A.I. observations

[Gold Trumpet]

Again, why did you dislike the movie?

~rougerum

[Jeremy Blackman]

and made the last twenty minutes seem like a more minor detail than anything else.

Minor detail? It changed the main character, it changed the entire world, and it had to go all sci-fi/fantasy when it really didn't need to.

It would have been a perfect movie had it ended with David stuck in the ice, gazing at the statue.

... which is why I was so pissed off about it

[Gold Trumpet]

Yes, even if you believed it did change all those things, it is more of a minor detail than anything else because to really judge between a good and bad movie, each come with strengths and weaknesses in different ways from story to its skill in making the movie. So in seeing all the greatness of basically all the movie, shouldn't it be looked at as a good film overall anyways? I just feel your observation, which is what I get from most people who don't like it, ignores that the rest of the movie was done to such high levels and should, for that, still stand as something redeemable in an overall context. The story and what changes and doesn't is not really that important in looking at whole spectrum of the movie.

Actually, the only thing that made me mad about the ending was the producer saying what it meant. I thought it out to be something perfectly fitting for the rest of the movie and its ideas and very well within the Kubrick idea of anti narrative in what someone expects but doesn't get. The producer fucked it for me.

~rougerum

[xerxes]

It would have been a perfect movie had it ended with David stuck in the ice, gazing at the statue.

couldn't agree more

[bonanzataz]

i like the ending. I like the whole movie.

[snaporaz]

Wow, the Little Giants.

fuck little giants.

cool as ice?????

[tpfkabi]

i like AI. i think i would like it more ending at the blue fairy, but this ending was Kubrick's ending.

where can i find the Kubrick treatment someone had read?

oh, too, where does Spielberg actually say they are robots? i, for the longest, believed them aliens as well. how can any machine ever move that smoothly?

[MacGuffin]

oh, too, where does Spielberg actually say they are robots? i, for the longest, believed them aliens as well. how can any machine ever move that smoothly?

From what I remember, I believe it's said in the narration (someone needs to confirm since my sister has my copy). Around the scene when the Ben Kingsley robot talks to David in the bedroom.


EDIT: From Entertainment Weekly:

Burning Question

Q Were those elegant, opaque creatures at the end of A.I. intended to be aliens or advanced robots?

A Despite similarities to the extraterrestrials in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, they're androids. ''I could see where people would get mixed up,'' says F/X supervisor Dennis Muren. ''We talked to Steven about it; he said, 'It'll be okay.' ''

[Ghostboy]

I'm sure you can find the article I read about the treatment if you do a search on the subject....

I liked the idea of the ending very much, but there was waaayyy too much expository dialogue (first the alien, then the blue fairy, then the alien, etc.). It just dragged for me.

I also think the Flesh Fair sequence was really poorly done. It looked cheap and shoddy and unbelievable. I think it should have been cut, which also would have helped the pacing of the entire movie (possibly even solving that '4th act' problem that's plagued Spielberg's last few films).

EDIT: I did a quick search, and here's a resulting tidibit:

"It was the relationship between David and his mother that most occupied Kubrick and Ms. Maitland. An alcoholic whose Bloody Marys David would mix for her in a vain attempt to win her affection, the mother was the emotional center of the film.

At the story's conclusion, the robots that have inherited the Earth use David's memories to reconstruct, in virtual form, the apartment where he had lived with his parents. Because his memories are subjective, the mother is much more vividly realized than the father, and his stepsister's room is not there at all; it is just a hole in the wall.

For Ms. Maitland, the film would end with David preparing a Bloody Mary for his mother, the juice a brighter red than in real life: "He hears her voice, and that's it. We don't see him turn to see her." Kubrick, however, wanted a coda in which the new race of robots, because of a technological limitation, cannot keep the the mother alive after reviving her. The movie would end with David in his mother's bedroom, watching her slowly disappear. "

[Cecil]

kubricks original ideas sound so much better. well, you guys all know my spielberg/ kubrick theory.

[Gold Trumpet]

Kubrick had way too many ideas for this film. He ditched most of them so who knows where that one lays at. I've heard of it, but with all the confusion in the project as Kubrick was developing it, it is impossible to say where Kubrick would have ended up in his final film. I don't believe Kubrick himself even really knew what he wanted.

~rougerum

[tpfkabi]

i believe i read somewhere that his research on the Napolean film he wanted to do is going to be released this year. anyone know?

[Derek]

It would have been a perfect movie had it ended with David stuck in the ice, gazing at the statue.

couldn't agree more

I have to disagree. It may have given the film a greater resonance, but it seems sadistic to leave David frozen in the ice, teasing him with his dreams forever.

[Cecil]

I have to disagree. It may have given the film a greater resonance, but it seems sadistic to leave David frozen in the ice, teasing him with his dreams forever.

exactly

[tpfkabi]

ah, but that seems more Kubrickian, no?