Other Science Fiction Series

The Travesty That Is "I, Robot"

POSTED BY: MohrStoutbeard
UPDATED: Friday, January 14, 2005 01:24
VIEWED: 6833
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MOHRSTOUTBEARD

Sunday, January 2, 2005 8:09 AM

Tonight, I once again found myself leafing through Harlan Ellison's screenplay for "I, Robot." I have read it twice before, and it breaks my heart that it might never be made into a film.

I will preface this with the admission that I have not seen, nor do I plan to see, the recent movie with Will Smith. Why? Because it's not "I, Robot." It's called "Hardwired." Borrowing some character names and the Three Laws of Robotics doesn't make it "I, Robot." Susan Calvin is not a young hottie, damn it.

Suffice to say, I present to you Harlan's introductory essay to his screenplay adaptation of Issac Asimov's classic stories. I present it to you, humble readers, as further proof that "I, Robot" was at best a wasted opportunity and at worst nothing less than a travesty:

Quote:
ME 'N' ISSAC AT THE MOVIES
A Brief Memoir Of Citizen Calvin
by Harlan Ellison

My heart bleeds like a rock when I have the dream. I always cry; or if I'm in public, I pretend it's an allergy that's making me get all choked up. This dream. . .I never have it at night, asleep. It always comes to me when I'm off-guard, when I'm awake but my mind is elsewhere. A daydream, a looking-off-through-the-air. . .unmanned, disarmed, fit to be bushwhacked.

In the daydream, the daymare, Issac and I are in a movie theater. We're sitting side-by-side, watching this movie. This movie, this screenplay you have in front of you, the one it took a year of my creative life to write, this movie that Issac liked so much. Issac and I, we're sitting there watching I, Robot.

It's a terrible daydream, and I come out of it shaking my head trying to get the pictures out of the darkness where I play them over and over in the Cinerama dome of my memory. Issac really liked this screenplay a lot, and Warner Bros. studios never made the motion picture, and now Issac is dead and will never see it, and I keep having this awful, damned daydream in which we sit together enjoying what might have been. And it doesn't matter if I have the daydream a hundred times, I cannot keep myself from crying when I wrench out of that theater of memory. Like Issac's dear Janet, Robyn, and Stan, and all the rest of us who won't see him again, it is impossible for me to convey the pain that seems somehow to never go away completely, a pain that we willingly endure because it serves to bring him back at the memory's behest; in my case, there in the movie theater.

After several rewrites of the first draft, I sent the final to Issac early in August 1978. He wrote me on the 18th, "I picked up the completed manuscript a little after 10 PM last night just to glance through it and see what changes you made. I began reading word for word and, with bedtime at 11, I was done at 12:30 AM with Janet reasoning with me that I need my sleep.

"It's terrific, Harlan. I asked you in my letter of 9 March to make it 'the first really adult, complex, worhtwhile science fiction movie ever made' and you've done it. You've put your own frame around four of my stories, kept the stories mine in essence and in much detail, made the frame your very own (with a skill and imagination I could never even dream of matching) and yet kept it in the spirit of I, Robot also. In particular, you kept Susan Calvin my Susan Calvin and that is wonderful."

I quote from that letter - a letter that went on much longer and enthused even more than what I've set down here - even the parts that are embarassingly self-serving, because it is imperative to me that anyone who picks up this book understands that this is not one of those work-for-hire afterthought books that capitalize on Issac's name, or the work he did that made his reputation. This is no succubus expansion of a short story, or a twiddle that springboards from a "treatment" Issac may have sold to some merchandiser. It is a novel-for-the-screen that was written by me, with Issac's seed-quartet of stories and the living shadow of Susan Calvin as sun and rain that brought forth an entirely different creative work. I quote Issa

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ECGORDON

Sunday, January 2, 2005 2:44 PM

I've also read Ellison's screenplay, and have not given up hope that it would someday be produced, but with the irony that is Hollywood it would probably end up being titled "Hardwired."

I had not intended to see the Will Smith film either, but did so out of respect for Alan Tudyck, who personally asked us here to not pre-judge it.

I wish I had never read that thread now, so that I would not have gone to see the film. You are right, it was a travesty, possibly even worse that Starship Troopers.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

CHRONICTHEHEDGEHOG

Sunday, January 2, 2005 4:04 PM

Personally, I enjoyed I, Robot. I don't care if it wasn't based on the book because it never said it was. Just because a movie and a book share the same title doesn't mean they have to be the same. If it said 'based on' I'd be more inclined to agree with you, I've spent far too long discussing the changes made to Faramir in LoTR because they're supposed to be based on the books. However, the same cannot be said of I, Robot.

