Spielberg's A.I.

[Blue Ghost]

So I'm watching this film for like the third time, and boy, what a downer. This poor robot kid never stood a chance at anything life had to offer him. I'm going to try and scope out the new Trek film this weekend. Some good hopeful sci-fi is called for.

Anybody have any thoughts on this movie?

 

[Thanos]

Should have ended with him trapped in the sub inches away from the Blue Fairy.

 

[Carlobrand]

I loved the movie, but I agree - it should have ended when he was under water. It would have been tragic, but it was true to the story line. The space alien ending felt like it was stapled on to keep the movie from ending as a tragedy. Maybe it was Speilberg uncomfortable with a tragic ending, maybe it was a calculated effort to appease American movie-goers, but after all of that suffering, it was like the gamemaster stepped in and said, "It's late, I got work tomorrow. A rock falls from the ceiling and kills the wicked dragon. You win the treasure."

 

[Vladika]

So I'm watching this film for like the third time, and boy, what a downer. This poor robot kid never stood a chance at anything life had to offer him. I'm going to try and scope out the new Trek film this weekend. Some good hopeful sci-fi is called for.

Anybody have any thoughts on this movie?

I think it was one of the most tragic movies I've ever seen, and one of the toughest to watch. Hopefully the message will be that "Artificials" just might not be so artificial as we might want to believe.

I'm 56 and not ashamed that I cried during that movie. Also, I wasn't sure I was going to watch all of it. It took three separate times to get through it and it's a movie my 3 year old son isn't going to see until he's at least a teen.

I'd have adopted him in a heartbeat.

 

[Carlobrand]

I gotta say, by the time mom and dad stepped out of the picture, I would have been very happy to see something very bad happen to them. But, that's just my vindictive streak sneaking through. It wouldn't have been a nice thing for either the organic son or the android son. However, there are few movies in which I've felt such a level of contempt as I felt for the mom and dad.

 

[Shonner]

I loved the movie, but I agree - it should have ended when he was under water. It would have been tragic, but it was true to the story line. The space alien ending felt like it was stapled on to keep the movie from ending as a tragedy. Maybe it was Speilberg uncomfortable with a tragic ending, maybe it was a calculated effort to appease American movie-goers, but after all of that suffering, it was like the gamemaster stepped in and said, "It's late, I got work tomorrow. A rock falls from the ceiling and kills the wicked dragon. You win the treasure."

The extra ending sequence (with the ice cave aliens) needed to be there in order to call it a tribute to Kubrick later.

 

[Carlobrand]

The extra ending sequence (with the ice cave aliens) needed to be there in order to call it a tribute to Kubrick later.

Why??

 

[Shonner]

Well Kubrick was a co-writer. And he died before the movie was finished. And it was a Spielberg film...

 

[GRNDL]

A.I. was Kubrick's brainchild as a movie, adapted from Brian Aldiss' "Supertoys last all summer long." Spielberg became part of the project and finished it of course.

As for the ending, I think it is actually a very happy ending for David, simply because he gets his wish: to be a real boy.

The robots at the end (the ice aliens you mention - they are robots, not aliens) have no connection to humanity. Their only link with the past is David, who they look to as the closest thing to a real human boy they have.

If there's a sad lesson to be learned, it is for humanity, who destroy themselves with their own hatred for the robots and are finally usurped by them completely. The only representative of humanity is David, himself a robot, only more human than the other, more advanced robots.

It is a bittersweet ending, yes, but not a hopeless one.

 

[ShapeShifter]

I saw it in the theatre originally and don't remember much of it, frankly. It was overly long and it was heavy with Spielberg's endless sloppy lovekisses for Disney (=Pinocchio et al.). Blech. If it were a complete Kubrik film (had he not died), it should have focused on that wonderfully creepy teddy bear and they should have jettisoned that annoying kid.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I saw it in the theatre originally and don't remember much of it, frankly. It was overly long and it was heavy with Spielberg's endless sloppy lovekisses for Disney (=Pinocchio et al.). Blech. If it were a complete Kubrik film (had he not died), it should have focused on that wonderfully creepy teddy bear and they should have jettisoned that annoying kid.

Ouch! That's harsh, dude :rofl:

It feels like Kurbick wrote it, and that Spielberg shot it. Me, I thought the robot teddy bear was kind of cool. If I had kids I'd get them one in a heartbeat (and an extended warranty).

 

[GypsyComet]

The robots at the end (the ice aliens you mention - they are robots, not aliens) have no connection to humanity. Their only link with the past is David, who they look to as the closest thing to a real human boy they have.

If there's a sad lesson to be learned, it is for humanity, who destroy themselves with their own hatred for the robots and are finally usurped by them completely. The only representative of humanity is David, himself a robot, only more human than the other, more advanced robots.

It was pretty clear to me while watching A.I. in the theater that the archeologists at the end were the descendants of the robots who had outlived Humanity. The delivery of the line "He knew the creators" was deliberately reverential.

 

[GRNDL]

It was pretty clear to me while watching A.I. in the theater that the archeologists at the end were the descendants of the robots who had outlived Humanity. The delivery of the line "He knew the creators" was deliberately reverential.

Yeah, my sentence "had no connection to humanity" was meant to be in a living sense ("I've lost touch with my cousin, there's no connection anymore") rather than they are a completely different unrelated entity, as aliens would be. A sentence was quickly written and didn't convey my meaning very well.

Its just that they don't know anything about humanity and David is that link.

 

[Ran Targas]

What is sadder IMHO is that it was Kubrick's last picture. I wish he could have made more.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I liked AI as a film, but I couldn't get passed the fact that the kid really got screwed in life, and then at the end he gets to cuddle with a facsimile of his mother. Would it not have been better to have given him a new adult male form, and give him a life somehow? That's just me though.

 

[BTolputt]

I liked the film in the way I liked ET and other childish movies. There was some surprising depth in there but Spielberg $#@% all over it with the frankly absurd ending.

Ending it with the boy slowly discharging praying for a miracle from an unmoved (made up) deity would have ended it powerfully and maintained the depth you find in the rest of the movie. Having the boy resurrected by god-like robots who grant him a wish of being with his 'mother' (i.e. granting the Blue Fairy's miracle) but only for a day due to the inexplicable hand-waved laws of sappy story-telling really let that down. Nice for kids and the shallow expectations of US movie-goers, but a major let-down nonetheless.

Not trying for contention here, just disappointed that a powerful, poignant, and thought-provoking movie had to stoop to a shallow "happy ending" for the mass market.

 

[Blue Ghost]

*snip*

Having the boy resurrected by god-like robots who grant him a wish of being with his 'mother' (i.e. granting the Blue Fairy's miracle) but only for a day due to the inexplicable hand-waved laws of sappy story-telling really let that down.

*snip*

That's the thing I didn't get. the whole "Okay kid, you can spend the night with your mom...BUY ONLY ONE NIGHT!" I mean, why even do it at all? A robotic race as advanced as they were should have been able to make a detailed facsimilie of the kids "biological" mother (no pun intended) and just let him live the rest of his warranty or expected lifespan. It's like that line from Spaceballs when Dark Helmet says "*BLEEP*! Even in the future nothing works!"