I, Robot (With Will Smith)

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The movie is by no means terrible. It has some very cool scenes in it. I did cringe at the Converse plug though. Overall, the movie could have been better, but it wasn't a travesty some of you are making it out to be.
 
What the fuck is the problem with product placement?

Do you in your house, office, etc remove all those so you can't be called out for product placement?
 
This move is highly underrated, genuinely smart in places, and it ends with a genuine Twilight Zone surreal twist. The morally grey final scene, with its immense implications for the world, is vastly unlike any ending you ever see in a Hollywood popcorn film. It was also an extremely cool tribute to a classic piece of sci-fi art.

So screw the hate. People who think Asimov would have rolled over in his grave don't seem to realize he put his stamp of approval on spin-off series by other authors such as Robot City - which featured both intellectual, and action-oriented stories in it.
 
i always thought as a kid that coca cola vending machines were put in there for realism

WHAT place doesn't have coke machines you know?
they are even in the most outback third world cities lol
 
Copernicus said:
Why didn't this movie get more love? Did everybody just not feel comfortable setting a new unattainable goal?
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Butchery of the source material.

Kaijima said:
So screw the hate. People who think Asimov would have rolled over in his grave don't seem to realize he put his stamp of approval on spin-off series by other authors such as Robot City - which featured both intellectual, and action-oriented stories in it.
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It's not about action vs intellectualism. It's pissing on his core focus in the robot stories. He wanted to make stories that had the robots be benign rather than going crazy and turning on humanity.

What's the movie present? Robots going apeshit and turning on humanity.
 
Xenon said:
Wow I can not believe people are riding so far up Will Smith's jock that they are actually trying to defend I Robots product placement. WSPPDF? really =\


As far as the comparison with Back to the Future and Blade runner goes, both those films used the products in a clever ways. I robot did not.

I enjoyed the film. But, I watched it on video with very low expectations since I already knew it was nothing like the book.
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Product placement is product placement. I don't give a fuck if Back to the Future and Blade Runner were less blatant with their product placement, at the end of the day, all three films had a financial investment in the products they were pushing within their narrative. Either you dislike product placement or you don't, end of story.
 
harSon said:
Product placement is product placement. I don't give a fuck if Back to the Future and Blade Runner were less blatant with their product placement, at the end of the day, all three films had a financial investment in the products they were pushing within their narrative. Either you dislike product placement or you don't, end of story.
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I can't really see how anyone would prefer General Katana going to Bar and Conner going to Opera vs places with actual names. Product placement would've saved Highlander 2.
 
Freshmaker said:
Butchery of the source material.
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I agree, but butchering source material didn't stop Starship Troopers from getting huge amounts of love. The underlying issue is that I, Robot is generally mediocre with only a couple of cool moments that are not enough to redeem the overall picture.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
I agree, but butchering source material didn't stop Starship Troopers from getting huge amounts of love. The underlying issue is that I, Robot is generally mediocre with only a couple of cool moments that are not enough to redeem the overall picture.
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Starship Troopers was satirizing the source material (particularly the militaristic/fascist bent of it). I, Robot was just cashing in on the name. And shitting on it. Freshmaker basically explained it, so I won't bother doing it again.

There's a huge difference.
 
Kulock said:
I didn't say it was saintly. I said that they were more imaginative with it. Also, in BTTF2 where it was most prominent, they didn't pimp existing or planned products, they made up strange, futuristic extensions of the brands. They didn't fall back on "Vintage" everything, and the items from the 1980s were mocked as baby's toys or quaint.

I didn't say BTTF was perfect. I, Robot was just incredibly blatant and unapologetic about it. I still don't hate the movie for it, if that's what you're implying.
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were vintage sneakers even popular when BTTF2 was made?
 
maharg said:
Starship Troopers was satirizing the source material (particularly the militaristic/fascist bent of it). I, Robot was just cashing in on the name. And shitting on it. Freshmaker basically explained it, so I won't bother doing it again.

There's a huge difference.
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Actually the script was written as "Bughunt at Outpost 9", and was changed, Dinosaur Planet style, into Starship Troopers late during pre-production, and the writing team was unaware of the novel's existence prior to having the rights thrown at them and told to make the changes.

Reading it as a satire of the book is very questionable, it seems far more satirical of authoritarianism, militarism generally, rather than anything specific that happened in said books. Characters undergo nearly complete inversions in the translation, rather than exaggerations of their traits (Rico's dad joins up for service in the books, Dizzy is a guy and dies in the first 10 pages, there is no love subplot at all, the list goes on). The Mobile Infantry are totally inverted from an ultra elite, all-male army of power-armor soldiers with an outrageously strict no-man-left-behind policy and a 90%+ training dropout rate to a mixed-gender, highly disorganized infantry-only force desperately recruiting anybody that will sign up. The bugs are inverted from a highly intelligent, tool-wielding society (the bugs have particle beam rifles as their primary weapon instead of melee attacks, for instance) to brainless swarm monsters who can only go to space because they evolved to get there, can only attack spacecraft because they can fart plasma and are only threatening because of the Federation's extreme military incompetence (it took a change in leadership to realize that it might be a good idea to bomb the highly concentrated, swarming enemies with no AA weapons rather than just drop infantry near them and hope for the best). The third alien race present in the book is nowhere to be found in the movie.

All of the similarities between book and film are essentially coincidental except for the deliberate character name changes when the license was acquired. Starship Troopers was "cashing in on the name" every bit as hard as iRobot was, it's just that ST happened to also be very enjoyable on it's own merits, such that people are willing to overlook that.
 
The Faceless Master said:
were vintage sneakers even popular when BTTF2 was made?
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Are vintage sneakers EVER popular? ....except in the case of designs that just never died (ie Adidas Superstars).

I think the point was that even in BTTF, they used creative ways to integrate the branding into the era represented in the movie, rather than "main protagonist has a bizzare and out of place love for vintage brands from [insert the year this movie was released here]"


ThoseDeafMutes said:
Actually the script was written as "Bughunt at Outpost 9", and was changed, Dinosaur Planet style, into Starship Troopers late during pre-production, and the writing team was unaware of the novel's existence prior to having the rights thrown at them and told to make the changes.

Reading it as a satire of the book is very questionable, it seems far more satirical of authoritarianism, militarism generally, rather than anything specific that happened in said books. Characters undergo nearly complete inversions in the translation, rather than exaggerations of their traits (Rico's dad joins up for service in the books, Dizzy is a guy and dies in the first 10 pages, there is no love subplot at all, the list goes on). The Mobile Infantry are totally inverted from an ultra elite, all-male army of power-armor soldiers with an outrageously strict no-man-left-behind policy and a 90%+ training dropout rate to a mixed-gender, highly disorganized infantry-only force desperately recruiting anybody that will sign up. The bugs are inverted from a highly intelligent, tool-wielding society (the bugs have particle beam rifles as their primary weapon instead of melee attacks, for instance) to brainless swarm monsters who can only go to space because they evolved to get there, can only attack spacecraft because they can fart plasma and are only threatening because of the Federation's extreme military incompetence (it took a change in leadership to realize that it might be a good idea to bomb the highly concentrated, swarming enemies with no AA weapons rather than just drop infantry near them and hope for the best). The third alien race present in the book is nowhere to be found in the movie.

All of the similarities between book and film are essentially coincidental except for the deliberate character name changes when the license was acquired. Starship Troopers was "cashing in on the name" every bit as hard as iRobot was, it's just that ST happened to also be very enjoyable on it's own merits, such that people are willing to overlook that.
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This is an interesting post. I read the book 15 years ago and remember nothing about it... but I'll have to revisit it..
 
Speaking of science fiction films; I'd love to see adaptations of Rendevouz with Rama, Childhood's End, The Lord of Light and Star Maker by some accomplished directors.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
All of the similarities between book and film are essentially coincidental except for the deliberate character name changes when the license was acquired. Starship Troopers was "cashing in on the name" every bit as hard as iRobot was, it's just that ST happened to also be very enjoyable on it's own merits, such that people are willing to overlook that.
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It might have something to do with the relative popularity of the source material as well.
 
BocoDragon said:
This is an interesting post. I read the book 15 years ago and remember nothing about it... but I'll have to revisit it..
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It shouldn't take you long to read, it's quite short for a novel.

Freshmaker said:
It might have something to do with the relative popularity of the source material as well.
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I think I, Robot and Starship Troopers are both reasonably similar on the popularity scale, given that they're both classic SciFi works. Not many people in the general public know about either of them apart from their names. For whatever reason though, ST fans didn't seem to have much of an outcry (or at least, I wasn't around for it...) like they did with iRobot.
 
OpinionatedCyborg said:
it was horrible


there are no will smith isms in the film which is a big reason why it sucks. it's really bland.
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The shoes and anachronistic grandma are Will Smith-isms.

EDIT- By that I mean, he came up with those ideas and forced them on the production.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
...

