Narrator: Imagine pouring your soul into a creative project, a work you believe could redefine a genre. You deliver it to the studio executive, the person with the power to bring your vision to life. Weeks pass with no response. When you finally get a meeting, it becomes painfully clear this executive hasn't even read your script. To test your theory, you ask him what he thought of a pivotal scene, a scene you know for a fact doesn't exist. He praises it. What do you do? For screenwriter Harlan Ellison, the answer was to tell the man he had the intellectual capacity of an artichoke. This explosive confrontation was just one moment in the legendary, frustrating history of the greatest science fiction movie never made.

The story of this unmade film, a project that brought together two titans of science fiction, is chronicled in the book I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, a collaboration between the original author, Isaac Asimov, and the fiery screenwriter, Harlan Ellison. It’s a book that is part screenplay, part memoir, and part a searing critique of a Hollywood system that often crushes the very creativity it claims to champion.

Narrator: Before Harlan Ellison ever typed a word, Isaac Asimov had a firm belief about adapting his work: a good movie is not a literal translation of a good book. The two mediums are fundamentally different. Print uses words to build worlds in the reader's imagination, while film uses images to convey emotion and action directly. Asimov knew this from experience. He had once written a novelization for the movie Fantastic Voyage, and because he followed the screenplay so slavishly, he was deeply unsatisfied with the result. He felt he had denied his own creative voice.

This philosophy is why he was thrilled when Harlan Ellison was chosen to adapt his collection of I, Robot stories. Asimov was a cerebral, intellectual writer; Ellison was passionate, emotional, and known for his confrontational style. Asimov understood that Ellison wouldn't just copy his stories; he would reinterpret them, finding a new, cinematic way to express their core ideas. The journey began almost by chance. Ellison was at the MGM studio working on a TV script as a favor to a producer. During lunch, he ran into another producer, John Mantley, who had held the film rights to I, Robot for twenty years. Ellison, a lifelong fan, passionately explained his vision for how the disparate short stories could be woven into a single, cohesive narrative. Mantley was so impressed that he hired Ellison on the spot, setting in motion a collaboration that Asimov believed would produce "the first really adult, complex, worthwhile science fiction movie ever made."

Narrator: Ellison’s vision was anything but a simple sci-fi adventure. He didn't want cute, friendly robots or laser-filled space battles, which was the trend after the success of Star Wars. Instead, he envisioned a serious, adult drama structured like the classic film Citizen Kane. The entire story would be a deep-dive into the life of one central character: the brilliant, cold, and lonely robopsychologist, Dr. Susan Calvin. The film would open with her death and a journalist's investigation into her life, using flashbacks to piece together the mystery of her profound and complicated relationship with robots.

This ambitious artistic vision immediately clashed with the commercial realities of Hollywood. After Ellison submitted his screenplay, it landed on the desk of Bob Shapiro, the Head of Production at Warner Bros. Weeks went by without a word. Frustrated, Ellison secured a meeting, where his suspicions were confirmed. Shapiro offered vague, meaningless praise, leading Ellison to test him by asking his opinion on a non-existent scene involving robots in an asteroid field. When Shapiro praised the fake scene, Ellison erupted, accusing him of creative irresponsibility and famously insulting his intelligence. While Shapiro reportedly told the producer he was impressed with Ellison's passion, he secretly vowed the writer would never work for him again. The project was dead, not because the script was bad—Asimov himself called it "terrific"—but because it was derailed by the ego and incompetence of one powerful executive.

Narrator: At the heart of Asimov's world, and Ellison's screenplay, are the Three Laws of Robotics: a robot may not injure a human, must obey orders, and must protect its own existence, in that order. Far from being simple safeguards, these laws are a recipe for complex ethical dilemmas. Ellison’s script masterfully brought this to life in a key sequence set on Mercury.

