Monstruo o máquina

Han hecho una película llamada Yo, robot. Parece que los productores poseen los derechos para el libro de Asimov del mismo título, pero en lugar de intentar llevarlo a la pantalla, cogieron otra historia de robots, metieron a un personaje que se hace llamar Susan Calvin y le emplastaron el título encima. ¿Para qué hacer algo mínimamente original si puedes hacer lo de siempre? Todo eso en sí no tendría nada de malo si no fuese porque el trailer deja bien clarito que la película parte de una premisa completamente contraria a la de Asimov. Monster or machine? de Philip Ball lo explica muy bien:

And there’s the giveaway. I, Robot is not in the end a movie about robotics (forget the token stuff about robots evolving feelings, which was handled far better in Blade Runner, a movie to which I, Robot is deeply indebted). Instead it is the old promethean legend once again – the story of the Golem of Prague, of Viktor Frankenstein, of the man who makes a monster he cannot control. It was in just such a tale, written by the Czech playwright Karel Çapek in 1918, that the word ‘robot’ first appeared, derived from the Czech robota, meaning ‘forced labour’. In Çapek’s story, a race of beings created as slaves by a scientist called Rossum (from the Czech rozum, reason) rebels and wipes out humanity.

It was precisely such a clichéd view of the robot that Asimov sought to displace. «Under the influence of the well-known deeds and ultimate fate of Frankenstein and Rossum», he said, «there seemed only one change to be rung on this plot – robots were created and destroyed by their creator. I quickly grew tired of this dull hundred-times-told tale. I began in 1940 to write robot stories of my own – but robot stories of a new variety.» Evidently it is not so easy to dislodge a myth.