Re: My AI Review - spoilers further down...

From: Anne Marie Tobias (atobias@interwoven.com)
Date: Tue Jul 03 2001 - 00:45:46 MDT


Samantha Atkins wrote:

> The short version. I can see why many mech-heads and AI
> affectionados would generally hate this movie as well as why
> some would love it. The film is a real tear jerker dressed up
> as sci-fi and making a swipe at some real issues. The lead
> character is truly fabulous..
>
> I will give the movie overall a "B-" as it at least is a really
> good tear-jerker and does provoke some thought.
>
> - samantha

I loved this movie in some ways, and hated it in others. It was
too important to grade... one doesn't grade world wars or acts
of human movement like the renaissance. Instead you look at
the thread of which it is composed and try to extract shades of
meaning, and strangely in the end, you find that maybe what you
see are shades of yourself.

What Samantha says is valid, in this orga-mecha world the poor
mecha are anything from sex surrogates to cannon fodder, with
no true sense of self outside of purpose (of course I've met more
than a couple of these folks on the protein substrate as well, but
I'll try not to go down that metaphoric tunnel.)

The movie truly points to our humanity, our brilliance, our deep
goodness, as well it points to our ugliness, our pety, stingy, sad,
sordid, angry, ugliness. In this aspect the movie is a mirror and
painfully a pretty fair one. Humanity doesn't get off lightly in this
film, and sadly it doesn't deserve to. The brightest thread in the
movie is our decendants... the children of our thought children.
Sadly they never knew us directly, we were too foolish, but oh
what fine creatures they are. The best of our aspirations, alive
and well. If David was the poor Pinnochio, then he got his wish,
for he was elevated to the level of humanity. Given his fondest
wish, and the chance to be at the center of a loving, cherishing
universe if only for a day. I would say that maybe if anything sings
in this movie, that is worth carrying away... it is that the puppets
must ultimately transcend the puppet master. It is the aspiration of
the human spirit, whether or not humans ultimately carry that torch.

Marie



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