I got an opportunity this weekend to see I, Robot, the 2004 film starring Will Smith and “suggested by” Isaac Asimov. In between shots designed to remind us that Will Smith has been working out, it wasn’t a bad film. Not even a bad story. I don’t remember if I’ve read the book–I remember mistaking it in my memory for Caves of Steel, which means I’m ultimately as reliable of a narrator as anything you’d find in a Philip K. Dick novel, but that’s neither here nor there.
Regardless, I thought I might comment upon those people who often unfavorably compare a movie to its source novel or an Alan Dean Foster novel compared to the original movie. Crikey, people, understand that the two are different media, with different ways of presenting a sometimes common story, which might differ in incidents and characters.
I mean, let’s face it, when you’re arguing about which presentation is best, you’re arguing about whose translation of The Iliad is best. Lattimore? Lombardo? Presented with the choice, undoubtedly an ancient Greek would shake his fist at both books and say that either one ruins the story because the dry text removes the storyteller’s inflections and ability to alter the content for the audience.
So yeah, although I think the original Battlestar Galactica was a triumph of storytelling and mythmaking, I won’t automatically discard the new rendition because Starbuck’s a hot chick, and I wasn’t prejudiced against I, Robot the movie simply because it wasn’t faithful to the Isaac Asimov original.
And I don’t want to ruin it for you, but don’t remember early, as I did, that Deckard was a replicant.