All of the similarities between book and film are essentially coincidental except for the deliberate character name changes when the license was acquired. Starship Troopers was "cashing in on the name" every bit as hard as iRobot was, it's just that ST happened to also be very enjoyable on it's own merits, such that people are willing to overlook that.
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Whether the intent of the scriptwriter was there or not, the finished product *works* as satire of the book. And Paul Verhoeven clearly felt he was making one (even though he supposedly didn't finish the book).

Where treating them as the same, even given a similar production history and script rebranding, falls apart is in the fact that I, Robot doesn't even give cursory attempt at either satirizing or honouring the source material. It doesn't work on either level. It adds no value to the name it borrows.


Edmond Dantès said:
Speaking of science fiction films; I'd love to see adaptations of Rendevouz with Rama, Childhood's End, The Lord of Light and Star Maker by some accomplished directors.
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If they adapted Rama, they'd inevitably want to adapt the absolutely terrible sequels. I wish Gentry Lee had never picked up a pen.
 
maharg said:
Whether the intent of the scriptwriter was there or not, the finished product *works* as satire of the book. And Paul Verhoeven clearly felt he was making one (even though he supposedly didn't finish the book).
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The film is definitely satire, but I'll just state again I don't think it's a satire of the books, nor does it particularly work on that level except in exceptionally broad strokes (like "see, they're both authoritarian! That's satire!"). In the DVD commentaries the director says it's a satire about Post WW2 America, a representation of where he thinks it could end up if things kept going the way they did. He also talks about his experiences as a child in the second world war, and the film itself has the Federation visual design being lifted straight out of Nazi Germany, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

Politics played a heavy role in the book, such that it was essentially a soap-box for Heinlein's political philosophy circa 1959, but none of this is present in the film except for the Service-Guarantees-Citizenship running gag. I would say there is an awful lot about the book that could easily be satirized, but none of this is capitalized on by the film.
 
Product placement?

Ok... guess you'll have to hate these films too

Terminator:


Aliens:
340x_custom_1283016211431_picture_1.jpg
 
Since Heinlein's political philosophy around that time was rather fascist (with a little f, if there is such a thing) in nature, I consider it valid to treat it as a satire in broad strokes of Heinlein's work. Particularly ST, since, as you say, ST is essentially his manifesto of that particular branch of Heinleinism. Sure, maybe it's just an accident that it became satire of both the culture of fascism and the books by Heinlein that glorify it, and maybe it does much better at one than the other, but to me it still does both well enough.

Also, I'd point out that the fact we can even have this discussion about the subtext of ST is one of the things that elevates it above I, Robot into being a film that stands on its own merits. A discussion about I, Robot's subtext would essentially just be pointing at all the shoulders it stands on (and how they did it better, right back to Frankenstein). Whereas contemporary American 'blockbuster' films that suggest a rise of fascism in American culture? Those are pretty rare. And that actually says something.

And maybe I give it more of a pass because I don't, honestly, have a lot of respect for Heinlein. I find his work mostly preachy drudgery, more concerned with idealizing than exploring. I consider him more in the Ayn Rand/L. Ron Hubbard genre than anything like Clarke or Asimov.
 
The problem with the film is that it condensed 10,000 or so years of robots/empire/foundation into a few days worth of events. The film was a mish mash of zeroth law induction, the caves of steel and had nothing to do with I, Robot at all.

Asimov was a fantastic writer. This was an ok film trading on undeserved association by name.
 
i think this is one of the reasons will smith is reviled so much

after fresh prince of bel air and independence day the man was a universally loved cultural icon, and ali showed he has some real acting chops

but his constant pimping of his kids and his butchering of classic novels along with his recent movie choices have really brought him down in my eyes
 
Oh good, the over-the-top Avatar hate has now reached the level where we pretend its special effects weren't phenomenal.

Also, I recall the film was a decent sci-fi action film. Not amazing, but perfectly good.

The problem is the title. If it hadn't been called that, it wouldn't have received such a (understandable) backlash.
 
maharg said:
Since Heinlein's political philosophy around that time was rather fascist (with a little f, if there is such a thing) in nature, I consider it valid to treat it as a satire in broad strokes of Heinlein's work.
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It would have to be a very little f. There is no supreme head of state with total authority, civilians have civil rights/constitutional protections (although Heinlein goes on for a while about how there are no 'natural' rights, just ones that the people decided upon by consensus), there is no military conscription of any sort. Accusations of militarism are common, but seem unusual given that while the Federation did maintain a strong standing army / fleet, it actively discouraged people from joining up.

