A.I. (The Movie)

[Sarxis]

The movie fails, though, in the sense that it fails to enlighten its audience on how to improve themselves.

Man is just simply doomed to destroy itself? Well, F-off Spielberg; I think man does have a hope, and its not in its machines.

[Asher]

Note that A.I. is far more a Kubrick film than Spielberg...

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by monolith94
There is one whole in his argument: (although I often find myself agreeing with the writer otherwise) " The beings that extracted David from the ice were not aliens, as some have believed. They were mecha of a highly evolved sort."
Where is the proof of this??? How could anyone watching this movie POSSIBLY figure this out unaided???

How could anyone possibly believe they're anything but highly advanced mechas? We're never given any hints about any alien race at all in the movie - but several about the advances in human technology. E.x.: Remember the scene with all those old mechas fitting themselves with new parts from trash? Contrast that to when you first see David. It's quite obvious that as technology has changed, the look of the mechas has changed - and is quite possibly still going to change.

Well of course the evolved mecha theory makes sense… but the director can't expect the audience to make the same leap that he does…
And it would've helped if you're evolved Mechas didn't look like "Grays", spielberg!

It's definitely a smaller leap to believe the beings are mechas than to believe they're aliens...

[Hurricane]

But they looked like aliens.

[monolith94]

exactly… and to a hasty audience, that's what matters…
perhaps what that says is that to us, that kind of an adnvanced machine is totally alien to us…

[red_jon]

Originally posted by Asher
Yes yes, David, most people did hate it.

Most people are bright enough not to post in a thread about a movie they hate, also.

I hated it

[TCO]

Originally posted by Asher

It must have been unsettling to find him attractive like that.

I'm not devilmunchkin. I don't go for the lost little boy look.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Yeah, and it didn't fix the ending for me. It's a convenient explanation, but I doubt it was the original intent. It certainly did not convey to the audience, which means it failed.

They could have left him at the bottom of the ocean, ended it there and I'd have been reasonably happy with it.

I have to agree. Had it ended at the point where David was praying to the Blue Fairy, it wouldhave been the best film Spielberg had made in ages.

OTOH, I've always assumed that that was where the Kubrick film would have ended; dragging it out pointlessly so that the audience didn't have to leave on a down note is much more the Spielberg touch.

[Dr Strangelove]

At the ending didn't the evolved mecha actually come out and explain what they were?

Personally I loved the movie. I was quite comfortable with the ending, though I didn't interpret the ending as the evolved mecha having euthanized him, but instead that he had finally achieved his goal of becoming human by becoming able to dream. Perhaps one problem with the movie is that at times it failed to adequately explain itself, but I wonder whose explanation was the "euthanasia" explanation. Unless it was Spielberg's or Kubrik's it's merely a suggestion.

I thought the "Flesh Farie" sequence was weak because it featured the humans abusing the robots with anachronistic tools: hot air balloons, motor bikes, carnival "human" canons" and a twisted sort of "dunk the clown" game. It was almost as if Spielberg were making the statement that even the good old county faire was an example of human cruelty. He should have chosen tools that would have fit the futuristic setting.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Note that A.I. is far more a Kubrick film than Spielberg...

Exactly... and we all know Kubrick was a little wierd .

[BustaMike]

Put me down for another vote for THIS MOVIE SUCKS. It had five seconds of brilliance when David freaks and kills the other little David android. Other than that, the movie is a boring, sappy, and just plain stupid film... regardless of how successful it was at portraying its theme.

[red_jon]

It would have been better if it had a bleaker ending, like if it ended when he gave up and just fell into the water in the ruins of NYC or something.

[Dr Strangelove]

So what you're all saying is that what the movie really needed was a bit more of the good ol' Ultra-Violence eh? How about if they had given David a nice cane and had him "singing in the rain" in Doctor Hobby's workshop?

Maybe they should have gotten Steve Siegel or Vin Diesel to play David.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by monolith94
There is one whole in his argument: (although I often find myself agreeing with the writer otherwise) " The beings that extracted David from the ice were not aliens, as some have believed. They were mecha of a highly evolved sort."
Where is the proof of this??? How could anyone watching this movie POSSIBLY figure this out unaided???

It was indirectly mentioned in passing by one of the mecha/aliens.

[tinyp3nis]

Oh right, suuuurrrree...

I think a lot of people-- particularly a lot of Slashdotters-- were offended by what they perceived as a "happily ever after" ending. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I laughed out loud when they made a cake with his "mom" in the end. The ending was the most crap in a Spielberg movie I have ever seen. The movie was sad, the ending was not, no matter what the deluded writer tries to say.
Also notice how he found the theme of this movie from one scene, how brilliant, I thought the theme was displayed all the time in the movie...

It does not mean that when deeper analysis is made it makes the movie any better, specially when it doesn't even hold water

Btw, didn't they mention they were aliens in the movie? Or do I remember wrong? They certainly were the most stereotype looking aliens, so I guess if they were mechas it was an accident to make them look like aliens?