A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
09-29-04, 03:06 PM
#101
Suspended
Originally posted by DigIt
You state that soap operas are "object lessons in how to manipulate other people's feelings to one's own devious ends." So, for a soap opera it's "devious," but for Spielberg it's a brave choice that flies in the face of "brainwashed society." Why the double standard?
You state that soap operas are "object lessons in how to manipulate other people's feelings to one's own devious ends." So, for a soap opera it's "devious," but for Spielberg it's a brave choice that flies in the face of "brainwashed society." Why the double standard?
09-29-04, 07:40 PM
#102
Banned by request
Originally posted by das Monkey
I'm one of those people. While I didn't really like the ending that much, it wasn't about the ending; and I'm one of those people who laughed when I heard others thought the Mechas were aliens, because it didn't even cross my mind. I've written so much about this movie in the past that I'm not going to rehash it all here, but one of my main problems with it is that it's so clearly the work of two minds, two minds that IMO don't belong together. So many times we'd start down the path of something intriguing and then get smacked over the head with sentamentality. It was a very frustrating experience, and the whole thing just felt insincere. The absolute worst thing I can say about a film like this is that it was neither challenging nor thought-provoking. For many films, that's fine; for this one, however, it was devastating. I should clarify that this film is certainly not devoid of thought, because artificial intelligence as a concept is inherently thought-provoking; the film, however, added nothing to this IMO and in some cases detracted.
I fully accept that my opinion may be skewed by my expectations. I wanted something that would really make me think, and this just wasn't that kind of movie. It tried to act like that movie, but that's not what it was. I also accept that I'm a very tough critic when it comes to science fiction, particularly when Spielberg is involved. In recent years, I've found myself wondering if Spielberg doesn't understand the complexities of his topics or if he thinks the audience won't understand them, so he dumbs it down for us. Either way, I find myself not liking his work in the genre as much as others. I don't like to be treated like an idiot, and I feel he's doing this in films like A.I. and Minority Report. The guy is so amazingly talented in so many ways, and I can easily understand why so many people love these films, but they just rub me the wrong way.
I don't know what Kubrick would have done, and I think it's silly to assert that it would have been "exactly the same" or "completely opposite" or whatever as justification for an opinion. I do know, however, that it would have been different. How much so I do not know, but I suspect even if in subtle ways, his film would have left me thinking about it when I exited the theater. That's neither here nor there, though, as we'll never really know that reality. What I do know is that this film suffers greatly from that confusion. Kubrick's mark is all over this film, and you can see the points where Spielberg grabs it and drags it somewhere else. I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that they are too different from one another, and the end result just doesn't work. The final product is a work that is confused about what it wants to be and is trying to accomplish.
As a site note, I thought this film had some of the best acting of the year. While I didn't like it, I was blown away by the performances.
It's really tragic that Kubrick never got to finish this film. I have no idea what it would have become, but I would have liked to have the chance to see it anyway.
das
I'm one of those people. While I didn't really like the ending that much, it wasn't about the ending; and I'm one of those people who laughed when I heard others thought the Mechas were aliens, because it didn't even cross my mind. I've written so much about this movie in the past that I'm not going to rehash it all here, but one of my main problems with it is that it's so clearly the work of two minds, two minds that IMO don't belong together. So many times we'd start down the path of something intriguing and then get smacked over the head with sentamentality. It was a very frustrating experience, and the whole thing just felt insincere. The absolute worst thing I can say about a film like this is that it was neither challenging nor thought-provoking. For many films, that's fine; for this one, however, it was devastating. I should clarify that this film is certainly not devoid of thought, because artificial intelligence as a concept is inherently thought-provoking; the film, however, added nothing to this IMO and in some cases detracted.
