ovelist James M. Cain, author of such noir classics as Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce, was reportedly once asked whether he was upset about what Hollywood had done to his books. "What do you mean?" Cain supposedly replied, waving at the shelves behind him, lined with the many editions of his novels. "Hollywood hasn't done anything to my books. They're still right there."
This tale may be apocryphal, since I've heard it attributed to other writers, including Roger Zelazny, who was referring to the botched adaptation of Damnation Alley. But still, it makes me wonder, if Isaac Asimov, author of the short stories on which the new film I, Robot was ... um ... based, were still alive, whether he could have remained that sanguine about the translation of his robot universe to the screen. Yes, money talks, especially in Hollywood, and the film came in at number one this weekend, earning over $52 million and pushing the previous film in that spot, Spider-Man 2, down to second place. But money isn't the only indicator of success. Would the Good Doctor have recognized any of his spirit on the screen? I know I sure didn't.
More video game than movie, the film had none of Asimov's intelligence or wit, and did not depict his faith in the future of the human race. Whenever a problem presented itself, I at first thought (foolishly, perhaps, still expecting Asimov), "How will they think their way out of this one?" Instead, I was shown, contrary to Asimov's deeply felt pacifism, how best to blast my way out of any conundrum.
As the end credits rolled, the film acknowledged with subtle words just why this was so. Just in case a science-fiction novice was fooled into thinking that what they had just seen represented the heart and soul of the robot stories, those who stayed learned the truth. For the story we'd all just ingested was not "adapted" from Isaac Asimov or "based" on I, Robot or even "inspired" by either of them. No, as it turns out, the film was only "suggested by" his work.
Only a suggestion of Asimov
The detail that isn't revealed by the credits is that the catalyst for the film wasn't the works of Asimov, but rather an unsold script by Jeff Vintar titled Hardwired. For director Alex Proyas, Vintar and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman married certain elements of Asimov—the Three Laws of Robotics, some character names—to that pre-existing thriller. In their hands, Asimov became mere veneer.
"I think it's really the only way you can take those nine stories and make a single dramatic movie out of it," Proyas was quoted as saying in the August issue of SCI FI magazine. But Asimov and Harlan Ellison happened to think differently, based on the unproduced screenplay Ellison wrote in the late '70s, which Science Fiction Weekly's reviewer called "challenging, imaginative, sprawling, cynical, heartfelt and, above all, intelligent." And which also, importantly, managed to keep faith with Isaac Asimov.
Perhaps if I'd gone to the theater this weekend hoping only for a robot thriller, one independent of any other science-fiction universe, I could have enjoyed myself. I could have judged the film on its own merits, and wouldn't have been so disappointed. But I was hoping to see Asimov on the screen, someone for whom reason was the most powerful weapon of all.
To best understand my feelings, imagine how lovers of Tolkien would have felt had they been treated the same way in theaters. How lucky fantasy fans were that Peter Jackson was really interested in making The Lord of the Rings into a movie, and didn't act in the same way as the creators behind I, Robot. Otherwise, Jackson would have taken a pre-existing, unrelated fantasy script, plucked a few names from Tolkein's trilogy, pasted them on, and gone from there. Readers would have howled, and we would not have had three of the greatest fantasy films ever made. I wish that Asimov had been treated with the same level of respect accorded to Tolkien. What a great movie we might have had then!
At times like this, it's important to remember that, as with the novels of James M. Cain, the books of Isaac Asimov are still out there.
So what would Isaac Asimov do? My gut tells me—want you to read them.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at
Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in
the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the
award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing
Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI
FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His most recent short story appears in the new anthology Quietly Now: A Tribute to Charles L. Grant.
