BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

A.I??

  
 
e-n
10:50 / 25.09.01
So I looked through this section of the board and I was wondering.Did anyone see AI?What did any of you think.I've seen every other movie discussed here except it.
I still haven't quite made up my mind as to whether I liked it or not, but what did you think?
 
 
Jamieon
13:18 / 25.09.01
You didn't look very hard.

Ganesh and I have already had a pop at it over on the "don't see" thread.


It was......confused.
 
 
Big Furry Bear
13:41 / 25.09.01
A.I. was really dissappointing - saw it this weekend just gone.

SPOILER SPACE


Basically, and I am sure most people think this, it would have been a pretty good, nicely acted, well directed piece of sci fi about our dreams and desires defining our humanity if it was not for the what can only be described as absolutely rubbish, sickeningly sentimental ending (far worse than the aliens in Contact manifesting as Jodie Foster's dad).

My advice to anyone going to see it would be to leave 1/2 hour before the end (you'll know when) and you'll feel like you've seen really quite a good film.

There are some very nice bits in it - Haley Joel Osment is very good (as is Jude Law), there's some lovely direction and some very subtle scenes.
 
 
priya narma
14:04 / 25.09.01
haven't seen this film yet but despite the bad reviews i will most likely bring it home when it comes out to rent.

is this thread rot?
what really intrigues me about the film, though, is the game that was going on before (and during) it's release. i found out about it after the fact so many of the puzzles were already solved but reading through the steps taken by a global network of internet fans completely amazed me. i'm talking mass collaboration from across the globe...all working on and playing a free internet game. i don't know if anyone else has touched on this aspect of the film in a previous thread but the sheer scope of this project (several fake internet sites updated regularly, email address, voice mail messages) is breathtaking. at first i thought it might revolutionize the online gaming world but now i think it was just a flash and saddly i missed it.
end of possible thread rot...

i also recall reading that many of the players of this game found the actual film utterly disappointing...
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
18:08 / 26.09.01
This is a truly shit movie definetly worth going to see. The ending, contrary to received blah is actually the best bit - worst bit - slime faced boy when spagetti gets on electric bits inside robot belly - whaaaat? the fucks? that all about? PLot holes the size of, no.... big fuckin plot holes - yeah robots as mechanical okay - but understand science and art has developed - fleshbots more likely - otherwise, keep allegorical - really do modern pinnochio, not ill concieved, spawnfuckchild of a film which does not explore any of the issues raised or bother to delve into Wizard of Magical Realism shtick. (this was the only tack possible to save the narrative) Rouge City? Cumon. Watch out for the Flesh Farms! - sorry for not telling you about the world - tyhe mother says to the childbot but really the audience. Suckergun bandits on bikes? Whaddafuck!?
William Hurt office in Fucked up New York? Eh? His office doubling up as factory floor? - note childbots ready to activate - in their packing boxes! Jude Law - cheeky cockney sparra - oh dear.

Shapely bots at end in flying cube which morped and mantled with much elegance actually proposed a solution to heaven which one can read about on the net and in respected science journals.

That by tracing photons, advanced beings could recreate all human life blah etc. honestly...I read about it in ******.

Seriously.

I must change my suit now.
 
 
Warewullf
08:57 / 27.09.01
I liked it.

Yes, it had huge fucking problems but, really, all of those can be explained by simply taking the film as a Fairy Tale.

Which is how I think of it.

Plus, I demand an all-Teddy sequel!

[ 27-09-2001: Message edited by: Warewullf ]
 
 
e-n
08:57 / 27.09.01
I reallyreally want a teddy.Seriously, whoever makes one of those first will get a license to print money.
 
 
A Bigger Boat
15:53 / 27.09.01
I'm still puzzling over the film almost a week after seeing it and have no precedent as to whether this means I'll like it or not.

If I can never make up my mind about it then I'll have to have it in my collection, because how many films can you say that about?

The bear ruled. The most deeply philosophical character I've seen in a mainstream production in decades. This is the future of CGI characterizations. Such subtlrty and subtext in his performance.
Don't expect to see these traits in the Furby(TM)version.

I thought the ending was awesome.

I hated the voiceovers at the start and finish. I hated the pointless cameos.

I think I really liked the film. It's unfortunate that when E.T. was released it was permisable to be won over by a completely over-emotional cheesefest, but in the 21st century we have to try and be all Gen X and ironic.

Watch E.T., blub like a baby, then watch A.I. and tell me you don't like it.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
15:01 / 21.10.01
Just saw it. Bloody awful.

S
-
-
P
-
-
O
-
-
I
-
-
L
-
-
E
-
-
R
-
-
S
-
-


Plotless, directionless, vapid toss. Mindbogglingly banal and meaningless ending. Lapses in internal logic you could drive a truck through. Gahhhh...

I assume we're meant to care about what happens to the Osment creature? Not to take away from his performance, which was, as usual, fantastic (especially given what little he had to work with), but why?