I fully accept that my opinion may be skewed by my expectations. I wanted something that would really make me think, and this just wasn't that kind of movie. It tried to act like that movie, but that's not what it was. I also accept that I'm a very tough critic when it comes to science fiction, particularly when Spielberg is involved. In recent years, I've found myself wondering if Spielberg doesn't understand the complexities of his topics or if he thinks the audience won't understand them, so he dumbs it down for us. Either way, I find myself not liking his work in the genre as much as others. I don't like to be treated like an idiot, and I feel he's doing this in films like A.I. and Minority Report. The guy is so amazingly talented in so many ways, and I can easily understand why so many people love these films, but they just rub me the wrong way.
I don't know what Kubrick would have done, and I think it's silly to assert that it would have been "exactly the same" or "completely opposite" or whatever as justification for an opinion. I do know, however, that it would have been different. How much so I do not know, but I suspect even if in subtle ways, his film would have left me thinking about it when I exited the theater. That's neither here nor there, though, as we'll never really know that reality. What I do know is that this film suffers greatly from that confusion. Kubrick's mark is all over this film, and you can see the points where Spielberg grabs it and drags it somewhere else. I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that they are too different from one another, and the end result just doesn't work. The final product is a work that is confused about what it wants to be and is trying to accomplish.
As a site note, I thought this film had some of the best acting of the year. While I didn't like it, I was blown away by the performances.
It's really tragic that Kubrick never got to finish this film. I have no idea what it would have become, but I would have liked to have the chance to see it anyway.
das
03-15-10, 11:29 PM
#103
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
anyone here own this book?
http://www.amazon.com/I-Artificial-I.../dp/0500514895
http://parkablogs.com/content/book-r...on-behind-film
comments?
http://www.amazon.com/I-Artificial-I.../dp/0500514895
http://parkablogs.com/content/book-r...on-behind-film
comments?
Last edited by musick; 03-15-10 at 11:38 PM.
03-16-10, 01:53 PM
#107
DVD Talk Hero
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
Something Kubrick-oriented, sexually suggestive? Wat? NVR!
03-16-10, 02:16 PM
#108
03-17-10, 12:07 AM
#110
DVD Talk Hero
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
We need AI on Blu-ray, like right now.
Not my favorite movie by any stretch, but this will be stunning on Blu.
Not my favorite movie by any stretch, but this will be stunning on Blu.
03-17-10, 04:25 AM
#111
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Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
The book looks interesting. And yes, to answer the OP from years ago, the film has been VASTLY underrated and misunderstood. Dummies still have the misconception that the ending was aliens and originated with Spielberg.
I am an enormous Kubrick fan who is thrilled with Spielberg's achievement in adopting this project. It is a great collaboration of two of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
I am an enormous Kubrick fan who is thrilled with Spielberg's achievement in adopting this project. It is a great collaboration of two of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
03-17-10, 04:54 AM
#112
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Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
03-18-10, 04:37 PM
#113
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Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
Jokes on you pal.
Being that it's a film developed by arguably the greatest director of the 20th century and produced by one of the most important commercial directors of a generation, it will be looked at, examined, reevaluated, and remembered for the remainder of your lifetime (and beyond). It's a film vastly bigger than your opinion of it. It's pedigree alone insures it will have a long lifespan.
Also, many equally dismissive, naive people used to laugh at the idea of The Shining being long remembered. They eat crow today.
Being that it's a film developed by arguably the greatest director of the 20th century and produced by one of the most important commercial directors of a generation, it will be looked at, examined, reevaluated, and remembered for the remainder of your lifetime (and beyond). It's a film vastly bigger than your opinion of it. It's pedigree alone insures it will have a long lifespan.
Also, many equally dismissive, naive people used to laugh at the idea of The Shining being long remembered. They eat crow today.
03-18-10, 04:42 PM
#114
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Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
I just think it's too much with people recognizing the Spielberg name and what THAT means to them to only see that this isn't the Spielberg they usually see. THerefore...less love among the common film goer.
03-18-10, 05:55 PM
#115
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt at the time, and let it sit in my head for a while before I made any definitive as to how I felt about it. Just about everyone I saw it with hated it immediately.
I read some of the discussion in the years since, and I think I've finally come to the conclusion that it just isn't there for me.
