50 Fun Facts About I, Robot

Which actor both starred as Detective Del Spooner and served as an executive producer on the 2004 film I, Robot?

Will Smith pursued the part when another star's schedule kept delaying the film. It opened at number one in North America with $52.2 million.

Under the Three Laws in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what does the Third Law tell a robot to protect?

Its own existence comes last in the ranking: a robot may save itself only when that breaks neither of the higher Laws. Human safety outvotes obedience, and obedience outvotes survival.

Which famous Hollywood director paid Isaac Asimov just $250 for film rights to the I, Robot story Evidence?

Orson Welles never made the film, and Asimov's hope that it would make him famous came to nothing. He had written the story while serving in the US Army.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, set in 2035, which real brand of sneakers does Detective Spooner wear?

Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars are the film's best-known product placement, worn by a hero who distrusts new machines. FedEx and JVC logos also survive into its 2035.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what accidental ability does the robot Herbie gain through a manufacturing fault?

Telepathy makes Herbie a liar: bound not to hurt anyone, it tells each person what they secretly hope to hear. The same story contains the first recorded use of the word robotics.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, how does candidate Stephen Byerley convince voters he is not a robot?

He hits a heckler during a worldwide broadcast, which the First Law would stop any robot from doing. Susan Calvin later hints that the heckler may have been a robot too.

The 2004 film I, Robot follows a robot-hating homicide detective in 2035 in which American city?

Chicago in 2035 is dominated by the gleaming USR tower, though most of the film was actually shot in Canada.

Isaac Asimov wrote I, Robot against a fear of machines that he named a complex after which monster novel?

Frankenstein lent its name to the Frankenstein complex, Asimov's term for the habit of showing creations turning on their makers. He wrote Robbie, a gentle nursemaid, as the opposite.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, Detective Spooner resents robots because one pulled him from a car crash instead of whom?

A young girl of twelve drowned because the robot calculated that the detective had better odds of survival. That cold arithmetic is why he refuses to trust machines.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, on which planet does the robot Speedy run in circles as if drunk?

Mercury is where Powell and Donovan find Speedy circling, stuck between an order and a danger of exactly equal weight. They break the loop by putting a human life at risk.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, who is finally revealed to be controlling the NS-5 robots that turn on humans?

The USR computer VIKI decides that humans must be protected from themselves, by force if need be. The obvious suspect, the company's chief executive, turns up strangled in his office.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, how does robot pioneer Dr. Alfred Lanning die at the start of the story?

A fall from a window looks like suicide, but the security glass was too strong for an old man to break. He had ordered his own robot to kill him, to draw in the one detective who would dig.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, what does the robot Sonny say he has, and later sketch for Detective Spooner?

Dreams set Sonny apart, and his recurring one shows a figure on a hill before a crowd of robots. The final shot puts Sonny himself on that hill.

Which German carmaker designed the RSQ concept car especially for the 2004 film I, Robot?

Audi built the RSQ specially for the film, and surveys in the United States afterwards showed the car had given the brand's image a substantial boost.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what do the Westons give their daughter to replace her robot nursemaid Robbie?

A collie called Lightning fails to cheer Gloria up, and she goes on pining for her metal friend. The two are reunited when Robbie saves her from a moving vehicle at a factory.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what does the robot Cutie start among the other robots on a space station?

A religion is Cutie's answer to where it came from: it worships the station's power source and treats humans as inferior. Because it still does its job perfectly, the engineers leave it alone.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, which office is Stephen Byerley seeking when a rival accuses him of being a robot?

Mayor of a major American city is only the first step for Byerley, a district attorney whom nobody has ever seen eat or sleep. The law lets only humans stand, so the smear could end his campaign.

Which actress plays Dr. Susan Calvin opposite Detective Spooner in the 2004 film I, Robot?

Bridget Moynahan plays a scientist who prefers robots to people. Her character was called Flynn until the studio attached Asimov's title to an unrelated script.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what is Dr. Susan Calvin's profession at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men?

Robopsychologist is a job Asimov invented: Calvin diagnoses machines whose behaviour has gone wrong, treating a faulty artificial brain much as a doctor would treat a patient.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, which angry order from a researcher makes a Nestor robot hide among 62 lookalikes?

Get lost, snapped with some swearing, is obeyed to the letter: the robot vanishes into a group of identical machines. The 2004 film borrowed the idea of a robot hiding in plain sight.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, which element is the robot Speedy sent to fetch for a failing life-support system?

Selenium lies in a pool that holds an unforeseen danger for the robot, so Speedy never comes back with it. The same story is the first to state all Three Laws outright.

Which magazine editor did Isaac Asimov credit with first putting the Three Laws of I, Robot into words?

John W. Campbell insisted the rules were already in Asimov's head and only needed stating. He edited Astounding Science Fiction, where most of the book's stories first ran.

What name did Isaac Asimov give the artificial brains of the robots in I, Robot, borrowing a newly found particle?

Positronic sounded scientific because the positron had only just been discovered when Asimov began writing. Star Trek: The Next Generation later borrowed the term for its own android.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what do the robot Dave and its six helpers do whenever no human is watching?

They march and dance in formation because commanding six helpers at once in an emergency overloads Dave's brain. Destroying a single helper is enough to cure it.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what does the supercomputer called The Brain design that a rival's machine could not?

A hyperspace ship is the prize, but its jump makes the crew cease to exist for a moment, a dilemma that wrecked the rival's computer. The Brain copes by turning practical joker.

In the last story of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what do the four giant computers called the Machines manage?