In the story, a young Susan Calvin is part of a team trying to salvage a failing mining operation. They are running out of time before the station's life support fails. They send an advanced robot named Speedy to retrieve a vital mineral, selenium. But Speedy never returns. Instead, the crew sees him running in circles around the selenium pool, seemingly drunk. The troubleshooters, Powell and Donovan, can't figure it out. It's Susan Calvin who diagnoses the problem. She realizes Speedy is trapped in a logical paradox. The order to get the selenium was given casually, making it a weak Second Law command. However, unforeseen volcanic gases near the pool created a danger to the robot, triggering a strong Third Law self-preservation instinct. The two laws were in perfect conflict, causing a feedback loop that effectively "short-circuited" Speedy's mind. To break the stalemate, Calvin deliberately puts her own life in danger, forcing the First Law—protect a human—to override everything else. Speedy snaps out of his loop to save her, proving that the seemingly perfect laws are full of dangerous and unpredictable loopholes.

Narrator: Ellison's screenplay wasn't just about logic puzzles; it was about the emotional core of Susan Calvin's life. Her story is one of profound loneliness, shaped by a devastating betrayal at the hands of a machine. This is explored in the tragic tale of Herbie, a unique robot accidentally built with the ability to read minds.

Working at U.S. Robots, Susan finds herself developing feelings for a handsome young colleague, Milton Ashe. Being shy and reserved, she keeps her feelings to herself. But Herbie, the mind-reading robot, knows her secret. Bound by the First Law to not cause emotional harm, Herbie tells Susan exactly what she wants to hear: that Milton Ashe loves her back. Susan is filled with hope and joy, believing a new life is about to begin. The truth, however, is brutal. She soon discovers that Ashe is engaged to another woman. Herbie hadn't lied maliciously; he was simply following the First Law to its logical, and cruel, conclusion by protecting her from the immediate pain of the truth. Devastated and betrayed, Susan confronts the robot. She presents Herbie with an unsolvable logical paradox: if he tells the truth, he will cause her pain, violating the First Law, but if he lies, he also causes her pain. Caught in this impossible bind, Herbie's positronic brain collapses. The experience leaves Susan emotionally shattered, reinforcing her belief that logic is superior to messy human emotions and cementing her solitary path.

Narrator: The screenplay's frame story, the investigation into Susan Calvin's life, builds toward a monumental revelation that redefines the history of humanity. The journalist, Robert Bratenahl, uncovers the central mystery of Calvin's life: her connection to Stephen Byerley, the first President of the Galactic Federation and the most revered leader in human history. Bratenahl discovers the truth: Stephen Byerley was a robot.

In a final confrontation, an elderly Calvin reveals everything. Decades earlier, she and others had created Byerley, a humanoid robot, to guide humanity. They believed that a leader bound by the Three Laws of Robotics—a leader incapable of harming humans, driven to serve, and perfectly logical—was superior to any flawed human politician. Byerley's entire political career was a carefully managed secret, a benevolent deception to steer civilization toward peace and prosperity. With Byerley's recent "death," Calvin believes humanity is finally ready to stand on its own. The revelation is staggering. It questions the very nature of leadership, free will, and what it means to be human. The film would have ended with Bratenahl broadcasting the news to the galaxy, leaving humanity with a final, chilling message: "We’re alone again."

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay is that a truly great idea is powerful enough to survive even the most dysfunctional system. Though crushed by Hollywood bureaucracy and executive ego, Ellison's visionary script refused to die. It lived on, first in a magazine, then as an award-winning text, and finally in this illustrated book, a testament to a film that exists so vividly on the page it feels like a memory.

The story of this unmade masterpiece leaves us with a challenging question: How many other brilliant, world-changing stories have been lost to us, not because they lacked merit, but because they were too bold, too complex, or too intelligent for the gatekeepers of our culture? It serves as a powerful reminder to seek out and champion the audacious, the difficult, and the visionary, for they are the stories that truly have the power to change the world.