Give the movie a chance, just ignore the title. It's a fun movie, it's not the cleverest movie ever made and it's not anything like the book but it's what it set out to be, a fun popcorn flick.

check out my WIP firefly roleplay system at www.estador.co.uk/firefly

FIREFLYPASSENGER

Sunday, January 2, 2005 6:47 PM

<>

And Alan did an excellent job with Sonny.

If it were titled anything else you wouldn't have that much of a problem with it. I enjoyed the movie. I am not going to say it was the best movie or my favorite but definitely worth watching and recommending.

FIREFLYPASSENGER

Sunday, January 2, 2005 6:47 PM

MONTANAGIRL

Sunday, January 2, 2005 7:08 PM

This may be a dumb question, but wasn't Harlan Ellison involved with B5 as a conceptual consultant (or something)? The name is very familiar.

Packer fans welcome.
All others tolerated.

ECGORDON

Sunday, January 2, 2005 7:20 PM

Ellison is primarily known as a writer of short stories, in the science fiction and fantasy genres as well as horror and mainstream themes, and his career began in the mid-50s.

He has also written for quite a few television shows, including The Outer Limits (original and revived series), The Man From UNCLE, and the original Star Trek ("The City on the Edge of Forever"). His two scripts for the original Outer Limits ("Soldier" and "Demon With a Glass Hand") have been acknowledged to have been an inspiration for James Cameron's creation of The Terminator. He was "conceptual consultant" on B5 and he was also story editor on the mid-80s revival of The Twilight Zone.

Honestly, it is hard for me to judge I, Robot on its own since I admire the work of Asimov so much. It is hard to say if I would have liked it if I was not aware of the history of the story and the screenplay that originally was not based on Asimov's work. The fact that they took advantage of his name and the title, then produced a story which had so little to do with either is what upset me the most.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

ZOL

Sunday, January 2, 2005 7:24 PM

When Books make it to the Big Screen, everybody always makes comparisons.

Look to the movie as an extension to the universe with a possible retelling of some of the elements within - You`ve got to ask yourself about one the greatest sci-fi film `Bladerunner` from a relatively unknown book `Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?` (I say relatively because many people had not heard or read this book before the movie came out, but many now have, and what they`ve found is that it is different.

Screenplay writers owe a lot to wanting to earn a living by writing something fresh & then sometimes other people involved in producing the film decide on alterations (director procucers or execs and the like)

Judge the short stories on their own merrits & the film on another and keep them seperate. If you can do that, then you will appreciate both a lot more.

Zol.

ECGORDON

Sunday, January 2, 2005 7:33 PM

I am also a huge Philip K. Dick fan, but in the case of Blade Runner, I think it is one of the very few instances of the film being superior to the book on which it was based.

I doubt if anyone is interested, but just in case you would like an ellaboration of some of my opinions, I have written reviews and essays on most everything mentioned in this thread so far:

http://templetongate.tripod.com/irobot.htm (Asimov's stories)

http://templetongate.tripod.com/robotfilm.htm (Ellison's screenplay)

http://templetongate.tripod.com/ellison.htm (Ellison's career)

http://templetongate.tripod.com/bladerunner.htm

http://templetongate.tripod.com/dick.htm (Philip K. Dick's career)

MOHRSTOUTBEARD

Sunday, January 2, 2005 9:30 PM

I can only assume that no one bothered to read the essay. I mean, what if someone in twenty or thirty years tried to capitalize on the amazing success of "Serenity" by taking the name of Firefly, but completely disregarded the characters and the soul of Joss' universe? Maybe then you'd give a damn.

Quote:
Originally posted by FireflyPassenger:
If it were titled anything else you wouldn't have that much of a problem with it.

Um, duh. That was my whole point. The reason I feel so strongly is because the Will Smith film is exactly what Harlan Ellison was referring to when he talked about "work-for-hire afterthought books that capitalize on Issac's name."

Ellison's script was the movie that Asimov wanted to see on the screen. Doesn't that matter at all? Oh, right, he's dead. Who gives a damn what he thought?

"You've just gotta go ahead and change the captain of your brainship, because he's drunk at the wheel."