What did you think of A.I. (2001)

It's one of those movies that I kind of like, kind of not, and could go either way on every time I see it.

SPOILER


I really liked most of it up until the ending, where the mechas bring David's Mom back to life for one day, and the narrator says that David had the happiest day of his life. It feels like Spielberg was going for an ending that he thought was more of a happy note, than it actually was. One day, doesn't really make a difference really.

I think it would have been a better ending, if the Mom lived there permanently with him and the Mom new she was reborn in the future, and accepted it and lived with David for the rest of her life... Or if the mechas instead of bringing the Mom back, they reprogrammed David not to love anymore and be happy without her.

One of those endings would have been better maybe and the whole bringing her back for one day, just feels like a possibly random and tacked on ending, which was such a shame cause I really like the rest of the movie until then. What do you think?

The way it ends in the movie is the best, most-complex and least-happy ending.

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Perhaps, but it wasn't very satisfying in the way, that I feel they could have pushed for more.

You are assuming that Spielberg was trying to go for a straightforward happy ending and failed, whereas Mark and I would contend that he deliberately and successfully executed a bittersweet/downer ending. The question then becomes how those alternate endings you suggest would actually suit the film any better than the one it did get. The mum-and-David-living-happily-ever-after would come across as an extremely contrived happy ending, whereas the one where David gets reprogrammed into forgetting his quest sounds...kind of horrifying, actually.

This thread about the ending has some more detailed responses, if you want to check it out.

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I remember the movie as very provocative and interesting. I was moved by parts of it, and there were parts I would have done differently. As a whole, I gave the producers and director a lot of credit for taking on a movie so expansive in scope and fraught with so many heavy philosophical choices to make in writing the script.

I fully agree. There were times where some parts of the movie seemed to be overall unimportant. The ending was superb though.

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yeah I find it a perfect ending [and very emotional too]

@ironpony

I think A.I. is bloated. Spielberg doesn't know when to stop the movie. It starts out promising and gets even more interesting with the introduction of Jude Law's character, but then it goes on and on and on.

Spoiler about the end.....A.I. should have ended with David at the bottom of the ocean, stuck there for eternity. Not all movies need a happy ending.

I remember it being incredibly boring and not worth 150 minutes. I didn't like the idea, either. It's just bland.

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I think it's Spielberg's most underrated, though it's technically a Kubrick movie (seriously it's all Stanley, including the Robin Williams cameo which he recorded for SK).

It's also punishing as hell. I've never understood why people called it out for having a Spielberg happy ending.

2 and a bit hours of my life I'll never get back. It was beautiful, well filmed, and a complete snooze-fest.

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Not a very good film, but Spielberg made the film for his friend Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick had his vision and was set to direct it with Spielberg as producer. But Stanley died before the film could go into production. Spielberg made it to the best of his ability to try and reflect Kubrick's vision. A vision that includes the ending KUBRICK wanted. Sometimes it works, other times it did not. But I can't bring myself to condemn it.

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AI was great.

#straightrealshit.com

Well I thought that by having the mother be with David forever, the mother would have to accept the fact that she is now way in the future and no human civilization is left, which I thought would be a more downer ending, compared to her living for one day, and then never find out the truth.

I also thought that if David were reprogrammed not to care, it would be horrifying, but that's what would make it a good horrifying dramatic ending, and I think it would have a lot to say, theme wise, about the story.

Not all movies need happy endings, but they all need good endings and I already went into detail in that other thread over why ending A.I. that way would quite simply be a bad ending regardless of whether or not it was "happy".

This strikes me as some sort of karmic punishment for how the real mother treated David, which begs the question as to whether or not the real mother deserved to be "punished" in any way for her actions, to say nothing of a brand-new clone who can't exactly be held responsible for the original's actions. It doesn't seem right for David to "win" if it comes at the expense of the clone - at least if she dies peacefully after a day (along with David, who was going to sleep/die at the end of the day anyway) then it's all resolved in a simple (if bittersweet) motion. The other way just comes across as the perpetuation of a cycle of abuse, with David essentially condemning a person to a miserable situation for the rest of her life because he honestly doesn't (and possibly can't) know any better. What are the odds of him even realising that what he's done is wrong? More importantly, would the future robots have allowed him to go through with it? Like I said to Citizen Rules, just because an ending is more of an obvious downer doesn't necessarily mean it would be a good ending.

I think you're going to have to elaborate on how it would fit with the thematics of the rest of the story because otherwise it comes off as the same kind of bleakly empty anti-climax that Citizen Rules suggested above.

