{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2830",
    "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": 2830,
    "subject": "O.T. and A.I. (spoilers)",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-10-06T17:05:45+00:00",
    "last": "2001-10-07T11:01:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0704@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "littlesense at necronomicon.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "2001-10-06T17:05:45+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) O.T. and A.I. (spoilers)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Since it's rather quiet around here right now, I hope no one minds if I add\nmy rather wordy two pence to the AI thread, the film having only just made\nit to these shores. You can always skip it. :-)\n\nSuper-Toys Last All Summer Long being one of my favourite Brian Aldiss short\nstories, I've been actively dreading this film for over a year now, ever\nsince I first heard that Spielberg was filming it as Pinocchio with CGI.\nAlthough as Adam Stephanidies says, the blame for that originates with\nKubrick.\n\nI can't agree that the first part of the picture is brilliantly directed. A\nfilm about a robot boy who can love that opens with a lecture from an\nidealistic scientist to his students explaining that they're going to make a\nrobot boy who can love. does not impress me much. Worse, what we get in\nthese first few minutes is pretty much what we get for the next half hour: a\nlecture. I got the impression Spielberg was so worried that because this was\na science fiction film people wouldn't treat it as Serious Art, he\ndeliberately made this first part as po-faced and joyless as he could. Even\nthe colours are muted, as if anything too bright might arouse the audience\nto dangerous levels of entertainment.\n\nThe middle section is a lot livelier, which is to say it's a completely\ndifferent film, with a fine performance by Jude Law. I can't argue with the\npoints made in this thread that the Rouge City sequence is heavy-handed and\npastiche Bladerunner, but hell, at least it gave us something interesting to\nlook at. Spielberg could have made the whole film more watchable, not to say\nsuspenseful, simply by opening with this section, and gradually explaining\nhow David came to be on the run in a series of flashbacks.\n\nI agree that David smashing his duplicate self is a stand-out moment. Just a\npity the director doesn't do anything with it. The scene where David finds\nall the other Davids, boxed and ready for dispatch, might have made more of\nan impact on me if I hadn't seen Buzz Lightyear, another toy in denial, do\nthe same thing five years earlier in Disney's Toy Story.\n\nIf it had ended with David underwater this would still have been a halfway\ndecent film. The 'second ending' as it is being called is cloyingly,\nmawkishly, tediously sentimental, and I think Adam is giving the director\nmore credit than he deserves in seeing it as a psychological tragedy.\nSpielberg is not exactly famous for his bleak, unhappy endings.\n\nIf he had shown David waking up the next morning beside the cold, stiff\ncorpse of his precious Mummy then maybe, yes. But Spielberg makes the film\nend with the fatherly, fairytale narrator assuring us that a) David's last\nmoment with her lasted for ever as he had hoped, and that b) for the first\ntime ever, David dreamed that night. Translation: a) love can transcend\ndeath, and b) Pinocchio became a real little boy in the end.\n\nAs for the dire psuedoscience wheeled on to justify this tearjerker ending.\nAll I can say is that people who found the end of The Amber Spyglass\ncontrived (which would include me) are unlikely to find this one much of an\nimprovement.\n\nWhat -really- annoys me about this film: I understand that it flopped in the\nUS. Here, my girlfriend and the friend we saw it with constituted one\nquarter of the audience. Spielberg made an intelligent SF film and he made\nit boring. Exactly how keen are the Hollywood money people going to be to\nmake another intelligent SF film in the next, say, hundred years?\n\nPS: Did anyone else notice the misquote? The chorus to Yeats' poem The\nStolen Child is quoted - uncredited - several times, not just aloud but in\nprint: first on a holographic display, then on the door of the cybernetics\nlab. But it should be \"Come away, O human child!\\To the waters -and- the\nwild,\" not \"To the waters of the wild.\" Yes, yes, I know, I'm a nit-picking\npedant, and it's not as if the mistake drastically changes the sense of the\npoem, but all the same."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0705@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-10-07T11:01:34+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) O.T. and A.I. (spoilers)",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0704@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "on 10/6/01 12:05 PM, Tony Ellis at LittleSense at necronomicon.co.uk wrote:\nAlthough as Adam Stephanidies"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Stephanides"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I can't agree that the first part of the picture is brilliantly directed. A\nfilm about a robot boy who can love that opens with a lecture from an\nidealistic scientist to his students explaining that they're going to make a\nrobot boy who can love. does not impress me much"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "When I said the first part was brilliantly directed, I had temporarily\nforgotten Dr. Hobby's lecture, which I agree is a clumsy device.  \"This is\nwhat the film is going to be about, so take notes.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The middle section is a lot livelier, which is to say it's a completely\ndifferent film, with a fine performance by Jude Law. I can't argue with the\npoints made in this thread that the Rouge City sequence is heavy-handed and\npastiche Bladerunner, but hell, at least it gave us something interesting to\nlook at. Spielberg could have made the whole film more watchable, not to say\nsuspenseful, simply by opening with this section, and gradually explaining\nhow David came to be on the run in a series of flashbacks."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "To my mind that would have been all wrong.  The heart of the picture is\nDavid's relationship with Monica, and starting with David in Rogue City\nwould just confuse this.\n\nAnd I didn't like Jude Law's performance (though I'm in a small minority on\nthis): much too vaudevillian for me.  Kubrick had intended Gigolo Joe to be\nmuch more sinister and aggressive, which might have been an improvement.\n(He had also intended Rogue City's architecture to be much more blatant,\nwhich probably wouldn't.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "If it had ended with David underwater this would still have been a halfway\ndecent film. The 'second ending' as it is being called is cloyingly,\nmawkishly, tediously sentimental, and I think Adam is giving the director\nmore credit than he deserves in seeing it as a psychological tragedy.\nSpielberg is not exactly famous for his bleak, unhappy endings.\n\nIf he had shown David waking up the next morning beside the cold, stiff\ncorpse of his precious Mummy then maybe, yes. But Spielberg makes the film\nend with the fatherly, fairytale narrator assuring us that a) David's last\nmoment with her lasted for ever as he had hoped, and that b) for the first\ntime ever, David dreamed that night. Translation: a) love can transcend\ndeath, and b) Pinocchio became a real little boy in the end."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I didn't like the narration at the end either (although it was Kubrick who\nwanted David to become a real boy).  And I found the the scene where Teddy\npulls out the lock of Monica's hair cringe-worthy on both viewings, although\nit does serve the narrative function of showing that \"Monica\" is not a\nconstruct produced by the mechas from David's memories (if she were, there\nwould be no reason to first tell David they couldn't bring her back).  But I\nstill don't agree the ending is mawkish.  I think Spielberg left it open for\npeople to take it that way, which may have been a mistake, but it wasn't his\nintended meaning."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "As for the dire psuedoscience wheeled on to justify this tearjerker ending.\nAll I can say is that people who found the end of The Amber Spyglass\ncontrived (which would include me) are unlikely to find this one much of an\nimprovement."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Agreed; but again, it's not entirely Spielberg's fault.  For whatever\nreason, Kubrick wanted David to be reunited with Monica for only one day,\nand Spielberg had to rationalize this somehow.  I don't think there was any\ngood way to do it.\n\nAs to the rest, we'll have to agree to disagree.\n\n--Adam "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}