Spielberg's 'A.I.: Artificial Intelligence' discussion

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spoilers, obviously. but if you have yet to see it since it's release back in 2001, put it at the top of your damn list. also this turned out longer than I thought, so apologies.


Firstly, a quick story. I was 11 when this film came out, and I still remember the hype and discussion surrounding it. The mysterious trailers that gave very little away only added to the intrigue. Plus there was the fact that this was intended to be Stanley Kubrick's next project before his untimely death. My first viewing is still a vivid one. It was my first time staying at my grandpa's (rip), three hours away from my hometown. I was prone to home sickness back then so it was a trip I was both looking forward to and scared of. I'd constantly worry about my mother's safety in particular, I'm definitely a mama's boy. It was the first night at my grandpa's place and he asked what I wanted to do, being that this trip coincided with the opening weekend of the film, I asked if he would take me to see it, so we went.

He fell asleep before the first scene was even over, and with no other person in the theater with me, it turned into some unexpected private viewing. Just me and this enormous screen about to show a film that I had no idea what to expect, other than that it was a story about a robot boy who wants to be real and it was a film by Steven Spielberg (save for The Shining and Dr. Strangelove, I had yet to really get into Kubrick or know much about him and his style up to that point, or how much involvement he really had in the production).


I was absolutely blown away and floored by the film. As a wide-eyed, 11 year old, whose imagination was at times overwhelming, AI completely immersed me into this futuristic world, took me on a wild ride of visual and aural wonder. For the entire run-time I was just totally enraptured by its spell. Of course, looking back, this was a horrible choice to pick on that trip because man did I sob when it ended. The thought of my mother abandoning me was a huge fear of mine during childhood (even though she would never even joke about doing something like that to my sister and I), and the sequence when Monica leaves David in the forest was like my ultimate nightmare playing out, nearly throwing me into a depressed panic. I just wanted to run back home and hug my mother, but on the other hand I felt a sort of high after having had experienced such a masterful film, and felt satisfied that it was able to elicit such strong emotions. As the credits rolled, I stared at the screen in silence, grandpa still asleep, as John Williams haunting score fueled the speakers (and kept me quiet). Needless to say, I wasn't able to sleep that night.

Since its release A.I. has polarized cinephiles. With some finding the combination of Kubrick's chilly, sometimes bleak, atmosphere and the optimistic warmth of Steven Spielberg at battle with one another, making the film a bit of a mess. An ambitious failure. While many fans, like me, see it as a misunderstood and overlooked masterpiece. As emotionally devastating and aesthetically breathtaking as any film Spielberg has done. As far as his work as a director (and writer) this is next level, his craft is in absolute control here and he constantly rewards the audience with one gorgeously crafted set-piece after another. The Rouge City segment in particular is a feast for the senses, and definitely proves that Kubrick's spirit is very much alive in the film.



It's biggest criticism is with the ending, however. Many wrongly believed this was tacked on by Spielberg even though it follows what Kubrick originally intended (whether he would have ended up changing it is anyone guess). However, I don't see the problem here. Had the film ended with David trapped in the copter pleading to the blue fairy, the film would definitely had taken a risk, but I don't feel it would be as satisfying as the one we get. Also, people seem to miss the point of how bleak the ending actually is. Yes we get the sequence with him reuniting with Monica and their perfect day together, but the implications are pretty downbeat and not really all that uplifting. Had Spielberg changed the ending to David truly becoming a real boy and able to live with Monica happily ever after-- that would have been an awful move. But here we have a robot with the mind and innocence of a child, programmed to love who ever imprints upon him fiercely and endlessly. What is he left with after his one perfect day? Does he still remember monica? Is his memory of her erased? Does he finally find some semblance of humanity and the human spirit that transcends his robotic origins and in a sense dies along with her? Is he unceremoniously deactivated? Is the damn robot happy? Please?!

To me, like the rest of the film, the ending is perfection, but deeply tragic and even a little depressing. It ends David's arc on a satisfying note that is neither sugary sweet or a cliche fairy tale conclusion. It's also so deeply touching that I have to choke back tears with every rewatch .

So what's the verdict here? For me, A.I. deserves to be standing alongside the very best of Spielberg classics. It's a daring and original vision, it's not afraid to go to some very dark places, and at times feels like a cruel joke. This could also be credited to Haley Joel Osment in his best performance, he's a real heart breaker, but never hits a false note. By the end you just want him to be happy.


If you stuck with this entire post I applaud you. But rewatching this recently just reinvigorated my endless love and fascination with it. Thankfully some critics who initially hated it have started to come forward and express a change of opinion, Mark Kurmode even apologized to Steven for his harsh review upon first release. Hopefully it will get the classic status it so deserves sooner rather than later.
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I really like a lot of the but was disappointed in other parts. I feel it's one of those movies that I want to like, but can't quite maybe.

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. Or something different than the end that they had perhaps.



I really like a lot of the but was disappointed in other parts. I feel it's one of those movies that I want to like, but can't quite maybe.

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. Or something different than the end that they had perhaps.
While I certainly would have been happy for David had it gone with your ending (where she lives with him for the rest of his life) I think the film would have felt cheated and I wouldn't have liked it much. While deprogramming David would just seem so abrupt and devalue everything leading up to it. I liked the bitter sweet ambiguity of the final scene, it had the same tone as those dreams you wake up from with a feeling of longing and a little bit of sadness.



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I don't think it would have devalued everything leading up to it. The problem of the story is how is David going to deal with not having a parent who will love, and the way to remove that problem is to reprogram him not to love, thus taking away his sadness. It gives the audience a harsh thing to think about, but in a good way, in my opinion.



