Asimov's Caves Of Steel movie adaptation: robots and spacers
- 26 September 2011
- John Howell
Isaac Asimov’s classic robot SF detective novel, The Caves of Steel, is being developed for the big screen by 20th Century Fox. The Caves of Steel is one of Asimov’s most famous robot novels, featuring the human detective Elijah Baley and his robotic "Spacer" partner R. Daneel Olivaw. Set three millennia in Earth's future, fifty rich and prosperous but sparsely populated "spacer worlds" have been colonised while Earth in contrast is a poor and densely populated planet, its inhabitants living in packed cities (domed “caves of steel”).
Spacer worlds have embraced robot and human-form robot technology, while the Earth‘s population has strict anti-robot laws (in fact, so extreme is their paranoia and hate that a robot’s presence can cause a riot). Earth's population rarely visits the outside world, with most Earth born suffering extreme agoraphobia, choosing to remain inside their interconnected steel cities.
Baley suffers from agoraphobia regularly in the earlier novels in the same series, The Naked Sun (1957), The Robots of Dawn (1983) and Robots and Empire (1985), having to acclimatise himself to open spaces when visiting spacer planets.
Deadline reports that Henry Hobson will direct with a script written by John Scott 3 (the “3” is actually part of his name). The Caves of Steel explores the murder mystery of a Spacer ambassador who wants to ease the Earth’s anti-robot laws. He is found with a hole in his chest courtesy of an energy blaster. Baley is assigned to the crime as lead detective with R. Daneel Olivaw as his human-form robotic companion. The “R” in his title stands for “Robot”.
This is one of my all time favourite science fiction series and is the best movie news I've heard all year. The prospect of a modern day adaptation is fantastic. Hopefully, we’ll again be exposed to Asimov’s four laws of robotics and all they entail:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
4. A robot may not injure humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. (The Zeroth Law).
The number of classic science fiction works making their way to the big screen continues to escalate. Along with Asimov's upcoming (but slow moving) Foundation and The End of Eternity adaptations, a new Dune attempt and Ridley Scott’s The Man in the High Castle miniseries, we can also look forward to a Brave New World adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio and another Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) adaptation again with Ridley Scott at the helm.
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