{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2810", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 2810, "subject": "OT: A.I. (SPOILERS)", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2001-08-26T23:12:18+00:00", "last": "2001-08-27T21:22:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-08-26T23:12:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) OT: A.I. (SPOILERS)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 8/21/01 12:15 PM, James Jordan at jbjordan4 at home.com wrote:\nGo for it. I'm interested. I found the Disney-Pinocchio twists interesting,\nbut I thought Bladerunner addressed the fundamental issue better." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't seen Bladerunner, but I agree that, despite Haley Joel Osment's\namazing performance on the knife-edge between machine and human, A.I. didn't\nhave anything profound to say about what it means to be human, or whether\nrobots can be \"human.\" In fact, the film's treatment of robots in general\nis a serious weakness. To start with, there's the inconsistency in the\nportrayal of the robots. The supposedly advanced female robot at the start\nof the film is far more mechanical in behavior than the obsolete robots\nrounded up by the Flesh Fair, to say nothing of Gigolo Joe. And the whole\n\"human hatred of robots\" motif is a sf cliche which is poorly motivated\nhere. Supposedly humans need to cull the robots back to stop them from\ntaking over, but why would anybody build robots capable of taking over? For\nthat matter, why would they build robots capable of living \"unlicensed\" in\nthe wilderness? (And the robots in the film are basically too stupid to\ntake over, anyway.)\n\nOther serious flaws in the film are:\n\n1. The middle section, up to David and Joe's arrival in Manhattan, is a\nseries of flashy special-effect-laden set-pieces that make little narrative\nsense and completely disrupt the mood of the picture.\n\n2. In general, there are a lot of things about the plot that make no sense.\n\n3. David was just too stupid and too fixated on one idea for me to have\nmuch interest in his quest, especially since it is doomed to failure from\nthe start. (Maybe this was Spielberg's intent, but I don't think so; and if\nso it was a mistake in judgement.)\n\n4. Spielberg is very heavy-handed with his allusions at times, especially\nthe Rouge City segment.\n\nSo why do I say it was excellent?\n\n1. The first part of the picture, up to the point where David is abandoned,\nis brilliantly directed, and quite innovative for a Hollywood movie. For\ninstance, non-naturalistic lighting is central to the film to an extent I\ndon't recall in any other movie, Hollywood or no (though no doubt there are\nexamples). After David is abandoned the picture deteriorates, as I said\nabove, but the whole Manhattan sequence is brilliant, and while the rest of\nthe picture isn't as sure-handed as the first part (and those alien-like\nrobots just don't work for me) there's some very good stuff there, too.\n\n2. Everybody raves about Osment's performance, but to my mind Frances\nO'Connor is even better. (I really don't understand why so many people find\nher character unsympathetic.)\n\n3. I enjoyed Spielberg's audacity in undercutting the exploitation of myths\nand fairy tales upon which he's built his commercial success. The\nPinocchio-based quest upon which the film has resolved, and which we've been\nencouraged to identify with, turns out to be stage-managed by Prof. Hobby as\na test, not to judge David's moral worth as in the original story, but to\ndetermine his commercial value as a mass-marketed product.\n\n4. As for the much-maligned \"second ending\" set two thousand years in the\nfuture, if you think about it it's not a sentimental cop-out, but a\npsychological tragedy. Forget for a moment that David is a robot, and\nconsider him just as a child. In this light, he's a boy who is completely\nfixated on his mother, so that it is literally impossible for him to want\nanything else. In Freudian terms, he can never resolve his Oedipal\nconflict, despite the sex proferred in Rouge City. In the end he gets his\none narcissistic \"perfect day\" with the recreated Monica, who\nnow--literally--lives only for him, and that's it: his life is essentially\nover, because there is nothing else he can want or aspire to. If he hadn't\nbeen given this one day with \"Monica,\" it would not be clear that his\ntragedy is not his inability to be reunited with Monica, but that whether he\nsucceeds or fails, he has no other goals.\n\nIncidentally, while several reviewers have assumed that Spielberg foisted\nthis ending upon Kubrick's pure vision, articles on Kubrick's involvement\navailable on the Web make clear that it was part of Kubrick's conception for\nthe movie. Conversely, one \"Kubrickian\" moment, the scene where David sees\nall the replicas of himself, was Spielberg's decision to include, though\nAldiss's idea. And I say this not as a Spielberg fan, because I'm not.\n\n5. Though I don't think the film has anything profound to say about what\nmakes one human, the ambiguity as to whether David is really human deep down\nor just a programmed machine is thought-provoking; and similarly with the\nquestions of whether recreated Monica is really Monica or the advanced\nmechas' simulacrum to make David happy, and whether her statement of love\nfor David expresses her real feelings or is just what David wants to hear.