I really expected the board to be floating in anti-AI rhetoric by now. Has anyone seen it besides me? Personally, I thought it was wretched.


Spoiler*****************************


One thing that amused me was that the kid robot was the equivilant of a computer game beta version. He was the first one issued, and he had all kinds of glitches (eating the pasta, jumping in the pool, etc). I felt like I was watching the launch of Anarchy Online/WW2OL humanized and incarnate.

I did like the little bear though. That was the only thing I liked.

---

Quote:

One thing that amused me was that the kid robot was the equivilant of a computer game beta version. He was the first one issued, and he had all kinds of glitches (eating the pasta, jumping in the pool, etc).

---

Spoilers------------------

The movie betrayed itself completely. Or maybe Spiel betrayed Kubrick. The child's "love" was fake and the movie spent so much time manipulating your heartstrings and then hitting you over the head reminding you that this is not a child. And this is not "love".

For me that was the whole point.
The speech Joe gives David about how David is the same as him. His mother wants him for what he gives her not for "him", same as a sex robot. That was the theme. David's "love" was unreasoning, unchanging, forever, unearned and fake. Totally unlike real love, and frankly... didn't anyone else find it creepy and wrong?

A much more fitting ending would be for David to singlemindedly and forever be sitting at the bottom of the ocean talking to the Blue Fairy. BOOM that's the end. No narration... just the folly of mankind exemplified by a robot boy covered in algae. Make a child robot love and it loses it's mind, forever.

Thematically this is closer to the ending of Frankenstien, and that works because this wasn't Pinocchio, this was Frankenstien folks.

No aliens. No "1 day with your mother" GARBAGE. No maudlin sentimentality that makes us cry for a toaster that's adept at emulating a child's love. Interesting movie, wish Kubrick had made it himself (in the early 70's).

Osment is a fantastic actor.
Law was great as well.

PS: I've read several accounts of people getting angry at the woman who played the mom for "abandoning" him. What? That'd be like Linda (my wife) getting mad at me for deleting Seaman. If an artificial child threatened or harmed my flesh and blood, I wouldn't hesitate. I'd cry maybe. I'd mourn, because David is a convincing fake, but I'd be aware all too aware that he was a fake.

PPS: Had I walked out when he was wishing to the Blue Fairy, I would have walked out liking the movie overall.
-Andrew

HUGE SPOILERS
.
.
.
.
.
.

But the ending in the film perfectly portrays the way many parents treat their children... just like David, an automaton. I didn't think you had to read too far into it to see that's where it was going. Children yearn for their mother or father to just accept them, and that's really all David was after.

The Spinach was a direct result of his need for love. The dare to clip mommy's hair...

I think people are missing the real point of the film. The point for me was that we've been treating our children like David is treated in the film. He's the robot that represents our machine-like younger generation that's yearning for mother to just take notice.

Frankly I'm glad it had a "happy ending". Too many movies are way too dark today, perpetuating this sense of living in a dismal world. Well, the world can suck. But if we take the time to tell our children how great it can be and make them see our own love, we can give them some satisfaction and the ability to be themselves instead of chasing after approval.

--Dave

"Do you have kids Rob? I really think you have to be raising/have raised one to enjoy this movie. Otherwise most of the concepts don't mean anything to you... "

What an astonishing, maddening generalization. Its impossible to argue against it, really. If you don't like the movie, it must be because you don't "get" it. It's a good thing the great novels don't have such specious disclaimers -- "Warning! If you are not an orphan, this book will elude you" on the cover of "Oliver Twist," say. Or "Not a Jew? Skip it" on the cover of "Maus." Absurd.

"Do you have kids Rob? I really think you have to be raising/have raised one to enjoy this movie. Otherwise most of the concepts don't mean anything to you... "

what a dick.

Now, don't overreact! It's perfectly logical to say that people who have kids will get more out of a movie than people who don't. Some people identify more with some movies than others. You can't deny that. That's what Dave meant, I'm sure. (Now, I'm putting words in Dave's mouth...Sorry.)

