. I mean, that's just begging to be made into a trilogy of films. The screenplay would almost write itself. I'd say Joss Whedon should direct.

@AeroMechanical, actually I'm with you. I seriously doubt the Foundation stories would work on film or even in a long form mini series.

The problem with a lot of sci-fi literature is that it doesn't conform to the standard 3 act movie structure. There's often an ambiguous ending which doesn't neatly resolve (like real life!). Asimov, Clarke, Banks, Reynolds, Morgan (to name a few of my favourites) fit this pattern.

There are two things happening, IMO:
1. The journey really is more important than the destination. It's about the story, not the outcome.
2. In some cases, story above character (Asimov and Clarke in particular). The idea is more important than the puny humans caught up in it.

Both of these are hard for studio execs (and to be fair, mainstream audiences) to grasp.

Yeah, I agree exactly. As a somewhat related example, I just finished reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. In truth, it could actually make a pretty interesting and exciting sci-fi film, but it would lose virtually everything that made it a good novel (for the most part, Stephenson can get a little self-indulgent in his dialog). If you took the roughly 1000 page long book, and stripped out everything you couldn't put in a film without it becoming extraordinarily long and tedious, you'd maybe be left with about 150 pages. It could be a great film, and it would fit the three act motif, but it just wouldn't be Anathem.

That's sort of what led me to think of Neuromancer. There's lots of good, heady sci-fi there, but it's all expressed in events, action, and good but concise dialog (and there are, quite distinctly, three acts). Like all adaptations, sure some things would be lost, but the important concepts would still be there. Anathem, on the other hand, would just be a superficial event-driven story. Similarly, Snow Crash would just come across as ridiculous (though I'd be interested to see what Terry Gilliam could do with it).

Holy cow that looks good. *quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by lucky760.

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Sift of the week!

Robot movies seem to always be about them becoming aware, self-concious, or alive... I know Asimov had a great influence on this trend but still, is the lemon not pressed enough? Star Trek (Data),Bladerunner, Robocop, Wall-E, Alien(s), A.I., Stepford Wives, D.A.R.Y.L., and personal favorite : Short circuit. And now this one. All the same re-invention of the Pinocchio archetype, if one may say.

Well, a movie about non-self-aware robots that just follow their programming would be kinda boring.

Beside, we need more movies about the singularity. It's going to happen and it's going to be the single greatest upheaval to human culture since agriculture.

Interesting you mention Anathem - it reminded me a lot of Asimov style classic sci-fi. Great book.

Ditto on Sprawl Trilogy, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the Johnny Mnemonic movie. That could have been done so well, but ughh.

I would like to see Neuromancer done by Christopher Nolan. After Inception, he might be able to pull it off. On the other hand, that being my favorite book ever, I'd probably hate any movie of it.