It's a
movie for me. Spielberg does Kubrick better than himself. I think in a movie with a story like this, Spielberg's sentimentality fits right in whereas Kubrick is just too cold and distant. I don't think I would've liked a Kubrick-directed AI.



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I think this is the fourth thread about the ending of A.I., including this one by ironpony themselves (which includes links to older threads on the subject).
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I posted this a couple of weeks ago and I think it conveys my perspective quite well -

Unfortunately since its initial release, A.I. has been plagued with discussions about which filmmaker, Kubrick or Spielberg, was responsible for which elements of the story, with critics and audiences alike refusing to accept that A.I. cannot be trivially classified as a Steven Spielberg film or a Stanley Kubrick film - an indication of how unhealthy we're all subconsciously tied to the auteur theory.

As you've already pointed out, A.I., for the most part, operates at an extremely ambivalent tone - a result of Kubrick's chilly bleakness squaring off against Spielberg's warm-hearted optimism. It deliberately keeps its humanity at a distance so that audiences will try to define it. The ending to A.I. is, in my opinion. the single greatest piece of filmmaking of Mr. Spielberg's career.

The problem with the ending is that people always seem to believe the supermecha's story about creating Monica for a single day. As you've shrewdly noticed, the Monica they create is nothing like the one we saw from before; she's a fake designed solely to unconditionally love David, just as David was once created to unconditionally love Monica. But in this moment, both David & the audience assumed that their love was "real", which is why everyone complained about this being a happy ending.

Is this our understanding of love? Programmed obsession? In fact the ending is visibly ironic. Interestingly, Spielberg directs the entire sequence as a freudian wet dream of a boy expressing his romantic yearnings towards his mother. We see David make Monica some coffee, we see them play hide and seek together, we see Monica give David a haircut (If you recall in the 1st Act, it's David who cuts Monica's hair), we see David tuck Monica in bed (and not the other way around), we see them celebrate David's birthday (as opposed to Martin's) and here we see Monica looking at David's paintings whereas in the 1st act, it's David who's observing Monica's family photos. All the events are repeated, except now the roles have interchanged. David is the one who's desires are being fulfilled. He's playing the role of the human this time. The supermeccha's are doing precisely what Prof. Hobby was doing before, but in a subtler form. They give David what he wants while they observe him to see what happens. He's the last connection with humans, they study him.

Fake Monica tells David she loves him, he cries, then contentedly crawls into bed next to her dead body and dies next to his lover's corpse. Now that in itself is a tragic ending but it gets darker the more you think about it. Jonathan Rosenbaum nailed it in his review, saying the ending sparks a feeling "too terrible to name". Love is an illusion. Human's are as biologically programmed to love as David is. It's a byproduct of our evolution and importantly it's an utterly solitary fixation. David doesn't even realise that his mother has been replaced. None of what happens at the end is "real", the Monica is just an empty vessel, a product of David's imagination, but David believes it, and is happy to "go to that place where dreams are born". Spielberg and Kubrick are indicating how self-delusion can result in wish fulfilment.

Everyone complaining that David naively took the Pinocchio story too literally has completely missed the allegory Spielberg has presented here. David's quest to find the Blue Fairy is symbolic of man's eternal search for the god he created with the Pinocchio fable being his Bible (or Koran or whatever religious text you believe in). In a moment of sheer beauty at the bottom of the ocean, we see the blue fairy's face dissolve into David's suggesting that she exists within him. A.I. is filled with religious symbolism ( including its circular narrative , inspired by the biblical parable about the story of Eden ). The ending (when David finally encounters the Blue Fairy) is Spielberg's version of heaven, when man finally encounters god, face-to-face. Only difference is it's a complete illusion here, a Freudian wet dream, with all sorts of extremely creepy sexual undertones which can only be attributed to Kubrick, given he's explored similar themes in the Shining.


When fake Monica dies, A.I. addresses what modern philosophers (such as Camus) would label as the only important question in life: the genesis and exodus of humanity itself: suicide. To be or not to be? David self-terminates and accepts death because he understands that he no longer has a purpose in the world - something the supermeccha's have yet to accept. Now is when you can call him "real", a mortal. Recognising death is what makes us alive. As Heidegger pointed out, this results in a hugely important and seemingly paradoxical thought: freedom is not the absence of necessity, in the form of death. On the contrary, freedom consists in the affirmation of the necessity of one's mortality. It is only in being-towards-death that one can become the person who one truly is. Concealed in the idea of death as the possibility of impossibility is the acceptance on one's mortal limitation as the basis for an affirmation of one's life.

In fact even Joe starts to tread down this path with his chilling final line "I am I was", a reference to Descartes' quote "I think, therefore I am". Even the heuristic Joe has taken Descartes’ logical next step in evolutionary progression, being self-aware of one's mortality. He’s participated in history and knows it. Later, when David plunges into the Sargasso, calling softly for his mother, his image becomes a reflected tear in the eye of Joe (who is, we might suddenly realise in his grief for David, a Joseph?): Spielberg gifts him with the feeling he can’t express.

Audiences took the mecha story as "truth", and so left disappointed, faulting Spielberg for putting a "happy ending" onto the film, when he did the exact opposite. He simply shot it from David's emotional p.o.v., in a sequence that is cousin to the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). But there is another level of metaphor in A.I. that few sci-fi films have dared to touch. The central question of Collodi's Pinocchio fable has always been "What does it mean to be human?" A.I. finds dark and sobering answers.

Regardless of your reservations about his past work, Spielberg makes an awful lot of other film-makers look timid and negligible by comparison and that's something that's not easy to do. "At the very end, he's reaffirming the bed room sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and in doing so he locates the unspoken moral of all fairy tales. To be real is to be mortal; to be human is to love, to dream, and to perish."