\n\n6. To sum up, A.I. is a remarkably uncommercial \"art\" film masquerading as\na feel-good blockbuster (and sometimes being taken in by its own con, to its\ndetriment). No wonder it bombed.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-08-27T12:43:07+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) OT: A.I. (SPOILERS)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam nicely summed up what was right and wrong with AI and said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And the whole \"human hatred of robots\" motif is a sf cliche which is\npoorly motivated here. Supposedly humans need to cull the robots\nback to stop them from taking over, but why would anybody build\nrobots capable of taking over? For that matter, why would they\nbuild robots capable of living \"unlicensed\" in the wilderness? (And\nthe robots in the film are basically too stupid to take over,\nanyway.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tThis is one point I have to disagree with; it doesn't make\ncomplete sense, but the Flesh Fairs seem much more plausible in the\ngeneral context. Humanity is _dying_ and birth rates are on decline.\nThis is why Hobby think David will be such a great seller in the first\nplace. The movie starts in a dying earth scenario, with hints that\nthe ice in 2,000 years is not unexpected. Given that, no matter how\nstupid the robots are, it should be easy to resent and hate them given\nthat they're likely to outlive the stagnant, increasingly infertile\nmankind. Alidss has always had a talent for entropy and dying earth\ntales anyway.\n\n\tThe other flaws you note I complete agree with, although Blade\nRunner has its downs as well and gets a lot of (deserved) credit for\ncreating a whole kind of cinematic future, rather than the actual\nstory (which is, IMO, much less interesting than the one Dick told,\nalthough that one would be harder to film). \n\n\tThe most interesting scene in AI is when David attacks the\nfirst duplicate. Whatever he is, at that point it's clear that he's\nas capable of murder as a real child with that kind of strength." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-08-27T21:22:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) OT: A.I. (SPOILERS)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "on 8/27/01 11:43 AM, Alex David Groce at Alex_Groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu\nwrote:\nAnd the whole \"human hatred of robots\" motif is a sf cliche which is\npoorly motivated here. Supposedly humans need to cull the robots\nback to stop them from taking over, but why would anybody build\nrobots capable of taking over? For that matter, why would they\nbuild robots capable of living \"unlicensed\" in the wilderness? (And\nthe robots in the film are basically too stupid to take over,\nanyway.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is one point I have to disagree with; it doesn't make\ncomplete sense, but the Flesh Fairs seem much more plausible in the\ngeneral context. Humanity is _dying_ and birth rates are on decline." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This I don't recall. My recollection is that children were rare, not\nbecause humanity is becoming infertile but because the world is short on\nresources so childbearing is strictly licensed. (Though if the world is so\nshort of resources, why do they dump all those robot parts which are\nperfectly capable of being recycled?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is why Hobby think David will be such a great seller in the first\nplace. The movie starts in a dying earth scenario, with hints that\nthe ice in 2,000 years is not unexpected." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't recall these hints either; examples?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Given that, no matter how\nstupid the robots are, it should be easy to resent and hate them given\nthat they're likely to outlive the stagnant, increasingly infertile\nmankind." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But since the robots in the film are in fact basically portrayed as machines\n(Gigolo Joe is an exception), I don't see why people should resent them for\n\"outliving\" humanity, any more than I would resent the Hubble Space\nTelescope if I were told it would outlive humanity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The most interesting scene in AI is when David attacks the\nfirst duplicate. Whatever he is, at that point it's clear that he's\nas capable of murder as a real child with that kind of strength." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is a great scene, and a brutal reversal of expectations (maybe Henry\nwasn't so wrong to insist on getting rid of David!). But it's immediately\nfollowed by one of the many gaping plot holes: why does Prof. Hobby seem not\nthe least bit perturbed that the prototype for the robot child he is about\nto mass-market has just made a homicidal (or robocidal) attack on another\nrobot child?\n\n--Adam> " } ] } ] }