Reality and Legends

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

And the original I,Robot book is NOTHING like the movie with Will Smith. I really don't think they should have even used the I, Robot title. A big disappointment for Asimov fans.

Starship Troopers is a worse movie for being almost nothing like the book. In fact, much of the movie is based on another book entirely, Joe Haldeman's Forever War.

At least the moive I, Robot had Nestor in it. I just finished I, Robot yesterday.

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Starship Troopers is a worse movie for being almost nothing like the book.

I hated the movie so much, that it took me years before I even attempted to read the book. Once I started, I had to finish it in one sitting. I couldn't believe how fantastic the book was!

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by AlbertaCowboy

I hated the movie so much, that it took me years before I even attempted to read the book. Once I started, I had to finish it in one sitting. I couldn't believe how fantastic the book was!

I hated the movie even more for including Heinlein's name in the title at release after doing that.

I have just finished Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and the movie to that strayed pretty far.

[anamardoll]

I think I'm the only person on earth who liked the movie. I thought the over-the-top jingoism was hilarious.

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I think I'm the only person on earth who liked the movie. I thought the over-the-top jingoism was hilarious.

Not saying the movie did not have its moments, just that the screen writer TOTALLY missed the mark to have name.

He/she did NOT understand Heinlein's future society. The would have failed History and Moral Studies.

[DMB]

I can't say that I've found books totally different from what I remembered. But reading something good after an interval of 40--50 years, I've been quite surprised at how much richer the writing can be than I remembered or perhaps than I appreciated the first time. I read Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time in the 1960s and I am very slowly rereading it in eformat. The quality of the writing is exceptional and it means so much more to me than it did the first time.

I've just started rereading a book from the 1930s written by a young Michael Innes. It is simply a detective story, but I was reading and laughing out loud at the superb descriptions and the slyly malicious pen portraits of Oxford dons. (Innes himself was a don at Christchurch, Oxford.)

I think the difference in my appreciation of books like this may be because I have so much more experience of life now and am a changed person.

[elizilla]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

In fairness to Doyle I have always thought that he wrote this to illustrate Holmes' narrow minded devotion to the business of being the worlds greatest deductive detective. No not realistic.

It's similar to scenes in television and movies, where a character may say something mind bogglingly stupid. The point isn't the particular fact they're being stupid about. The point is that the audience should see the character's stupidity (or in Holmes' case, their willful ignorance). If Doyle just said "Holmes was willfully ignorant of things unrelated to detective work" this would not make the book very interesting. Holmes having this conversation with Watson, demonstrates it and makes it real.

And if you're an author or scriptwriter demonstrating someone's willfull ignorance or stupidity through dialog, you have to pick something everyone in the audience will get. The audience contains people with every level of knowledge and intelligence. You have to get your character under the bar for everyone, not just the more educated members of the audience.

Doyle wasn't writing for the intelligentsia. The Holmes books were entertainment for the masses, in the days before television took over that duty.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

The drug use by Sherlock Holmes was surprising to me - not something that fit the "legend" as I understood it.

And the original Dracula book was much scarier than the campy vampire horror shows I used to watch.

And the original I,Robot book is NOTHING like the movie with Will Smith. I really don't think they should have even used the I, Robot title. A big disappointment for Asimov fans.

Heh, nerd alert. The cultural legend is that Isaac Asimov wrote a novel called I, ROBOT. But the title was originally applied to a short story by Eando Binder (yup, never heard of him either). Isaac Asimov's editor later appropriated the title and applied it to a collection of short stories by Asimov (over IA's objections).
"I, Robot" remains one of the most evocative titles ever created, which it is why it comes up again and again in different variations throughout pop culture.

WIKIPEDIA

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Heh, nerd alert. The cultural legend is that Isaac Asimov wrote a novel called I, ROBOT. But the title was originally applied to a short story by Eando Binder (yup, never heard of him either). Isaac Asimov's editor later appropriated the title and applied it to a collection of short stories by Asimov (over IA's objections).
"I, Robot" remains one of the most evocative titles ever created, which it is why it comes up again and again in different variations throughout pop culture.

WIKIPEDIA

Eando Binder is actually two brothers, Earl and Otto Binder. Golden Age comic fans may be familiar with Otto's work with Fawcett.

[BenG]

Heh, nerd alert. The cultural legend is that Isaac Asimov wrote a novel called I, ROBOT. But the title was originally applied to a short story by Eando Binder (yup, never heard of him either). Isaac Asimov's editor later appropriated the title and applied it to a collection of short stories by Asimov (over IA's objections).

Asimov says as much in his introduction to the re-issue of Caves of Steel,

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I think I'm the only person on earth who liked the movie. I thought the over-the-top jingoism was hilarious.

No, I love it. As you say, it's deliberately over-the-top, and very funny.

It's also a wonderful book, for totally different reasons.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Heh, nerd alert. The cultural legend is that Isaac Asimov wrote a novel called I, ROBOT. But the title was originally applied to a short story by Eando Binder (yup, never heard of him either). Isaac Asimov's editor later appropriated the title and applied it to a collection of short stories by Asimov (over IA's objections).
"I, Robot" remains one of the most evocative titles ever created, which it is why it comes up again and again in different variations throughout pop culture.

WIKIPEDIA

Of course, Binder almost certainly took his title from Robert Graves' extremely popular "I, Claudius."