I guess you took that in a way it wasn't intended John T. I just think that without children, you'll have a hard time appreciating a lot of the subtext.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I don't think every movie, book, game, etc. is made to be enjoyed by everyone equally. :)

I think you took my use of the word "you" to be personally directed at Rob...it's not... I've written for that magazine that uses "you" to refer to the reader, any reader, so it's simply habit to be more direct. It must work. :)

--Dave

I thought the ending was a bunch of retarded crap that didn't resolve any of the interesting stuff brounght up earlier in the film. So David gets to play with a lobotomized reincarnation of his mommy. It's not HER - she doesn't even remember her husband or son, he's not actually accepted into the family - and it doesn't represent how a real person treats this robot kid.


The middle third, the "adventure movie" where David teams up with Gigolo Joe, is the most entertaining part.

The movie continues to pose this question of, "if we make a machine that has feelings, are then then obligated to treat it as more than a machine?" It never actually answers that.

I WANT one of those goddamn teddy bears, though. Teddy RULED. Great special effects on him, too. I just completely believed that there was a walking talking teddy bear running around.

Dave?
How is that ending happy? What leads you to believe David was satisfied with his "Mommy day"? Everything. EVERYTHING in the film showed David to be 100% single minded in his need for his mother's love. So, after one day with "lobotimized mommy" he goes back to wishing he could have her again. And not understanding why he can't.

No happy ending here.

-Andrew

I have not seen AI yet. How does it compare to Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams in terms of the issues addressed? If I remember correctly Bicentennial Man was panned by the critics but I found it to be quite good. It touched on what it means to be truly "human".

-DavidCPA

He finally was able to dream. Not wish for another day...but be satisfied that mommy did love him and finally that love was known to him. There seems to be many interpretations to those final scenes. I prefer the happy one.

Fairy tale... Pinocchio and all that...
he was finally accepted by the one that was meant to give him the love. He became a "real boy".

They did say quite specifically also that she was as real as she was years ago. But time was the thing that would "put her to sleep" again. Otherwise, they would have reincarnated everyone and anyone they could to learn about the past.

--Dave

Well, that's what I'm getting at DavidCPA. But apparently not everyone sees it that way.

This was a human story told using sci-fi. Someone else mentioned it in another thread here that science fiction is great in that you can learn things about human condition and talk about issues not often addressed by using scifi as your vehicle. That's what this is to me.

AI was much more than what it appeared on the surface. Maybe it should have been released in the Fall with the year's other "art movies". I think some were expecting it to be another typical summer action romp and missed a good film.

I did say it was clumsy at times though. It's in no way perfect. But the message I got was a strong one.

--Dave

Ok Dave,
I see that was probably what Spielburg was going for, but it is a betrayal of what the first three quarters of the film were showing us. At no point was it ever implied or mentioned that David could ever transcend his programming.

That seemed to indicate that his love was a curse. One he'd never escape. Which is why a much more poetic and fitting ending would have been to leave him at the bottom of the sea single-mindedly wishing to a ceramic fairy. Until his batteries died.

His love was a cruel joke foisted upon him by a mad creator and a short-sighted mother. That's what seemed to the moral to me.

Again, this movie seemed to be to be more Frankenstein than Pinnochio. So an icy finish seemed warrented.

-Andrew

Who said those things were aliens at the end? Maybe they were just the latest version of the meccas investigating their makers?

Dave: We'll just have to disagree. I like to think that most "art" can be accessed by people without membership in specific groups. This is why non-Jews can read Holocaust literature and still be moved. And it is incredibly condescending of you to imply that people don't understand a friggin Spielberg movie as well as you do because they don't have kids. I mean, pardon the pun: It's not rocket science. We can appreciate parental love and cruelty without being a card-carrying member of the SUV-driving Soccer Moms and Dads of America Society.

Quote:
"I think you took my use of the word "you" to be personally directed at Rob...it's not... I've written for that magazine that uses "you" to refer to the reader, any reader, so it's simply habit to be more direct. It must work. :)"

Quote:
"Do you have kids Rob? "

Um, what magazine is that you write for?

