Saw this last night, Mr. Smith does a good job and film on the whole is something I'd recommend. There weren't many people, however it was the Big Brother final. Has anyone else seen it? What did you guys/gals think?

Is it me or do you think people will stop using the Microsoft Update feature?

I thought it was decent enough, though I'm not sure Asimov would have liked it. Of course, it wasn't really based on Asimov's work anyway. Still there are a few scenes and characters who bear a passing resembelence to (or share name with) Asimov's stories.

MUCH better than minority report, IMO, though.

I thought the movie made for a fun summer flick. I did get a kick out of this unofficial review though.

Actually, I feel like I should mention my biggest irritation with the move (but note I discuss the movie's ending, so don't read this unless you've seen it or don't care).

[spoliers]
. . . for those who don't know the movie ends up with robots trying to take over the world. This was the thing that irked me the most. If you've read Asimov's comments about his robot stories, the key thing to him was that robots not always be pictured as a threat to humanity. It was his express intention to write stories where robots are tools and we are protected from them by the three laws. The very first robot stories (before Asimov) were about humans losing control of their creation- a plot Asimvo felt quickly wore out it's welcome. He strove to write different kinds of stories, and was very successful to say the least. Not that he didn't have the ocasional bad robot or computer, but it was far from a forgone conclusion that robots and computers were a threat to hummanity.

Hollywood has (in large part) returned to the theme of "robots and computers inevitably will end up trying to take over and opress humans". Some of our best SF flicks- The Matrix, Terminator- etc. revolve around this theme. I Robot is no exception (though there is the odd "hero" robot and ultimately it appears that the robots en masse are only evil because they are being controled by the master computer). I'd hoped for (but not expected) that when making a story named after one of Asimov's books that they'd try to take some of his thoughts on this point seriously- that much more interesting stories can be made if you don't constantly return to the well-worn story of robots maliciously taking over.

So while "I Robot" was a decent SF flick- it really failed to show any kind of the imagination of Asmiov, especially since it ended with a plot he spilt so much ink trying persuade people to avoid. That was my biggest dissapointment with the movie.
[/spoilers]

Wasn't that most of the reason for the 0th law? Exactly what they did in the movie? It's a shame it never came up.

As I remember, a lot of Asimov's stories revolve around robots appearing to be breaking the laws of robotics, but it eventually comes out that they're actually following the laws in a way that's not immediately obvious. Is this the case at all in the movie, or do they just throw the laws out of the window, making them just be broken?