Inspired by the linked XKCD. Using 60% instead of 50% because that’s an easy filter to apply on rottentomatoes.
I’ll go first: I think “Sherlock Holmes: A game of Shadows” was awesome, from the plot to the characters ,and especially how they used screen-play to highlight how Sherlocks head works in these absurd ways.
I, Robot, especially after reading the books. It functions as a combo of the books, but set roughly where the first book took place in, using a variant of the protagonist from the sequels. The robots taking over as they did, though, wasn’t really accurate, even just regarding the laws of robotics, but it worked for the movie’s conflict. In the books, they get a larger hold on humanity, but to help them go past Earth to become an intragalactic society. For a one-off, though, I can see the directions the movie took to give it that close-ended feeling. Also, the implications of robots and humans, and Spooner as a chracter were pretty faithful to the source material, IMO.
On the topic of Isaac Asimov stories on the big screen, I nominate Bicentennial man. 36% critic and 59% audience score respectively.
I thought it did a good with the themes it brought forth and Asimovs testing of the types of conflicts that would occur with Robots gaining sentience and humanity seeing them as just machines.
Despite the one event near the end that would create a conflict with the laws of Robotics and the effect it should have on a positronic brain.
Also James Horner’s awesome soundtrack.
I would have never guessed Bicentennial Man would have scores that low. It’s a great scifi and a really well made movie.
At worst, it sacrifices a strong ending for telling a complete scifi story, which many scifi movies do. (And I believe was the right call.)
I would say the only thing the movie has in common with the book is that it mentions the book’s main character and the laws of robotics. The book is all about weird behavior of robots that actually obey the laws but the movie just treats them as some corporate doublespeak.
Yeah, I don’t think Spooner is identical to Elijah Baley, but I see they connect on the technophobe aspects, if nothing else. It’s been a while since I’ve read the books, in other aspects they’re probably vastly different.
The main character in I, Robot is Dr. Susan Calvin. It also features Donovan and Powell. Elijah is from the robot trilogy, which happens centuries after I, Robot.
“The Caves of Steel” is very much part of the “I Robot” storyline, and not an important distinction here. I also expected Dr Susan Calvin, but when talking about what we actually got, it’s closest to an adaptation of the R. Daneel trilogy.
And anyway, on Asimov’s average scale, those years are right next to eachother. /s