DCs Ghost
what i believe is the biggest let down of the movie is the choice of director, Spielberg is more about family entertainment ... he usually focuses on sci-fi/fantasy, blockbuster Hollywood ... i'm not knocking Speilberg cause i feel he is a talented and gifted director but his vision is different.
I could not agree more. His technical skill and attention to detail that you mentioned are his strengths but his focus on the family/summer blockbuster genre is probably the main reason the Hollywood establishment has ignored him at Oscar time. Did you see Dark City? I thought it was an excellent example of futuristic sci-fi. Machines played a major role in that film, too, but from a very different perspective.
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truman
I felt that the movie was largely about the futility of the search for ultimate acceptance.
Her failure to give him the love he wants, is not his lack, but her own selfish, or human motivations. It cannot be his lack, because he was functioning within his design parameters, but he perceives it as his own failing. If he was lacking, it was not his failure, but the failure of those who created and used him...
What do you say about this:
One reviewer that I read likened David to a VCR or a microwave oven that either no longer works or suits our purpose. I disagreed. I think the point of the movie is that David was more than a robot but more like a pet if not intrinsically more important. I think that is borne out in the mother's hesitancy to return him to the factory where he'd be destroyed (a preposterous idea, I thought... couldn't they just remove the imprinting chip and insert a fresh one?). By her actions she viewed him as a living, sentient being. And as it turned out, he was. Sorta.
...yet, he is a constructed machine, and is the love he gives or recieves anything more than an illusion.
Ah! That is the question about love itself, the kind we feel and express. What IS love? The chemical reaction in the brain can be duplicated with the consumption of chocolate. And who is it that benefits, the one who loves or its recipient? These are the types of questions I thought the movie might explore.
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joelbear
I walked out of the movie saying, "Is artificial love the only love that will last?" I think one important point of the movie and maybe its most important point is that man's need to be able to manipulate everything, including creating manmade love, will be his downfall.
A provocative question, in view of the negative aspects that come when love doesn't last. If people could avoid those (e.g. a broken heart when a lover moves on) why wouldn't they? The success of nearly every technological advance has demonstrated that if we can afford it we are all interested in rearranging our environment to suit our immediate needs, WHATEVER THEY ARE. Cars, air travel, air conditioning, electricity, pcs, medical care, prostitution, amusement parks, virtual reality... the list is endless. It is not a stretch to believe that if it were possible today, there would be a market for Davids. Till then, people have pets.
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Seeker
It makes an enourmous difference whether or not those are aliens at the end or mechas. With mechas, you have a unified whole to the picture. The story arc is complete. With aliens, you would have something out of left field thrown into the picture at the end, with no foreshadowing.
Personally, I see no "arc" in the story... for me that was one of the problems. As I said, I see no difference with whether they are aliens or advanced mechas... if you wanna make 'em aliens, go for it.
To me they are simply a vehicle to effect the fairy tale ending -- allowing David to reach his emotional destination. One thing that leads me to believe that they are aliens is that the earth has been under ice for two thousand years, and David himself had to be reawakened by something unaffected by all that ice. You think they are Fords, I think they are Chevy's. Whatever they are, they are peripheral to the point the movie is making if the point of the movie is something other than "the machines are going to rule the world when all the humans are gone." I hope the point of the movie is something other than that. If not, I wasted even more time than i thought.
Kubrick's original script treatment included the 2,000-year-future scene ... So if you want to criticize the ending, it wasn't Spielberg's idea. In fact, one of the three original Brian Aldiss short stories on which this movie was based had a 2,000-year-future scene. It was always part of the story.
I haven't read Aldiss' short stories. How close did Speilberg's treatment of the ending match those stories?
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Maximus
Now that you've seen it, Is the whole human race searching, crying, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, ...?
In other words, what WAS that movie about? Your synopsis is one, but there are several others. That's the reason I was disappointed. I have a hard time saying WHAT the point of movie was. You could say that several themes were addressed but none were covered well.
I'd love to hear other views on this from those who've seen the movie... If you had to sum up A. I. in five sentences or less, what would you say?
A couple of tidbits about Kubrick's trademarks from http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Kubrick,+Stanley :
Often features shots down the length of tall, parallel walls... All of Kubrick's films feature a scene that takes place in a bathroom... His films have a common theme of dehumanization.
tj ~still scratchin' his head...