It doesn't matter that they aren't aliens at the end- I just don't feel it having any thematic significance to what's come before. Had David been frozen in time in a perpetual state of hope and expectancy- that would seem to me to have been a more significant (if obvious) statement on artificial intelligence having evolved to an even more human dimension.
How are the actions of the AI creatures at the end related thematically to David's journey in the rest of the film?
I read some of the discussion in the years since, and I think I've finally come to the conclusion that it just isn't there for me.
It doesn't matter that they aren't aliens at the end- I just don't feel it having any thematic significance to what's come before. Had David been frozen in time in a perpetual state of hope and expectancy- that would seem to me to have been a more significant (if obvious) statement on artificial intelligence having evolved to an even more human dimension.
How are the actions of the AI creatures at the end related thematically to David's journey in the rest of the film?
03-18-10, 07:40 PM
#116
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Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
I've always considered 'AI' to be the Genesis story of AI's being told to us by the narrator. We're not seeing it all as it unfolds, instead that last part of the movie is just the part of the tale when the future AIs discover David. With humans long gone, they're able to take a glimpse, via David, of their creators.
03-18-10, 10:04 PM
#117
DVD Talk Hero
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
For the mecha's, David was the ultimate time capsule find for them, and their link to their human-inspired origins.
03-19-10, 03:34 AM
#118
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
I don't see how that end serves the rest of the film.
It's a little like in War of The Worlds where we find whats-his-face at the end safe and sound. Why is that necessary to the story? In the case of WotW it isn't, and it strikes a very false note to a lot of people (myself included, when I otherwise liked the film).
Here I didn't find it false (although a bit confusing which is almost as bad) but it did strike me as a flabby accessory or maybe more specifically, an awkward, and unhelpful tangent.
It's almost like bad fan fiction to me in that it feels it has to spell out explicitly "what happens next is..." when the story already had seemed to reach a satisfying thematic conclusion.
03-19-10, 05:56 AM
#119
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
Jokes on you pal.
Being that it's a film developed by arguably the greatest director of the 20th century and produced by one of the most important commercial directors of a generation, it will be looked at, examined, reevaluated, and remembered for the remainder of your lifetime (and beyond). It's a film vastly bigger than your opinion of it. It's pedigree alone insures it will have a long lifespan.
Also, many equally dismissive, naive people used to laugh at the idea of The Shining being long remembered. They eat crow today.
Being that it's a film developed by arguably the greatest director of the 20th century and produced by one of the most important commercial directors of a generation, it will be looked at, examined, reevaluated, and remembered for the remainder of your lifetime (and beyond). It's a film vastly bigger than your opinion of it. It's pedigree alone insures it will have a long lifespan.
Also, many equally dismissive, naive people used to laugh at the idea of The Shining being long remembered. They eat crow today.
Last edited by d2cheer; 03-19-10 at 08:39 AM.
03-19-10, 09:38 AM
#120
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
The Stanley Hotel in Colorado is not the one where they filmed the movie.
Anyway, A.I. is a fabulous film.
Anyway, A.I. is a fabulous film.
03-19-10, 10:02 AM
#121
DVD Talk Legend
Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
A.I. was garbage.
This film seemingly had EVERYTHING going for it. Decent casting, the hype of Kubrick's death, Speilberg's involvement... why was it overlooked? because it sucked.
It was basically Bicentennial Man without the fantastic comedic timing of Robin Williams.*
* that part, of course was a joke.
This film seemingly had EVERYTHING going for it. Decent casting, the hype of Kubrick's death, Speilberg's involvement... why was it overlooked? because it sucked.
It was basically Bicentennial Man without the fantastic comedic timing of Robin Williams.*
* that part, of course was a joke.
03-19-10, 10:13 AM
#123
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Re: A.I. a great movie that was overlooked and shunned by the public?
I think one thing that really makes me like the film is actually the character of Teddy, the Teddy Bear. Something about that bear just...makes me really love the film. He's there to protect David, to guide him (though David in his hope for humanity doesn't hear him in a lot of situations), and whatnot. Great use of animatronics and CGI there.