I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay

This isn't the script of the dreadful Will Smith film from a few years ago, but rather Ellison's 1970s straight adaptation of the Asimov "story-cycle", which never got produced because Ellison doesn't know when it pays to be polite to people. It's an interesting thought experiment, though-- visually, it would have made a magnificent film, as the gorgeous illustrations show, though it's hard to imagine it satisfactorily being pulled off in the 1970s. Nowadays, though... The adaptation of the chosen short stories is handled quite well-- inserting Calvin into "Robbie" is an obvious but excellent choice; I was surprised but happy to see "Runaround" included, as it's one of the best "Law problem" stories, and the addition of Calvin works; show more "Liar!" is adapted almost exactly, which makes sense, as it's probably the best Calvin story Asimov ever wrote; and "Lenny" might not actually be in the original book, but its method of inclusion here is inspired. All in all, it makes for an excellent (and ultimately much more optimistic than Asimov's own) vision of the future of mankind. The world is clearly not a Asimov one, though, but rather an Ellison one, and though that bothered me at times, it's the nature of adaptations. If there's any substantial flaw, it's that the frame story is a little too long and involved; not everything that that happens in it is particularly relevant to the story Ellison is trying to tell. But as for Calvin, Byerley, Powell, Donavan, and the rest, this is the cinematic treatment they deserved. (originally written December 2007) show less

THIS is the movie that should have been made, not that travesty with the otherwise enjoyable Will Smith. Ellison's great skill here is his ability to make this recognizably Asimovean as well as Ellisonian. Were a few of my favorite robot stories condensed, or even missed? Sure, but this is for a movie, not a miniseries.

This script is my nominee for the greatest science fiction movie never made -- and one of the great tragedies of the way Hollywood works, since it was personalities that killed it, not quality. Maybe some enterprising CGI artist will take up the challenge; I'm not holding my breath for mainstream producers to get it together.

Historically, Asimov has been horribly abused by Hollywood -- beyond the ill-conceived 'I, Robot' show more (I nearly walked out of the theater on just the *trailer* for it), anyone who's seen the versions of 'Nightfall' will know that, and the threatened Emmerich-helmed 'Foundation' doesn't inspire confidence either.

Reading this, though, helps make up for much of that. show less

Ellison may be a notorious jerk in the sci-fi world (see the decades of controversies over the infamously unpublished anthology The Last Dangerous Visions, or even the somewhat self-aggrandizing introduction to this volume), but his screenplay for Isaac Asimov's classic ended up being really good. He turned a somewhat loose collection of short stories into a coherent story, keeping an impressive amount of the material and characterization from the original works and even managing to emphasize Asimov's points about prejudice and morality. The points of deviation are minor and excusable, for the most part:
- The stories Reason, Catch That Rabbit, and almost everything after Little Lost Robot are omitted, which sucks from a completion show more standpoint but are understandable from a filmability perspective (even I wouldn't really be too interested in a movie version of stuff like Escape!)
- There are some aliens, which is unusual given their scarcity in Asimov's works, but their alienness is irrelevant and you could mentally swap them for people with no difference to the story
- There's a Citizen Kane-ish frame narrative about a reporter investigating a possible relationship between Susan Calvin and Stephen Byerley; Byerley has also been given a backstory as a John Connor-ish freedom fighter before he became President, as well as a deeper connection to Calvin
- Calvin's character is much more at the forefront; her personality has been given more detail, most notably an interest in Amazonian archaeology

Overall I thought it was a very good and spiritually faithful rendition, especially in Calvin's relationships to robots and her defense of them as being more moral than people. The screenplay does show its late-70s vintage somewhat in how there are scenes that have a Terminator or Blade Runner vibe, and it also exposes the age of the original stories. From the perspective of the year 2012, when we're nuts about self-driving cars and the like, it's tough to imagine mobs of people getting angry enough about automation to go on a robot pogrom. The idea that people would be resistant to a robot president is somewhat more understandable; Asimov wrote that idea as an allegory for anti-Semitism and it's obviously true that prejudice has been far from conquered. I also won't complain about the inclusion of stuff like teleportation or mind-reading robots, because this is science fiction. show less

This is Ellison’s script, written in the late 1970s, for a full-length movie incorporating several of Asimov’s classic I, Robot stories.

The essay which begins this book is not as vitriolic as some others of Ellison’s, but it pulls no punches in chronicling the script’s journey through Hollywood. The process was characterized by delay after delay. The script was supposedly “impossible” to film. At one point, Ellison realizes that a certain studio executive, with the power to say Yes or No to the project, hadn’t even read the script, despite being given many months to do so. At another point, Ellison is asked to make the robots cute like C-3PO (this is the era of Star Wars), something he refused to do. Eventually, all of the show more options are used up and the script is never put into production. It is decided to get some “use” out of the script and it is later published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

The story concerns robot psychologist Susan Calvin. Her life story is the history of robotics. A reporter named Bratenahl is told to find the answer to the question “Who is Susan Calvin?” Now an old woman, she has become very secretive. Bratenahl talks to people who knew Calvin and worked with her in the past. One remembrance is when the Calvin family had a robot as a part time playmate for six-year-old Susan. Her father worked for US Robotics, but her mother was not convinced that a robot in the house was a good idea. The robot was seven feet tall, and could break Calvin like a toothpick if it so desired. One day, the robot is sent away, permanently.

Another remembrance is about a robot who could read minds, and who interpreted the Three Laws of Robotics (programmed into every robot) in an unexpected way. A third memory of Calvin is about the time she was part of a manned mission to Mercury. A certain element, available on the surface, is vital if the ship is going to leave Mercury, and return to Earth. It’s far enough away so that a human will not make it back to the ship without burning up in the sunlight of Mercury, so a robot is dispatched. Having received unclear instructions, the Second and Third Laws of Robotics cause the robot to go temporarily cuckoo. Calvin goes out on the surface, and almost dies, but “fixes” the robot, and they are able to leave Mercury.

If filmed as written, this would have made a great film. It’s interesting and complex, the characters are real people, and, best of all, it doesn’t rely on sex, violence or car chases. Highly recommended. show less

I actually enjoyed reading this screenplay very much, and Ellison's forward explains a lot as to how the movie deal never worked out. I think that making this movie in the 70s when the screenplay was initially written would have been difficult given the extreme amount of special effect shots. It is unfortunate that 20 some years later a movie WAS made with this title and that it so very little resembles Ellison and Asimov's more faithful rendition. The artwork included in this edition is also absolutely fantastic. It really helps to visualize what some of the shots could have looked like.

Harlan Ellison did a very good job of putting Asimov's "I, Robot" stories into a cohesive screenplay. Of course the story was tweaked some but kept the core ideas of the short stories from that collection. Unfortunately, I don't think this will ever get made into a movie. It really had it's best chance when it was originally written. Read Ellison's forward on how the movie deal fell apart: a funny little story. However, I do think it would work well as a 3D animated film, and probably would have more of chance of getting made that way. If you were a fan of the book, you'd probably like this screenplay.

This is a screenplay, and does not read as easily as a novel, but it is much better than the script that was actually used to make the movie by the same name that was recently produced. The illustrations are also very good.