This is why I would never pay for a website. I'm always afraid someone is going to copy and paste my own nonsense and make me look at it.

---

Quote:

And it is incredibly condescending of you to imply that people don't understand a friggin Spielberg movie as well as you do because they don't have kids.

---

"We each see movies (read books, look at paintings, insert experience here) through our own life experiences. Using your example of Holocaust literature, though non-Jews may be moved by the text, an actual Holocaust survivor would relate to the book in an entirely different way."

Hi DavidCPA.

Of course we all relate (or fail to relate) in different ways. But that's not what Dave Long said. What he said was:

"I really think you have to be raising/have raised one to enjoy this movie. Otherwise most of the concepts don't mean anything to you..."

Which, I maintain, is condescending and annoying. If someone doesn't like steak, would it be reasonable to say, "You must not have grown up on a farm, otherwise you've feel EXACTLY THE WAY I DO ABOUT IT"? No, it would not.

"I really think you have to be raising/have raised one to enjoy this movie. Otherwise most of the concepts don't mean anything to you..."

I don't find it condescending either. In some ways he is correct, I don't think you can truly understand the depth of emotion attached to children if you are childless. It's primal.

That statement is still wrong (even more wrong than comparing AI to an art film...) though. I have a child. And I found David creepy and wrong because he wasn't childlike at all. He wasn't even Pinochio-like. He was a robot programmed rigidly to love a certain way.

Let's put it this way. If I had David and through self-defense he almost drowned my child... I wouldn't hesitate to send him to his destruction or leave him in the woods. Children grow and learn and love of their own accord. David is 8 and will always be 8. He loves me because he "imprinted" on me? No thanks.

David is a fake child.
Therefore all relationships David has are... fake.
Just like Gigolo Joe said. "She loves you only for what you can give her. Which is why women love me."

That isn't love.
And that's why the film needed a futile and brutal ending. Creating a simulacrum and forcing involuntary and unachievable emotion on it, and then dooming to live is cruel.

Just like Frankenstein (the book, btw, the book).

-Andrew

Guys, guys, guys...

Who cares? Final Fantasy comes out today! It's going to blow AI right outta the theatres. Quit this inane argument, and head to your nearest multiplex.

James

Believe it or not, I see Bub's side of it and I felt that way at the beginning of the film too. It was creepy to watch David. But the film uses that as a statement too. William Hurt's character sees nothing wrong with a million Davids making parents happy again. He apparently lost his own son and understood the pain a parent would feel. Why not "build one" to get you through it. Of course that bears out our throw-away society as well... use the child until you don't need it to make you feel good anymore... like when your real son comes home.

But I think the idea was to make us see that as we gain the ability to create that which is closer and closer to "us" in every way, we run that risk of creating something that has its own will and its own ability to reason. The robots in the film are way beyond a simple automaton. They're reasoning machines. I also was sure the creatures at the end were mecha also and not alien. They were simply researching their past and found a long lost "son" in David. (The line "We only want what will make you happy" adds to that feeling of his kinship with them.)

I noted above that this film might be looked at differently in a different time of release. I think that's true. In fact, there seems to be a ton of prejudice against it in the examples above based on the director alone...

Steven Speilberg makes good films. He has an excellent education in moviemaking and he's been creating compelling entertainment for years. He does a lot of things right in AI. But like I said above, he's clumsy with some elements. The Flesh Fair in particular is rudely handled. But the film as a whole obviously did one thing absolutely right that this thread bears out... it got us talking about some interesting emotions. I saw something totally different in the movie than Bub, Rob or John T. Compare this to the summer's other releases such as Pearl Harbor which apparently treats its subject matter with a wildly inappropriate hand.

Rob... here's what I meant in that phrase and follow-up above. I wasn't trying to belittle anyone. The first sentence should have stood alone. I was curious if you had children? The second two sentences were literally directed at "anyone" that doesn't have kids. Sometimes I wish everyone had an editor for a message board to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.