Well for the ending where David's mother finds out she is in a future world with no humans left, I don't mean to imply that David would be the one who is intentionally punishing her by bringing her back. It's not David's intention to punish her, but to create a happy re-living for both of them, but as a result of fate, she would be sort of being punished for how she treated David, but as a result of fate, not David's intentions. That's sort of what I was getting at.

To elaborate on the second ending idea, since David has a problem he cannot fulfill, which is getting a family to love him back, the logical solution to that problem would be for him to get programmed not to love anymore. The theme would be asking the audience what's better. Having a hole in your heart that cannot be filled, and you feel empty the rest of your life, or choosing to have the heart removed, so where you would have no feeling, but no emptiness either.

I suck at explaining the theme, but basically him being reprogrammed gives he a haunting emotional feeling that makes me think about what love is, that I wouldn't get otherwise, with a different ending. Does that make sense?

As a Kubrick movie, it's great. As a Speilberg movie... not so much.

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I think it's a fantastic film with a highly tragic and underrated ending that too often gets denounced as glossy and sentimental. I would love to see this version of sci-fi Spielberg back.

I came to post near identical thoughts. Glad I'm not alone! I felt the ending was forced, disjointed, and negated the emotional punch of David's naive hope sitting there... forever. Because it would have been forever.

I'll have to read the link from above re: the ending, now.

Incoming wall of text.
(fair warning!)

OK. I just read Iroquois' comment in his linked reply earlier. Thanks for the reference. Forgive me in any of my misunderstandings with the plot as it has been many years since I've seen this movie. Perhaps I should watch it again before replying, but damnit I'm at work and I need to burn a few minutes on a forum. So....

I assume by the topic that everyone reading here has already seen the movie, so I will not bother with spoiler tags. With that said though...

***SPOILERS? ...just in case!***

Setting aside all the details now for the sake of the argument, I will reply first to Saunch's question on the ending being "happy" in spite of what happens to the character. For me, that is a very literal closure of David's story. Sad and bittersweet, of course, but it is finality and a very clear and clean ending to his story. Aliens; A.I; Jack-O-latterns; it does not really matter to me what the narrative vehicle used is, the point is that he gets there (to the end of his journey, that is). Through all of the subtly of detail, it is still in the end very obvious closure. As a result, it just felt forced to me.

Now, back to Iroquois:
To the idea of ending things at the bottom of the ocean, I remember feeling sad but still inspired in his character at that moment. This would have been (for me, at least) a wonderful Pinocchio story where the machine boy becomes human simply through the act of devotion and of eternal hope---eternal, quite literally. In that context, he has faith. He has love. He has hope. He has purpose. And that leaves the audience (perhaps just me!) with the awareness that each day this boy must maintain his faith in order to continue. Which is what we all must do in our own lives. I mean to believe in something that gives us purpose to go on. I'm not talking religion, but more like... family. Enduring the abusive job to provide for the loved ones. To hope that tomorrow may be better, or that there is reason even though you know that tomorrow will most likely be the exact same thing. For me at least, his unending hope was inspirational and forced me to reflect on my own faiths as a comparison. His act of faith and hope then transcends simple A.I.

The struggle to endure is life.

Continuing the story past that point completely negated that inspiration for me while the story simply handed him closure. Is it sad, the choice he makes to have his mother with him? Of course! But choosing what he did, to me, was terribly selfish and started to erase away all the humanity that I had projected onto him by this point. Now, his character's motivation was reduced back to simple one-task A.I. automation: "10 GET MOM; 20 GOTO 10," (<---old C64 BASIC, there for awesomeness!! Seriously. How often does one get to make such a reference?!) There was nothing to carry with me at that point when leaving the theater and, as a sad result, the movie overall became a bit forgettable.

I am clearly projecting. As I said, this is all my take on the movie and how it affected me personally. There was something very powerful there under the ocean. I do not think that I could have held such faith. In that confession, perhaps his heart, love, faith, and devotion are better than mine? Is he then a better person than me? Note: I am not comparing mechanics or software A.I. at this point in the story. I am instead reflecting on my own humanity! Am I worthy, compared to this boy's struggle and faith? That the story could encourage me to even consider questioning all of this was brilliant!

And I loved it.
...and I felt inspired.
.........and I continued my reflection.

*beat*

...flyover by close encounters' future A.I. that look confusingly like aliens, handing off gifts of time and space manipulation? Meh.

I consider that an emotional and storytelling fail, at least in context of what the movie was up to that point. Then again, I could just be mixing some of this up with an old episode of Mork and Mindy. It's been a while. =\


YMMV <---- that's not a spoiler. just something to lighten the weight.
0=)