It's democratic in one sense, but of course we get to the "citizenship" stuff. Service in the movie is exclusively the armed forces as we see it, but in the book it is of course anything where the person is expected to make some sort of sacrifice for the federation (usually in the form of putting their lives at risk). The closest real-world political analog I can think of is the Noble Republic of Poland-Lithuania circa the 16th century, but with a meritocratic bent.
 
Ithil said:
Also, I recall the film was a decent sci-fi action film. Not amazing, but perfectly good.

The problem is the title. If it hadn't been called that, it wouldn't have received such a (understandable) backlash.
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I don't remember much about I, Robot, so it couldn't have been very good.
 
I really enjoyed this movie, but people shat on it because of the obnoxious product placement and being offended at an Asimov book being turned into a Will Smith action film. Alan Tudyk rules, camera work was great and the investigation was fun to follow.
 
NICE SHOES.

THANKS! VINTAGE 2004. A THING OF BEAUTY.

It's an OK film. I would hardly call it a masterpiece of science fiction. Like most Will Smith films, it didn't deserve to make the bajillion dollars it did. Can't say I'd ever want to see it again.
 
harSon said:
Product placement is product placement. I don't give a fuck if Back to the Future and Blade Runner were less blatant with their product placement, at the end of the day, all three films had a financial investment in the products they were pushing within their narrative. Either you dislike product placement or you don't, end of story.
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Wow it must be hard to live in such a polarized world. There is a huge difference in cleverly placing a product in a film vs having them shoved down your throat. In back to the future the future shoes were kind of cool. In Blade Runner the billboards brought some familiarity in such a futuristic setting. In I robot they had a zoomed shot on the just the shoes which took me out of the film.

Sure in a perfect world there would be no product placement but there are varying degrees on how well its handled.
 
Xenon said:
Wow it must be hard to live in such a polarized world. There is a huge difference in cleverly placing a product in a film vs having them shoved down your throat. In back to the future the future shoes were kind of cool. In Blade Runner the billboards brought some familiarity in such a futuristic setting. In I robot they had a zoomed shot on the just the shoes which took me out of the film.

Sure in a perfect world there would be no product placement but there are varying degrees on how well its handled.
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Back to the Future also had the 'Give me a Pepsi Free' joke so I agree, decent product placement is decent regardless of its motives.
 
CaptYamato said:
What about the part when Marty walks into a diner and there are Pepsi signs everywhere?
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I don't know how American diners work, but in a lot of bars here the brewery, or supplier of appliances and products, usually have a lot of signs up promoting their products in the bar they're being sold.
 
Xenon said:
Wow it must be hard to live in such a polarized world. There is a huge difference in cleverly placing a product in a film vs having them shoved down your throat. In back to the future the future shoes were kind of cool. In Blade Runner the billboards brought some familiarity in such a futuristic setting. In I robot they had a zoomed shot on the just the shoes which took me out of the film.

Sure in a perfect world there would be no product placement but there are varying degrees on how well its handled.
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I personally don't mind product placement. But the motives behind both forms of product placement are the exact same, there is absolutely no difference between the two. If you considers its usage in I, Robot to be unethical or bullshit to the point where you dislike the hell out of the film for that very reason, then you damn well better be consistent with that stance. You're just making excuses for the other films at this point. Creative use of the tactic does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it's being used in the first place.
 
Copernicus said:
Why didn't this movie get more love? Did everybody just not feel comfortable setting a new unattainable goal?

This is one of the best scifi/tech/cg intertwined/psychological thrillers/philosophical movies ever produced.

Hell, most of the CG rivals District 9, and we all know that shitted all over the overrated puppet show that is avatar.

This will go down in history as Will Smith's golden pass into histories "This man help humanity" moratorium.
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It didn't get love because it was named "I Robot". Fucking Hollywood and their "adaptations"...
 
harSon said:
I personally don't mind product placement. But the motives behind both forms of product placement are the exact same, there is absolutely no difference between the two. If you considers its usage in I, Robot to be unethical or bullshit to the point where you dislike the hell out of the film for that very reason, then you damn well better be consistent with that stance. You're just making excuses for the other films at this point. Creative use of the tactic does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it's being used in the first place.
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In Blade Runner it adds to the overall experience and doesn't get in the way, in I, Robot it smashes you over the head with it. As a viewer I can accept that Coca Cola is featured on a billboard, it even looks really cool and striking in the context of the film. There is a big difference between that and Will Smith plugging something straight to the camera.

Perhaps we can call it shitty filmmaking rather than shitty advertising?
 
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