Bub used a great word up there... "primal". That's certainly one way to characterize this entirely different perspective I have on parent/child relationships after having my own kids. A story in the news like that mother who killed all her children... when I had no kids, I know that wouldn't have affected me in the same way it did now. Ditto for films. I've always been an emotional guy at the movies, but now I'm often a wreck if the film contains subject matter relating to children and something bad happening to them. Sometimes I get so sick I can't watch. So needless to say, I just don't think that entertainment can affect everyone in the same way it does me.

I should also note that Spielberg's movie Schindler's List probably did more to give me an emotional tie to the holocaust than most any text I've ever read. It's hard to relate to something on that scale if you weren't there and didn't live through it. It's so inconceivable to one with no personal ties. At least in film, the visual can combine with the verbal to give me some kind of emotional link to that event. That's what Spielberg does well in his films and AI was no exception.

I have to wonder though, if Stanley Kubrick had lived, and he flimed the movie the exact same way, would the discussion here be any different? I've read that this ending was similar to the original he intended... if that's the case, why blame Spielberg for filming it?

I'm not a mean guy. I'm not trying to be condescending to anyone here. I have strong feelings and some heavy thoughts about this film that are apparently at odds with others. Agreeing to disagree is fine by me. Sorry if I offended anyone.

--Dave

"I have to wonder though, if Stanley Kubrick had lived, and he flimed the movie the exact same way, would the discussion here be any different? I've read that this ending was similar to the original he intended... if that's the case, why blame Spielberg for filming it?"

I haven't read that. If that is the case, I blame them both. My problem remains that the ending betrays the momentum of the film (as I saw it).

As an aside...
So, the "aliens" were mecha, eh? Trying to find their own "parents". That makes sense actually. But I don't think it was clear exactly... maybe they should have added it to the incessent narration at the end. ;>

-Andrew

An interesting take on the film:
(note: this is a comedy site)

http://www.brunching.com/selfmade/ai.html

The FilmForce review notes correctly that it isn't readily apparent that they are mecha, but they are definitely mecha.

I also found a

http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Sneaks-X!ArticleDetail-31641,00.html

really good interview with Spielberg about how he came to make this movie by way of IGN FilmForce. Oh... and IGN just happened to be the first hit in Google for "spielberg interview ai" as search terms.

--Dave

The emotion this movie made me feel: boredom.

Calling someone a dick as an anonymous poster takes some real courage.

If I think someone is being "a dick", I'll be happy to say so using my real name. Imagine that.

Hunh... I completely missed someone calling me richard. Ah well, strong opinions get strong responses I guess?

--Dave

The beings at the end of the movie were most certaintly evolved mecha (not mecca that's something completely different.)

1. Look at them closely. They are composed of glowing circuits.

2. They read David's robot brain by touching him, and transfer the information between themselves the same way (like a network.)

3. They specifically state that humans are their creators, and that after the humans died off, the mecha discovered that human "souls" live on in the "space-time continuum" and can be resurrected for one day.

4. They specifically say that they themselves (the mecha) have no souls, and they wonder what it would be like if they did.

Speilburg's stupidest mistake in this film was making those things look like classic greys and confusing millions of inattentive people (lulled into a half-sleep by the plodding script.)

Anyway, speaking as someone who has raised children and read Asimov's Robot novels, this movie blew.

Rogue robots? C'mon. What about the Three Laws of Robotics? Who would make robots without the Three Laws?

Eating spinach ruins robots, but submersion in sea water or chlorinated freshwater is A-Okay!

David's "love" really came off to me as programming. It was very creepy. Good acting on Osment's part though.

I liked the scenes with Joe and David wandering the world with their fairy tale mentality. I think those were very well done, if simply copies of Wizard of Oz and Pinnochio. I feel Spielburg did a good job showing you the world from their point of view.

Ending? Sucked. Why not stop it with David in his infinite loop sitting at the bottom of the ocean?

BobM: Amen brother!