They seemed to be making the assertion that 'David' was the first of his kind, a robot that could act on his desires and search for what he wanted. Handily ignoring the fact that Jude Law's 'Joe' steers the kid towards everything. 'David' is wandering around like a tiny obsessive freakish Rain Boy with his mouth perpetually open, until 'Joe' suggests visiting Doctor Know. 'David' has no idea what the advice given to him means, until 'Joe' spells it out to him. 'David' can't even fly the fucking amphibicoptor thing until 'Joe' gets in and flies it for him. 'Joe' is the one who, when recaptured, says the only interesting line in the movie ("I am. I was...") when asking 'David' to remember him.

Of course, the scary little tyke had just tried to commit suicide by falling off a skyscraper into the ocean because he was confronted with the fact that he was destined to be massproduced. Yes, he can certainly forge his own destiny. He was more of a muppet than his Teddy.

The events of the movie clearly spell out the fact that he was programmed to love anyone who imprinted the code on him. He continued to love his 'mommy' with a blind, unimaginative, obsessive, programmed zeal until the end. In what way has he learned, or been capable of learning, how to love? Now, if he'd learned to love his little shit of a 'brother', that would have been a miracle of sentience.

Just another example of Spielberg's own obsessive emotional manipulation... poor Stevie didn't have a happy childhood, and now needs to refer to broken homes and shattered families in everything he does. He's a cunt. Someone hold him down so I can shit on him like he's been shitting on cinema for the last fifteen years.
 
 
Seth
22:44 / 21.10.01
Just saw it. Bloody awesome.

Parliament and Warewulf - you both hit the nail on the head (apart from the ending - it should have been ambiguous as to whether or not it was still happening in David's head as he sits trapped at the bottom of the ocean.

For some reason this film had a profound effect on me (and I'm not talking about the bits everyone else found cheeseworthy).
 
 
Sensual Cobra
02:55 / 22.10.01
yawn - The Physics of Immortality ? I think if you've seen A.I. you know what a left-field theory that is.
 
 
Chuckling Duck
13:09 / 22.10.01
I found it thought-provoking, and visually very interesting. I could have done without some of the more condescending voiceovers, but that's Hollywood for you.
 
 
rizla mission
13:13 / 22.10.01
I still don't want to see AI.

Kubrick devises film about artificial child. Kubrick dies, fuckin' Spielberg takes over.

What a nightmare.

As a fan of all things cold, mechanical and frightening in cinema, I know it's going to be painful.
 
 
The Strobe
15:05 / 22.10.01
I wish people would stop baiting Spielberg. Kubrick decided WHILST HE WAS ALIVE that the project was more suited to Spielberg, and GAVE it to him to Direct. When Kubrick died, spielberg took over completely.

I love AI. OK, it would have been a great ending if it ended underwater, but as it is it still had a great ending. It's optimistic. Just because you're all into nihilism and darkness and you ASSUME that the dark stuff is BLATANTLY Kubrick and the "happy" stuff is BLATANTLY Spielberg. It's a fairy tale. It needs a fairy tale ending. It's not like it's a happy ending, anyhow!

SPOILERS ABOUND, as normal on the lith.

I loved the aliens. They were the best representation of something _truly_ otherworldly that I've ever seen at the cinema. I loved the film. It's not perfect, but it made me grin and gasp and emote like NOTHING had for three months at the stupid, lame "mainstream" cinema in my town.

I'm now in a town with an Arts Picturehouse, and as such have lots of wonderful movies to see permanently.

AI is not perfect, but it's VERY GOOD, and I will NOT tolerate Spielberg-Bating.
 
 
Hieronymus
16:10 / 22.10.01
quote:Originally posted by Paleface:


I loved the aliens. They were the best representation of something _truly_ otherworldly that I've ever seen at the cinema.

Those weren't aliens, Paleface. They were supermecha. Highly evolved AI. Note the similarities between their forms and the Cyberdyne logo, the only legacy of our existence. "And God made man in his own image". They were searching for the origins of their creation, just as we search for ours. That's why they were so fascinated by David.


One of these days I'm going to write an article for Barbelith about this movie being a bookend to 2001:Space Odyssey.
 
 
The Strobe
09:33 / 23.10.01
Oh my god Sidney! I'd never thought of that. Sheesh. Suddenly that ending is THOUSANDS of times better than even I thought it was.

I really don't see why everyone has _such_ a problem with this movie.
 
 
Ria
09:33 / 23.10.01
quote:Originally posted by Paleface:
I loved the aliens. They were the best representation of something _truly_ otherworldly that I've ever seen at the cinema.

for me the voices ruined the effect.
 
 
Johnny Mother
09:33 / 23.10.01
im glad to see there are over big Teddy fans out there....he is worth the admission price alone
 
 
Sam Lowry
15:43 / 24.10.01
A.I. THE ABRIDGED SCRIPT

As usual, The Editing Room nails it...