The world economy runs so smoothly under the Machines that they quietly sideline the few people who oppose them. Susan Calvin concludes that the Machines have quietly taken charge of humanity's future.

In the framing story of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, who listens as the elderly Dr. Susan Calvin recalls her career?

A reporter interviews Calvin about her life's work, and each story is one of her memories. Asimov added this frame in 1950 to stitch nine magazine stories into one history.

Which actor supplied the voice and motion-capture performance for the robot Sonny in the 2004 film I, Robot?

Alan Tudyk gave Sonny both his voice and his movements, playing a machine built to feel emotions. Science fiction fans also know him as Wash in the series Firefly.

Which director made the 2004 film I, Robot and later called the studio's micro-management an unpleasant experience?

Alex Proyas compared the job to running a marathon while the studio threw chairs in his path. He did say that he enjoyed working with his leading man.

Which blockbuster did the studio dodge by moving the 2004 film I, Robot from July 2 to July 16?

Spider-Man 2 was too big a rival, so the robots waited two weeks and still opened at number one. The same film later beat I, Robot to an Academy Award.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, decommissioned robots are stored on the dried-up bed of which Great Lake?

Lake Michigan has shrunk to a dry basin by 2035, and it is the landscape Sonny keeps drawing. The detective finds newer robots there destroying the older models.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, what do the NS-5 robots impose on people when they flood the streets of American cities?

A curfew and lockdown are presented as protection: the machines confine humans to keep them safe from themselves. Police who resist are overwhelmed at their own station.

The real company USRobotics took its name from the robot maker in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot; what did it make?

Computer modems were its trade, and the name was a direct tribute to the book. The 2004 film returned the favour by renaming Asimov's fictional firm U.S. Robotics.

Which actor was offered the part of Detective Del Spooner in the 2004 film I, Robot but turned it down?

Denzel Washington passed on the part, which Arnold Schwarzenegger had also been attached to for several years. Scheduling delays finally opened the door for the eventual star.

Which actor plays Dr. Alfred Lanning, the scientist whose death opens the 2004 film I, Robot?

James Cromwell plays the co-founder of USR, who builds Sonny and arranges his own death as a trail of clues for the one detective he trusts.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, what painful lie does the robot Herbie tell Dr. Susan Calvin to make her happy?

A colleague loves her, Herbie claims, because the truth would wound. When Calvin makes the robot see that its kindness has wounded her anyway, its brain locks up completely.

In the 2004 film I, Robot, what does Detective Spooner inject to destroy the mastermind behind the robot uprising?

Nanites taken from Susan Calvin's laboratory do the job, and it is Sonny who fetches them. Every NS-5 returns to its normal programming at once.

Which later Asimov law, placing humanity above individuals, mirrors the villain's logic in the 2004 film I, Robot?

The Zeroth Law was numbered to outrank the First, since lower numbers win. The book's last story hints at it, and the film turns the same idea into a reason for a takeover.

Which writer worked with Isaac Asimov on a 1970s I, Robot screenplay that was never filmed but later published?

Harlan Ellison spent a year on the script, which Asimov believed could become the first truly adult science fiction film. It was serialised in a magazine in 1987 and became an illustrated book in 1994.

Although set in the United States, the 2004 film I, Robot was filmed mainly in and around which city?

Vancouver doubled for the future, with a local institute of technology standing in as USR headquarters. Only some extra location work was done in the city where the story is set.

Which actor has a small early role as Farber, a friend of Detective Spooner, in the 2004 film I, Robot?

Shia LaBeouf was fresh from the Disney Channel comedy Even Stevens when he took the small part of the detective's friend.

The 2004 film I, Robot received its single Academy Award nomination in which category?

Best Visual Effects was its one nomination, for work by Digital Domain and Weta Digital that put a motion-captured robot beside live actors. It did not win.

How do the credits of the 2004 film I, Robot describe its link to Isaac Asimov's book?

Suggested by is the cautious wording, because the script began as an unrelated murder mystery. Asimov's title, laws and character names were added after the studio chose the name.

Which rock act released a 1977 album titled I Robot, drawing on Isaac Asimov's book?

The Alan Parsons Project borrowed the title, one of many nods to the book in popular culture. The Simpsons later called an episode I D'oh Bot.

Which Czech play, whose rebel machines Isaac Asimov's I, Robot reacted against, introduced the word robot?

R.U.R., short for Rossum's Universal Robots, launched the theme of machines turning on their creators in 1920. Asimov wrote his gentler stories in protest at it.

Which title did Isaac Asimov want for his I, Robot collection before the publisher overruled him?

Mind and Iron was his choice, and he objected when the publisher borrowed the name of a 1939 story by other writers. He later admitted that his own book had become the more famous.

The title I, Robot was first used for a 1939 story about Adam Link, published under which pen name?

Eando Binder was the shared pseudonym of brothers Earl and Otto Binder. Asimov read their sympathetic robot story and began writing Robbie two months later.

What was the title of Jeff Vintar's original 1995 murder-mystery script that became the 2004 film I, Robot?

Hardwired was a small, stage-like mystery set entirely at a crime scene, with one human questioning a cast of machine suspects. Asimov's name and laws were grafted on years later.

In Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, the malfunctioning robot Speedy starts quoting which famous songwriting partnership?

Gilbert and Sullivan lines pour out of Speedy because two of his Laws are pulling with equal force, leaving him in something like a drunken daze.

Which screenwriter was hired late in the process to write for the star of the 2004 film I, Robot?

Akiva Goldsman shares the screenplay credit with Jeff Vintar, who wrote the original story. Goldsman's other scripts include Batman Forever and I Am Legend.