Mixed Views for AI

[thepreacher_naric]

There's one movie that will stay with me for a long time to come, that's Blade Runner. When I first saw it I thought it hit a nerve regarding how humans will never change. Anything we don't understand we generally are afraid of and tend to banish.
AI was a movie in my mind, with a very similar concept to Ridley Scott's master piece and was very well done. Alot of people I asked commented that, it was way too slow in getting to the point. I thought the main point of the movie was clear all the way through.

Opinions expected on this one guys..

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The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

[Davis]

I agree, AI was a movie in my mind as well.

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[ac_01]

AI was a wierd one, it tried to deliver the darker stuff on the whole man against machine thing while wrapped up in typical spielberg 8-year-old mentality. I still liked it though i just kept wondering if that was the way kubrick would have done it?

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There can be only one.

[twister!]

An interesting point Kubrick made about Blade Runner which partly got him thinking about making AI was: if it's so difficult to tell a replicant from a human, then why destroy them.

I thought AI was HUGELY disappointing - it's far more Speilberg than it is Kubrick apart from the odd few moments. Way way way too much schmatltz with the kid and his parents before it gets started - and all that build up for a truly, embarrasingly cheesy ending.

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[Thousanth]

Woah, ac_01, typical Spielberg 8-year-old mentality? I think Shindlers List and Saving Private Ryan were at least 9-year-old mentalities.
Anyway, I loved A.I. even for all its shortcomings. It made you think, stomthing that most films dont do.
I agree, the film couldn't quite decide if it was dark of light. The stuff in Rouge City, I just sat there and could imagine was Kubrick would have done with it.
Just remember guys, Kubrick was planning on having Steven Spielberg direct A.I. anyway, beacuse he wanted Spielbergs light optimisim in the film. If Spielberg had been a little more decisive, the film would hav been REALLY good.


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"Welcome to the Black Lagoon - Please wipe your feet."

[Roy Baty]

I liked AI, despite its 'I want to rival 2001' ending. The best and most intriging part for me was the idea that humans create things in their own image, then when tired of it can destroy it. The scenes in the Skin fair told more about human nature and our races moral ambiguity then the sugary sweet 'I want my mommy back' wailings of David. This was a live action Pinnocio and should be judged as such. I still liked it though.

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Your'll never eat a minted lamb bagel with onions in this town again!

[zebra222]

The only person who can make a Kubrick movie is Kubrick - that's what made him special. Speilberg trying to do a Kubrick film, is like an apple trying to be an orange - they're just two different things. Although both are masters at what they do, there will never be another Kubrick. I believe that Kubrick wasn't even ready to make AI, before he passed away, otherwise he would have shot it himself.

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[thepreacher_naric]

Thing is they devoloped David as a child replacement.
The end was a bit much though. The world freezes over and what do you know, aliens have inhabited the earth. WOW !
Kubrick definetly would have done it differently. Only problem with movies these days is that if you want to make the big bucks you have to try and please the majority of your audience, on the hand, if you want to make a statement then your movies are generally harder to translate so you may end up only capturing the minds of a minority.

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The more I know, the more I know I don't know.

[eddie]

Too many excellent images that didnt develop any.
I was pretty much hugely dissapointed with AI, the only point it seemed to make to me was that human beings have the capacity to apply human emotions to any object that appears to have human traits (in a kind of Turing Test way). Whether something is alive or artifical, if it has a few living attributes then we can sympathise with it - even if its a steel skeleton, if it looks a bit sad then we feel sorry for it.
The ending was too weird and 'moral' - I dont like being preached at in such a shallow way, but the image of a little robot staring up at the Blue Fairy - unable to touch her or speak to her - for 1000's of years was excellent (if not very original).

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[Davis]

I agree with Eddie, there was so much great imagery and introduced themes that just didn't pan out. There were separate just really beautiful ideas, but on the whole the film is a dissapointment.

I don't even want to get started on Blade Runner. I think if I had seen it before reading the book, I would have had a chance at liking it. As it is, I read Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep first and LOVED the book. It's to this day one of my favorites, then I saw the movie, and they basically took the replicant idea and Deckard's name. Made him this moody bachelor instead of married, took out the whole societal need for empathy which is why they made fake animals (why they had that owl at the beginning). There was just so much the book had that the movie couldn't. Of course, there's the arguement that a movie of a book is still it's own entity. I can understand that, I've adapted a play into a screenplay and even then they're two different things. But take Harry Potter, the movie is it's own entity with visual style and cut a lot from the book, but it's not about a black kid from the inner city fighting heroin abuse named Harry Potter. That's about the amount of similarities in Runner and Electric Sheep.

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