[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

"My God. It's full of stars" ( was: re: A.I.)


--- "Peter T. Chattaway" <petert at interchange_ubc.ca> wrote:
> Oh, but what drastically different destinies.  In one, the
> aliens come down from the heavens and bring a sort of 
> enlightenment or salvation to us -- in the other, the 
> machines pick over the bones of their creators, stranded 
> for all time just as David was abandoned in the woods.
> 
I think that is a key thematic difference between Spielberg
and Kubrick, one that makes the creative pairing of the two
in this film especially interesting. The closest they've
come to meeting each other philosophically in the past is
Kubrick's "2001", from which Spielberg has borrowed
liberally, especially in "Close Encounters". Otherwise,
Kubrick's vision of mankind is much bleaker, much more prone
to showcase mankind's proclivity for self-destruction. And
in that context, "2001" may not necessarily be a vision of
the future, so much as a fantasy for getting the heck out of
the madness.

I would have no problem buying that the movie was totally a
Kubrick vehicle if it had ended with David trapped on the
ocean floor. Or even if the bits with the 41st century
robots were still there, but David's day with his mother was
less than he had hoped for. As it is, the ending of the
movie is quintessentially Spielberg in the same way that
"Hook" is quintessentially Spielberg. Jude Law is a hottie,
though, even if he is a bad dancer. And did Robin Williams'
cameo smack to anyone else too much of "The Last
Starfighter"?

Still, it seemed David's ultimate flaw was his inability to
grow. He was designed to be the child for people who had no
children. But he would never grow up. he would never mature
or function or learn at an adult level. He was an
experiement in trying to quantify the infinite, or at least
the unmeasurable, which is a child's capacity for love. The
pleasure robot from the first scene (intended nudity in the
first five minutes: a kubrick trademark) showed how human
physiological and behavioral responses had been quantified
to allow "Mecha's" to mimic human behavior, but David's
programming, while hinting at the possibility that he could
or that he was capable of moving beyond his original design,
he ultimately lacked that truly human spark to adapt, to
learn, to evolve. 2,000 years later, he was still a ten year
old boy.

Which brings me to another question.... do the robots at the
end of the film read our computer user manuals and stereo
instructions with the same gravity we read the Bible?

=====
Bradley S. Caviness, Bigwig
Bigwig Enterprises

http://www.bigwigenterprises.com

"We're all writing everyday with our lives, whether or not we ever pick up a pen." – Linford Detweiler, Over the Rhine

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/MediaNation/OtR/
Follow-Ups: References: