God, I am a moron. I always thought they were aliens too, but it does make so much more sense that they were advanced mechs.
I simply could not shake Spielberg’s (annoying) obsession with kindly, benevolent spacemen to see the robot angle. Glad he got over it for WotW though…
David’s first appearence home. He is behind a glass door that distorts his shape. He very slowly approaches the door. The shoti is long, way too long you might think, but it is long to imprint the distorted image of David the robot on your mind. The fact that the creatures at the end have the same shape as the distorted image of David is your clue.
Now that shape is like one of the types of aliens in CE3K but this movie is not a sequeal to CE3K so you really shouldn’t consider that when trying to interpert this one.
Wait a sec,
Are we talking about A.I.? Did fall into a black hole travel back in time? AGAIN! God I need to clean my apt so those things quit forming.
I’m not certain you do.
Perhaps the role Teddy plays is to lead David away from innocence.
As such, he is a classical figure.
Another, similar, figure is the Serpent in Eden.
Or, am I misreading this?
I’m going by what I’ve read here; I’ve never seen the film.
Yes, they’re very advanced mechas at the end, not aliens. I read plenty of comments by Spielberg and the production team to back that up.
I’m with Equipoise. I liked AI very much, although I kept thinking that a lot of problems could’ve been avoided if only David had been programmed with the Three Laws: no dragging his brother into the pool, no destroying other packaged Davids. I also found the scene where David is abandoned in the forest to be almost unbearably painful and sad.
My pragmatic side wondered why they couldn’t just make another mecha who looked and acted exactly like David’s “mom,” and let them share eternity together. But my sentimental and romantic side loved that David and his mom had one perfect, happy day together before going quietly to sleep forever as Teddy climbs up on the bed. A perfect ending, IMHO.
I, too, am a moron because I thought they were aliens also. I also think that those scenes at the end felt tacked on. If the point of the story was that it is wrong to make a sentient being just for shits and giggles, then David finding the Blue Fairy and sitting there forever makes that point pretty well.
The alie. . . robots at the end seemed superfluous to me.
The former was my first impression, too. I think Spielberg went out of his way to make the advanced mecha look alien and organic, on purpose.
However, as for obvious clues (well, obvious, the second time around), read what the alien-looking robots say. They speak of David being built by “The Creators.” As in the humans who created the first robots. They also speak to him of trying to resurrect the Creators. (Where’s the Priest/ Pally/ resto Druid when you need one?)
[major hijack]
While we’re on the subject of a 5-year-old film, IMDB says that the character of “TV face”, the mecha that says 75 years ago he was Time magazine’s mecha of the year, is some actor named Bobby Harwell.
But I swear it was R. Lee Ermey…
[/hijack]
I always thought they were ET but wikipedia is sure that they are mecha.
“The debate over the ending is further complicated by the fact that many viewers mistook the future mechas for extraterrestrials.”
The ending has many versions. One is that the whole thing was an illusion planted in David’s mind by the robots. Wasn’t there a scene of the robots looking into some table with a TV on it and watching David interact? If so it could’ve been an illusion since they are so much more advanced than he is. Plus supposedly David commits suicide after his mother goes to sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._(film)
“The film’s ending has been the subject of much debate. Many allege that it was really a dark ending disguised as a happy one. They suggest that the resurrected Monica was, in fact, an illusion planted in David’s mind by the future mechas so that David could finally end his long quest and terminate his program. They point to the fact that resurrected Monica had a much warmer persona than her original self, and that during the long day she spent with David, she never asked about her husband or her son. The future mecha warn David not to mention her past family because it might cause Monica to fall into despair, and David eagerly complies…Also, in the DVD’s supplemental material, composer John Williams confirms that David “dies” at the end of the film; after Monica passes away, he shuts down, essentially committing suicide.”
Maybe the mechas wanted him to kill himself so they could disassemble him and read his program better.
Hey! Where’s the shammy love?
Sorry; my bad! 
Heh, I wrote that. Well I wrote initially "The debate over the ending is also complicated by the fact that many viewers of the film mistake the androids who rescue David for aliens. "
Mom vanishes when the day is over – but it’s not clear to me that David goes to sleep forever, or leaves Teddy alone.
Ok, we all agree that the grey things at the end are robots.
But when I saw the movie, I also noticed that the things that were carying them through the ice excavations were precursors of monoliths.
However, that does not happen in the movie. You don’t see him die. Commentary by the film’s composer after the fact isn’t part of the movie’s content. There really isn’t one answer to this question.
Nitpick: It has, perhaps, many interpretations. It has only one version. (Unless there’s a director’s cut I never heard of.)
Please accept this response in the Jackie Mason tradition: "What, I’m supposed to study a film first so I understand the ending… who knew movies were so complicated”.
It’s just a matter of time before someone figures out which Pink Floyd album goes with 2001 (A Space Oddity). The viewer will immediately be transported to the black-onyx altar of Kubrick where the meaning of life will be revealed on a bed of romaine lettuce.
Do we get a choice of salad dressings?
davenportavenger:
Well, according to Kirk Douglas, Kubrick wanted, believe it or not, to give Paths of Glory a happy ending. Maybe Kubrick, like Spielberg, was a gifted director but a terrible writer.