[ 24-10-2001: Message edited by: Sam Lowry ]
 
 
Ria
15:54 / 24.10.01
I cannot figure out why Mr. Kubrick has no screnwriting credit for the film in the film. it all goes to Mr. Ian Watson... a writer whose works I beg you to seek out BTW... the feel of whose work does carry throughout the film. (I cannot think who else could have come up with the phrase 'Flesh Fair' for instance though I might have it wrong.)

and I also cannot figure out why unless the media hyped Kubrick's contribution to the film out of all proportion. though I know that Sara Maitland who Kubrick consulted also receives no credit but then I do not know for sure the extent of her contribution.

disclaimer: I have not read Ian Watson's Playboy article explaining how he came to develop the film.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
19:51 / 24.10.01
Ican't stand latter-day Spielberg. Horrible little man, making manipulative, cynical little movies dressed up in pretty, slushy clothes. And, yes, I've seen Schindler's List.

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

There's nothing challenging or interesting in AI. Any point he tries to make is buried under a wall of aimless sentimentality and castrated riffs on points made in earlier, better movies. The character of David's 'mother' is overplayed so badly (wordless whimpering in the corner with no outside stimulus, clutching the walls for support, swooning, bottom lip trembling with both ham and cheese... diabolical). There's positively no direction to the plot - the film just wanders all over the place, never finding time to settle on a destination. The script is turgid and lifeless, with only a couple of useful or entertaining patches of dialogue to redeem it. The evolved robots at the end waffle in 'Wonder Years' style warm, comfy voices about the amazing, unique, magical qualities of humanity (a Roddenberry perspective if ever I've heard one), despite the fact that none of them are evidenced in the film except the creativity to design such a lifelike child-robot (which is itself bastardised by the intention behind the creation: either a soulless placebo for the bereaved (the company line), or an obsessive bit of wish fulfilment fantasy by william Hurt's character. No giant leaps in human thinking here, ladies and gentlebugs).

This film is scurvy. And not even lemons can save us from it.
 
 
Warewullf
23:29 / 26.10.01
quote:Originally posted by Sidney Sometimes:


Those weren't aliens, Paleface. They were supermecha. Highly evolved AI. Note the similarities between their forms and the Cyberdyne logo, the only legacy of our existence. "And God made man in his own image". They were searching for the origins of their creation, just as we search for ours. That's why they were so fascinated by David.


One of these days I'm going to write an article for Barbelith about this movie being a bookend to 2001:Space Odyssey.

You're an effing genius! Well done, man!
(Seriously! Not sarcasm!)
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:06 / 27.10.01
quote:Originally posted by Sidney Sometimes:
They were searching for the origins of their creation, just as we search for ours.

And just like us, two thousand years later they'd made up half of it, and horribly romanticised and distorted the rest. 'Unique' and 'genius', indeed... same race that seriously damaged the planet and wiped themselves out. Yeah, we're obviously not a load of fucking monkeys at all.

This.

Film.

Is.

Awful.
 
 
Hieronymus
17:48 / 27.10.01
quote:Originally posted by Jack The Bodiless:


And just like us, two thousand years later they'd made up half of it, and horribly romanticised and distorted the rest.

Certainly. Which I found to be oddly ironic given how much the creator's mark taints the creation.

You notice in the movie that David's breath isn't water vapor in the forest when Monica drops him off. He doesn't blink. He doesn't cry. And he certainly doesn't dream. But when the supermecha grant him his wish, he blows out candles. He weeps. He dreams (Notice that in the movie the moon is always a symbolic flag for dreams and by extension, nightmares. It's there on the Cryogenics logo when we see Martin sleeping in suspended animation. It's there in the bed that David and later Martin sleep in. It's the nightmarish Flesh Fair balloon. It points the way to Rouge City, "the land where dreams are made real", et cetera, et cetera).

Did Spielberg bludgeon us over the head with the Pinocchio symbol? Possibly. But David was just supposed to be a mechanical changeling. Dr. Hobby's quotes from Yeats's 'The Stolen Child' on his door make it clear he never intended David to be anything but a replacement for both Henry and Monica and on a lesser level for Dr. Hobby and his lost son as well. But when you program a puppet with one of the most fundamentally human flaws, to love, he ceases being puppet and starts being real.

And then of course, there's Dr. Hobby, the most morally void character in the whole film. Like his blatantly heavy-handed namesake, he's a half-ass tinkerer, his interest in David only consumed in 'can we do it'. He's so busy being impressed with his own handiwork that he fails to fully understand what it is he's created. It's the same sort of thing Mary Shelley took on in Frankenstein. What is the responsibility of the creator to the creation? Given that we create a thing to love us, what is it owed from us? Our love in return? If we can't give it, what then?

quote:'Unique' and 'genius', indeed... same race that seriously damaged the planet and wiped themselves out. Yeah, we're obviously not a load of fucking monkeys at all.

I disagree. It's not an attack on humanity. It's a celebration of humanity, especially of our legacies. God created man in his own image. Man created mecha in his. The religious undertones are the best part, I think. It could've used loads of polish but it says more clumsily than most films do with dazzle.

I just think some people squirm at the idea that we could one day be gods because the truth of it is looming so large in the face of technology's velocity. It's an awesome and terrifying responsibility.

[ 27-10-2001: Message edited by: Sidney Sometimes ]
 
  
Add Your Reply