1. Look at them closely. They are composed of glowing circuits.

Yeah, I noticed that, but I didn't care enough to think about it. I was thinking "Robot-Aliens" by then. Only I was thinking that with several !!?? after it and my jaw gaping open.

3. They specifically state that humans are their creators, and that after the humans died off, the mecha discovered that human "souls" live on in the "space-time continuum" and can be resurrected for one day.

Oh boy, I had really stopped listening by then. I remember hearing "space/time continuum" but whenever a movie needs that much narration and spoken expostion, you've got major plot problems.

"David's "love" really came off to me as programming. It was very creepy. Good acting on Osment's part though."

Yep.

"Ending? Sucked. Why not stop it with David in his infinite loop sitting at the bottom of the ocean?"

Bingo. As I've been saying, that's the ending the narrative was calling for. With that ending the moral becomes:

"If you make a robot 'human' it will single-mindedly pursue 'meaning' futiley and forever."

A much more satisfying, challenging, thought-provoking, and artistic ending.

-Andrew

---

Quote:

"If you make a robot 'human' it will single-mindedly pursue 'meaning' futiley and forever."

A much more satisfying, challenging, thought-provoking, and artistic ending.

---

If they had ended it with David in his infinite loop, it would make the whole movie feel like a fairy tale. I would prefer if it had been a set up a la Princess Bride, maybe post-ice-age mecha telling stories about the mythical "robot at the bottom of the sea."

- Alan

SPOILERS
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Kubrick's ending was purported to be that David would again wait 2000 years for the Super-Mecha to arrive.

Except they would revive him, access his memory banks, and then using their technology, recreate a perfect replica of David's life.

David would "wake up" and think he was home again, that it was all a bad dream, and everything was good now.

Except as he lives his "life", he's in fact, a museum exhibit for the Super-Mecha. A "live demonstration" of human life in the past.

So, he's happy, yet ignorant of the fact that he's caught in a mere illusion, and that his real purpose is to be coldly observed and analyzed by the Super-Mecha.

But Spielberg had to add in that stuff about the soul and the one-day reincarnation deal.

Tsk.

-Thierry

"he was finally accepted by the one that was meant to give him the love."

I didn't get that as the point of the movie at all, and I, too, thought the ending totally betrayed the rest of the story. It made the movie too long; it detracted from the central message of the movie--that people should not make these kinds of emotional machines unless they are willing to take responsibility for them. That was the message all through the film, and then suddenly they're like, "Or maybe you CAN! ALIENS WILL SAVE YOU!" Or mecha. Or whatever they were. I didn't get the mecha thing, either, so either I had stopped paying attention or it wasn't very clear. It's the fault of the movie either way.

And I agree with Bub about David's love being pretty much a sham. It's not like he had any choice in the matter, which makes it more akin to the aversion therapy reprogramming that Alex is subjected to in A Clockwork Orange than anything else. That's an interesting ethical quandry--is it wrong to try to create a machine that feels?

Too bad we'll never know, because the movie abandons that entire question for the last act.

"That seemed to indicate that his love was a curse. One he'd never escape. Which is why a much more poetic and fitting ending would have been to leave him at the bottom of the sea single-mindedly wishing to a ceramic fairy. Until his batteries died."

Exactly. I think that would have been much more fitting, and would have driven home the questions that the movie reaised much more effectively. The real ending was a cop-out.

"William Hurt's character sees nothing wrong with a million Davids making parents happy again. He apparently lost his own son and understood the pain a parent would feel."

But he doesn't care at ALL about David, which was the real point of that scene. He cares about the parents, but David is little more than an appliance to him. And that's the ethical issue--is it right to strive to make something that feels and then wantonly disregard its feelings?

"The Flesh Fair in particular is rudely handled."

Actually, I thought this was hands down the best scene in the movie. Aside from being visually brilliant, it simultaneously shows how mankind might react to human-like machines, and demonstrates that the machines themselves are really not human (they try to avoid being damaged because they are programmed to do so, but they have no real fear of death because they are not alive to begin with).

