Boycott the opening week of 'I,Robot'
There's a new movie coming out this month called I, Robot. I'm sure a number of you are familiar with this Issac Asimov collection of short stories about intelligent robots. Like all his work it's very cerebral.
Which is the problem with this movie...it's an action movie that features robots going bananas. The movie was originally going to be called Hardwired, but then the studio got the rights to I, Robot and changed the name.
In truth, there are only 4 things that made it from book to movie: the title, the author's name, a character named Susan Calvin, and a modified version of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
Check out these articles, it's where I got my information for this post: please "press here" or "press here".
posted by Rothar at 5:21 PM
4 Comments:
Welcome to Hollywood.
My first introduction to this movie was an Audi car commercial of all things with a tag line I, Robot opens July 18 (or something like that).
Bob and I were talking and we said, isn't that the name of an Asimov book? Turns out that it is. And with Historically based films, I can honestly say, "I am not surprised" that Hollywood has put the marketing grab on Asimov's title and that the moving doesn't even have a passing resemblance to the book.
But hey, how many people are going to go see Arthur "Based on the true origins"? Let me see, whenever you add Guinevre and Lancelot to the mix, it looses all cohesion for "historical" truth, though one can always say that there's no proof that Arthur actually existed. ;)
We also have "Hidalgo: Based on a true story". Yeah more like loosely based on a lie.
So, Asimov has become a casualty of the Hollywood marketing machine. It's sad, but true. I have also noted that if you want cerebral in an audience, then Sundance is the place to go. Most mainstream movie-goers are interested in being entertained, not looking for something "deep".
Just my two mites worth.
~J
Well said.
Hollywood is definitely into making money, not necessarily about staying true to source material. I can think of two movies right off the top of my head that were excellent books/graphic novels, but were ruined when Hollywood crapped out something losely based on the source material: The Postman and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I'm sure other examples are Legion.
Every once in a while, a director or producer stays true to the source (or as true as possible), then Hollywood has a real hit on their hands. But then the executives act all surprised, like they expected the movie to fail despite the appeal of the original material. Take Lord Of The Rings for example: first time it was made as a cartoon and kinda sucked, second time no one wanted to touch it. Then New Line took the big risk and lo - we have a trilogy of hits!
Sometimes I just wish Hollywood studios would stick with the source material, instead of just taking advantage of a book or writer's name.
Number 1 movie this weekend...oh well.
Action junkies...
~J
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