A Very Misunderstood Movie - A.I.
Every once in a while, a film comes along that transcends the art and rises above the people who made it. When a painting becomes more than strokes on a canvas, or when a novel becomes more than letters on a page, or when a film becomes more than light on a screen, a kind of magic occurs.
Ideas that cannot be expressed with color on a canvas, or words on a page, sometimes can be expressed through the power of cinema - a creation that requires all of the arts to happen: writing, design, photography, music, acting, editing, lighting... and more. When I am watching a film and realize that it is working on several levels while keeping me entertained and surprising me with unexpected delights, I am a happy soul.
Movies are great if they are simply diversions, or something to get your mind off work or problems - that's all fine, but I like it best when a movie posits ideas as well as entertains. For example, Blade Runner brings up questions of morality and mortality while immersing you in a plausible dark world of tomorrow.
A.I. is like that - in fact I think of it as an indirect 'side-quel' of Blade Runner, a world of robotic people so real you can't tell them from the real thing. A world where robots are now parts of everyone's life and environment.
What responsibility do we have when we create robots (called Mechas in the story) with self-aware artificial intelligence? How can we just throw away something we've created that is part of our lives and knows it is part of this world? When the engineers in the story create a robot-child that can love, the question cuts even more deep.
I am a believer in self-aware animal intelligence, and the idea of self-aware Mechas brings up ethical dilemmas that are difficult to face. This film, mostly developed by Stanley Kubrick for over ten years before he died in 1999, works great on a story level, the idea level, and also on the level of a rollicking adventure.
I've heard a lot of complaints about how the movie seemed silly or was too long, or got 'Spielberg-ized' by director Steven Spielberg who was gifted the project by Kubrick. I disagree.
Although I would have liked to see what Kubrick himself would have done, given the chance to make A.I.! This is a superb movie that is unpredictable and will take you to many places, both in its narrative and in its thematic material, some of which are places which you may be reluctant to follow.
SPOILER ALERT: When I first saw this movie, and I was already astounded at what it had accomplished, and it got to the part where it slowly fades out and the narrator says, "and in this way, 2000 years passed" and I realized where the film makers were about to go, my jaw dropped open and I thought "oh my god, this is so cool!" I recalled that feeling that I get on those very rare occasions when cinema becomes more than a movie, it becomes art; Often misunderstood, sometimes incomprehensible, but always astounding and capable of creating awe. -Article by XIM
-Revised April 2012
Ideas that cannot be expressed with color on a canvas, or words on a page, sometimes can be expressed through the power of cinema - a creation that requires all of the arts to happen: writing, design, photography, music, acting, editing, lighting... and more. When I am watching a film and realize that it is working on several levels while keeping me entertained and surprising me with unexpected delights, I am a happy soul.
Movies are great if they are simply diversions, or something to get your mind off work or problems - that's all fine, but I like it best when a movie posits ideas as well as entertains. For example, Blade Runner brings up questions of morality and mortality while immersing you in a plausible dark world of tomorrow.
A.I. is like that - in fact I think of it as an indirect 'side-quel' of Blade Runner, a world of robotic people so real you can't tell them from the real thing. A world where robots are now parts of everyone's life and environment.
What responsibility do we have when we create robots (called Mechas in the story) with self-aware artificial intelligence? How can we just throw away something we've created that is part of our lives and knows it is part of this world? When the engineers in the story create a robot-child that can love, the question cuts even more deep.
I am a believer in self-aware animal intelligence, and the idea of self-aware Mechas brings up ethical dilemmas that are difficult to face. This film, mostly developed by Stanley Kubrick for over ten years before he died in 1999, works great on a story level, the idea level, and also on the level of a rollicking adventure.
I've heard a lot of complaints about how the movie seemed silly or was too long, or got 'Spielberg-ized' by director Steven Spielberg who was gifted the project by Kubrick. I disagree.
Although I would have liked to see what Kubrick himself would have done, given the chance to make A.I.! This is a superb movie that is unpredictable and will take you to many places, both in its narrative and in its thematic material, some of which are places which you may be reluctant to follow.
SPOILER ALERT: When I first saw this movie, and I was already astounded at what it had accomplished, and it got to the part where it slowly fades out and the narrator says, "and in this way, 2000 years passed" and I realized where the film makers were about to go, my jaw dropped open and I thought "oh my god, this is so cool!" I recalled that feeling that I get on those very rare occasions when cinema becomes more than a movie, it becomes art; Often misunderstood, sometimes incomprehensible, but always astounding and capable of creating awe. -Article by XIM
-Revised April 2012