I think A.I. is now my own personal Deus Ex in reverse.

I liked it for what it was, not for what everyone seems to want it to be. But Ben's probably most right when he says... "It's the fault of the movie either way." The messages I got were totally different from the rest of you so maybe they simply weren't clear enough? Or maybe that was the point...that it's open to a lot of interpretation?

--Dave

"They did say quite specifically also that she was as real as she was years ago."

Yeah, that writing sucked. She's 100% real as ever, except for the part about forgetting all about the rest of her family. What bullshit writing crap.

I also don't see how him finally being loved by his mommy equates to him being a "real boy." Certainly doesn't fit the Pinnochio theme, where the doll was loved all along.

So what if he was "finaly able to dream." He had an imagination and dreams and desires all through the movie. He just didn't fall asleep and dream, but he never expressed any desire to, nor did the movie somehow tie that to what it means to be human. They said human = ambition and imagination and desire, which he exhibited throughout.

"I also don't see how him finally being loved by his mommy equates to him being a "real boy." Certainly doesn't fit the Pinnochio theme, where the doll was loved all along."

That's one reason why the "David pleading with the Blue Fairy" would have made such a good ending, because the final message would have been that this isn't a Pinnochio story, and the real issues involved in creating thinking machines are much, much more complicated. Ah well.

Yeah Jason, and it really betrays Pinnochio in that Pinnochio's central theme is to be a "real boy" you have to obey your parents and be good.

Thierry... frankly Kubrick's real ending scares me pretty bad too. It's better than Spielberg's, but unfilmable.

Also, I disagree with David Long that ending the flick at the bottom of the sea in a futility loop is "cliche".

Warning, I'm going to talk about Frankenstein one more time....

Frankenstein was written by a woman who lost her child. It's partially inspired by that and mainly it's about how humanity has no right to play God and create life. How it's futile, wrong, cruel and evil to do so.

Victor creates his monster. His monster is actually super-intelligent yet super repulsive. He knows all too well he is alone, utterly, and not even his creator can love him. This warps him further and he kills.

It ends with him being pursued by Victor to the arctic. On an iceberg he takes his creator's dead body and burns it. Then drifts away from the ship on his iceberg and presumably freezes to a second death...

I see far more parallels in AI to Frankenstein than I do to Pinnochio. That's why I wanted, desperately, for it to end in the sea.

Professor Hobby is Victor Frankenstein. Playing God and denying responsibility.

-Andrew

Ben Sones RE the Flesh Faire:
"Actually, I thought this was hands down the best scene in the movie. Aside from being visually brilliant, it simultaneously shows how mankind might react to human-like machines, and demonstrates that the machines themselves are really not human (they try to avoid being damaged because they are programmed to do so, but they have no real fear of death because they are not alive to begin with)."

Yeah, aside from Chris Rock (ugh! I love Rock, but, jeez...) it was a great scene. Particularly because the animal cruelty made my skin crawl yet... how different is it from Battlebots? (Which I just find stupid.) A world of Mecha would bother me. And scare me. They'd bother me a lot. I'd only be repulsed at a real Flesh Faire because of the crowd.

Which is exactly why I hate wrestling. The wrestlers are stage fighters and most of them are experts at it. The crowd is deeply disturbing.

-Andrew

---

Quote:

how different is it from Battlebots? (Which I just find stupid.)

---

Actually Murph, it'd be an interesting diversion from AI conversation. I admire the creators and their machines. But the T&A, Bill Nye, Sportscaster, Rockin Tunes, Bored looking crowd, presentation is just embarrassingly silly to me.

So, please tell me you think it's cool because you think building home made robots is cool. Then promise you'll never make any robots you create love.
;>
-Andrew

Murph: "Battlebots is so cool on so many levels!! Ah, well, perhaps another time and place..."

Battlebots shmattlebots... Junkyard Wars is where its at!

---

Quote:

Junkyard Wars is where its at!

---

---

Quote:

So, please tell me you think it's cool because you think building home made robots is cool.

---