Book-To-Movie: Asimov’s ‘The Bicentennial Man’

Credit: Pixabay

Again, I’ve postponed the Book-To-Movie from its usual third weekend of the month to this fourth weekend and so tonight it’s here! In a Book-To-Movie, we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. This month we’re reviewing Isaac Asimov’s novella, “The Bicentennial Man” and its 1999 movie adaptation starring Robin “Mork from Ork” Williams.

Much of Asimov’s science fiction is hard science fiction. So, his stories take serious consideration of the scientific subject matter involved. In doing so, they seriously ask the speculative question that all good science fiction should ask: “What if?” As in “What if robots developed human consciousness?”

There is something unique when it comes to Asimov’s robot stories and that is that, unlike with most robot fiction of the 1950s when he was flourishing as a writer, his robot characters are more benefitting to humans than they are menacing. He had an optimistic view of robots and their impact on future society. Yet, just as importantly, many of his stories posed the question, “What happens when and if robots develop human consciousness?” It’s a question that still comes up today, more than 25 years after Asimov’s death. It’s probably asked even more today than ever because of the rising advancement in artificial intelligence (AI). Chris Columbus’s 1999 film adaptation of “The Bicentennial Man” poses the question as does the book. However, it does so through more of the genre of romantic comedy than it through hard science fiction. Therefore, while Asimov’s novella takes a more scientific approach to the story like good science fiction does, the movie takes too much of a romantic comical one.

The Book

Asimov’s novella, “The Bicentennial Man” was published in 1976. Whether it was for the reason of that being the U.S.’s bicentennial in which the country turned 200 years old on July 4th of that year, is hard to say. It wouldn’t surprise me, however, if it was. Even so, the novella has nothing to do with the U.S. historical independence from England. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the Fourth of July holiday. However, it can be argued that the U.S. American theme of independence and the self-made/self-reliant person runs through it. The robot is continuously pursuing his independence not just from ownership but from the futuristic legal, sub-human categorisation label of “machine”. In other words, he attempts to achieve human status.

The story is told through the point of view of the robot, Andrew. His story begins as himself being delivered to the home of the Martin family as their purchased property. However, Mr. Martin soon gives him independence. But Andrew’s independence does not stop there. He gains more of a desire to become like a human being throughout the story. Soon he starts wearing clothes and then he starts paying for human “upgrades” on his body with the wealth he makes from wood works and devices he creates and sells. The surgeries he has done on him simulate him as a human being more each time, physically and emotionally. Finally, he becomes a full human and so, by his choice, has been given the flaws and limitations of humans including mortality. Kind of like “Pinocchio” only instead of going from a wooden boy to a human boy he goes from a metal man to a human man. As he goes through the surgeries we learn of the science and technology behind them and the impacts they have on society.

Asimov developed his novella into a full-length novel which he co-wrote with Robert Silverberg and was published in 1993 just after Asimov’s death. The novel is titled “The Positronic Man”, in which I have not yet read so won’t compare the novella or movie to it.

The Movie

Columbus’s 1999 movie adaptation, “Bicentennial Man”, stars the late Robin Williams as Andrew. (The slight difference in the movie’s name change was that the article “The” was dropped as they seem to have done with too many science fiction and fantasy movies starting sometime in the ‘70s and onward.) Williams was, I thought, the perfect actor to play Andrew because of the robot’s comical and affectionate character in the novella. The problem was that the movie was just a bit too humourous which led to a couple of objectionable scenes that the story didn’t really call for. First was a joke that was demeaning to blind people that Andrew told when he went into his stand-up comic routine for the Martin family.

The other problem I had with this movie was something that was more of disgust than of offensiveness. After Andrew has artificial human flesh, skin and intestines added to him, he is in bed with his girlfriend when, first, his stomach growls from hungry. But only a second after that there’s an anal release from him (call it whatever you want, I’m not vulgar when it comes to things like that; my choice and preference). That’s a total contradiction right there that is just total Hollywood exploitation of crudeness and disgust that U.S. society has an obsession with.

It’s like, how can these two things of two different biological states, hunger and fullness, in even a robot simulated as a human occur at the same time? That ruined the entire movie because it did not enhance the story in the manner it was done and was no more than shock humour (though I didn’t find it funny) used to satisfy an audience brought up on rudeness and inconsideration for one’s fellow person all in the name of self-gratification.

And so that’s Hollywood. Hollywood is there to satisfy itself, which consists of the big studio executives in power, than to enhance the quality of the art of film and tell a good, meaningful story. So, the ones in power in Hollywood are self-gratifying like so much of the audiences they sell to, but rather than for the sake of entertaining themselves with vulgarity they gratify themselves with the profits they make from it. And they often do so at the expense of story quality.

So, I didn’t really have a problem with the romantic comedy aspect as a whole. I specifically had a problem with Hollywood’s exploitation of crudeness, which made me lose respect for the main character because it was crudeness on his part, and humour that buffoons disabled people. But the romantic comedy seemed to be used to bring those two scenes aboutTherefore, the romantic comedy, that’s been so over-rated in Hollywood since the ‘90s, was basically an excuse to get the bad humour in and outweigh the scientific aspect of this science fiction film. Everything else about the movie did fine such as the story and character interaction. Particularly, the movie was overall faithful to the novella’s story. Hollywood just got its own arrogance into it too much. 

Because Columbus’s “Bicentennial Man” tries to satisfy a blockbuster-sucker audience too much, it fails as good quality science fiction like what Asimov’s novella, “The Bicentennial Man” (emphasis mine), is. And so it does not do honour to the original story because of that, as much as it stays faithful to it otherwise, probably resulting in dishonour to the author and so disrespect for the dead. The producers just went too far with the humour for the reasons I named above. Roger Ebert, who only gave the movie two stars, said, that it was a film that “begins with promise, proceeds in fits and starts, and finally sinks into a cornball drone of greeting-card sentiment.” And, boy, is it cornball!

Have you read Asimov’s “The Bicentennial Man”, “The Positronic Man” or seen the movie adaptation of the two?

Until next time . . .