I think you need to keep talking, 'cause I like what you’re saying.
But then maybe I need to put down my drink.
My mom was an artist, and she impressed on me that good art is always years ahead of its time, and speaks to you about where we’re headed.
The movie sort of hints at that: near the end, one of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind robots tries to reason with David, yet finds it difficult to do for David has been programmed to act and think as a child. Based on experience (they talk of their unsuccesful attempts at bringing humans back to life and they find an original solution to communicate with David via the Blue Fairy), the new robots know a whole lot more than David and Gigolo Joe, who couldn’t distinguish the real moon from the Flesh Fair moon.
Again, one of those cool questions for stoners the movie asks but forgets after the high wears off.
If they really are advanced robots, I think they should look like Mechagodzilla. 'Cuz that would be waaaay cool.
Okaaaaaay… such as…?
That’s kind of a big question. Try going here for a starting point on the issue.
I haven’t read the thread.
I thought the film was good until it ended. The forty-five minutes after the ending sucked. What I mean is this: I think the film should have ended with David trapped underwater. No super-advanced androids, aliens, or whatever they were to deliver a cuddly message. Ending it underwater would have been wonderfully downbeat.
The film was based on a short story by Brian Aldiss called Supertoys Last All Summer Long. I’m surprised they could make such a long, long movie from such a short short-story.
People keep talking about the ending. Which one? There were something like 23756 endings tacked on, each one more dreadful and maudlin than the previous one. I got the distinct feeling that there was no ending, and Speilberg kept tacking on celluloid hoping that the movie would end all by itself. No such luck. When ET showed up at the end, I yelled out a loud “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” It seemed to me like Speilberg said “Hey, I did a good movie once that ended with aliens, I can just do that again!”
It was all icing and no cake. It was Velvet Elvis without the Elvis. It was empty calories.
And the science was just horrible. A helicopter that turns into a submarine? A toaster that can live for forty bazillion years underwater and yet is done in by a mouthful of spinach? Give me a break.
If this says more about me than it does about the movie, then let it say this: I have better things to do with my time. Jabbing my eyes out with a knitting needle springs to mind.
He wanted his Mom’s love. That was all.
Link to [The Kubrick Site: "Supertoys..."](Super-Toys Last All Summer Long)
This movie really lived up to it’s Kubrick heritage for me. Adding the Spielberg sentimentality and his ability to work with child talent made it even more powerful.
What does it mean to be human and to love? What’s real? It raises these questions to the viewer and in the ending.
I think that’s why the boy was so valuable to the robots.
In researching their original creators, they found a early one of themselves that was designed to function purely for love.
tdn quit beating around the bush, what did you really think about the movie?
Well, Deathrace 2000 (a far more enjoyable film) is derived from a three-page short story titled “The Racer” by Ib Melchior.
Meh, it was OK.
Short stories translate to the screen far easier than thick novels do. Telling a story on film takes a lot of time, so any faithful retelling necessitates cutting a lot of plot points. A short story adapts in the allotted time much better.
In light of tdn’s comment, I’ll say that this was what I meant too.
Well, let us look at your review. (with a little bolding from me)
You are telling us how you felt about this film. You are telling us about you.
This what you get when you mix the movie AI and Bryan Eckers. Your reaction, your feelings, your thoughts are absolutely correct. (for you)
Well, that’s for the recap, but I already know how I feel about the movie. My question was in regard to this earlier statement of yours:
Namely, what does it “tell us”? If there’s no specific observation one can make about a person who feels this specific way about this specific film, isn’t the statement completely meaningless? I guess maybe it sounds profound, or something. In any case, I’m inclined to think a lack of sympathy for David doesn’t really say anything about the viewer except that the viewer didn’t buy into Spielberg’s rather blatant attempt at emotional manipulation. That suggests theh movie is flawed, not the viewer.
You seem to think that quality of the film is only determined by the film makers. What ever they do is the only thing that makes a movie good or bad.
But we’ve seen lots of people in this thread who watched the same movie and got different results.
You, as a viewer, have to suspend your disbelief. You also have to try and see how the main character is you. If you couldn’t do that, or refused to do that, it does say something about you as a viewer. I’m not sure what. Maybe you can’t relate to a robot character. Maybe you can’t relate to a little boy character. It doesn’t tell me anything precisely about you. I can’t read that and say Bryan Eckers is “this” because you said it. But it definety gives me a feeling about you.
Why do think that emotional manipulation is a bad thing? That is what Spielberg does. That is his M.O. If you don’t like that, what were you expecting when you went to see the movie?
If other people ‘bought into Speilberg’s rather blatant attempt at emotional manipulation’ are you saying that the viewer is flawed? Are you saying this because you did not do that? Did you even want to do that when you saw the movie?
Actually, that’s more HK-47 than Bender. Ironically, HK-47 is a very human robot, albeit disturbingly violent. Actually, come to think of it, both the Star Wars droids and the Terminator (movies 2 and 3) were quite “human”. Sure, they were metallic and had programming. BUt they were also capable of thinking, analizing, and changing. And they naturally developed personalities arising from their advanced bahaviors. In the case of terminator, that personality was limited by the youth and circumstances of the robot, but c’est la vie.
In our behavior. Thinking you love someone means nothing. I’ve known a lot of people who believe they’re in love but aren’t. It’s what you’d be willing to do for the ones you love which tells.
Only if the work of art fails. A work of art must be comprehensible at least when one understands the circumstances of its creation. Obviously not everyone will understand every work of art, but art that communicates nothing to any slice of humanity, or which unintentionally miscommunicates, fails.
I don’t mean to insult your Mom, but she’s wrong. Art can say about where we are, where we were, where we’ve been, where we might have been, or even just how the artist feels and nothing more.
Or, in this case, haul it up with a crane.
She never meant it as a blanket statement about all art, or even all “good” art.
And when it comes to art, who are you to pronounce someone’s opinions & observations about it as right or wrong?
Art can tell you whatever you want it to.
Some people in this thread see AI as a stupid movie about stupid robots. Others see it as a more important work with something to say about us.
A relatively simple, blunt interpretation of the movie may be nothing more than sooner or later, we’re going to have to decide how we feel about robots as they become more human-like.
And yet others see it as a reason to insult the intelligence and morals of fellow Dopers. “It says something about you”, indeed. Yeah, I didn’t care for the movie the way you did. Must be because of some personality flaw in me. It couldn’t possibly be because the movie sucked ass.