But it made me think MORE of it's own unrealised potential as a film and and of how unsure Spielberg obviously was with his material. It started with great promise but continued to unravel right before me.

I wonder if there may have not been a better director for Kubrick's swan song.

Thanks!

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It's also very interesting, in a Freudian-psychoanalytical way, that the other character David bonds with is a male prostitute. Each of the characters is attached to loving a female, though in a different manner...or is it so different, Freud might say.

As interesting a character as Teddy is, I don't see him as a "cute" character...(If Teddy were meant to be so cute, he probably would have been voiced by Robin Williams.) I don't see him as a pure "Spielbergian" invention, either. It's interesting, because in a way, we attach our own feelings to Teddy (also merely a cyberntetic invention!) as well as David. When Teddy can't choose between boys, who does he run to? I think that monotone voice of his is very interestingly eerie....kind of like....HAL, perhaps....? ("You will break....")

Come on! Faced with a sad and wistful conclusion, Spielberg chose to roll the sea back, cobbling togethor a wholly anti-climactic conclusion, executed so generically, it cannot be seen as anything other than a slapped on 'happy-ending'. So,don't blame us...blame the storyteller for not believing in his own story.

First, it was Richard, not I, who made the distinction between watching movies and watching films.

Regardless of any other point, this is not a typical Summer blockbuster, whether you think it works or is flawed, it isn't just boy meets girl or let's go drag race. It may spell things out pat, or dumb down its ideas, or as John Winfrey said, it may propagandize, but at least it's trying to talk about bigger issues in the context of an entertainment which is becoming rare for Hollywood films in general.

I liked the acting, the special effects (which integrate with the plot instead of being the excuse for the film as in say, The Mummy Returns), the score (no masterpiece but it seemed to fit fine), and the fact that the story spans a couple thousand years.

I liked the structure of it, starting small and personal in one home and expanding out from there almost to infinity. On the other hand, many things were predictable--I knew David would try suicide, there was a journey to Rouge City that reminded me of the brick road to Emerald City so I knew there would be a wizard and a curtain when we got there, etc.

Other elements of the structure were neat--Martin is frozen and returns home, David is frozen and returns home just like Martin. David first appears distorted or viewed through glass or lucite that makes him appear thin and elongagted, David's first memory is of a statue that looks similar, and the alien/robots at the end look the same as well. I like that the entire story is narrated by the aliens. Oh, and I thought they were silicon-based life but they could be advanced machines, it isn't clearly explained and I think the question of whether they are live or Memorex is left ambiguous to go along with the same question regarding David.

The coded words of David's imprinting appear at points in the film: he meets a socrates, swimming underwater surrounded by fish he is the dolphin, at the home at the end are flowers (I couldn't tell if they were tulips but thought so).

Pinnoccio is there too, but I wasn't sure if it was Teddy or Giggolo Joe who was playing the Jimminy Cricket character. I kept expecting to hear When You Wish Upon A Star like in CE3K but couldn't pick it out. All the moon stuff was like seeing a Dreamworks ad every ten minutes though.

I liked the irony: the humans seem much less likeable than the robots, the creation of the robots (given how miserably the humans treat them) seems irresponsible and a mistake (just like using technology to create Dinosaurs backfires in JP 1 & 2) and yet, in the end, it's the robot who becomes the caretaker of all human memory and human emotions too.

Still, robot or human, I did not get into the pathos of David's story. I could not get over the fact, made very clear in the opening scene when the woman's face opens up to show machinery, that David wasn't human despite the pain, fear, and tears. [Oh, by the way, notice that the woman robot ends the scene putting on lipstick and the next scene opens with Monica putting on lipstick as well.] I resisted the film's attempts to make me feel along with David and the situation as if he were a human in the same predicament and felt more cold watching it despite Spielberg's wanting to draw me in than if Kubrick had presented it with his own detached perspective.

The emotionalism failed on me and I'm not sure, even if it had worked, whether it would have been right for this film.

The ideas and the plot have been explored and done before. EC Comics, Star Trek, and Quatermass and the Pit had explored the idea of aliens tampering with human evolution in our dim past long before Kubrick used the same idea as a basis for 2001. AI is actually old hat in this respect as well but that shouldn't be used to fault it. 2001 transcends the early media to explore the idea. AI at least visualizes it better than say "I, Robot" or what have you.

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I pose the same question to you as I did to Lou, and ask that you also please clarify the part about "not mistaking him for human". The reason for the latter pertains to what I would call the progressive performance of young Mr. Osment's.

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In terms of AI, once told someone is a robot, it becomes hard to see them in another light regardless of tears and expressed emotions.

The thing I got out of AI (which may have been what I was supposed to) was that it's irresponsible to bring machines into the world if you create them to feel pain and longing while simultaneously intending to exploit them as you would a can opener or dishwasher.

I never felt for David and his predicament beyond that, I could not identify with him as a real boy, just a machine that someone mistakenly programmed to feel hurt. Spielberg wanted me to identify with him (I don't know if Kubrick would have as much), but I couldn't.

In response to whatever nameless entity condescendingly accused me of going through my "Spielberg phase" I actually went through that more than twenty years ago. I think I have a pretty clear view of Spielberg's strengths and weaknesses as a director. I do not think he is a genius, nor do I think he is a complete idiot--which is what you have to believe in order to think he made the mistakes people are accusing him of in making this film. He made the film Kubrick wanted with some (not unimportant) differences.

Between your comment and others' (notably Probable's) re David's programming, may I suggest the natural affection of a child for its mother is no less a form of "programming". Think about it.

And then perhaps relate, if possible, to my post-film reaction re the scene around the swimming pool. After the movie I found the memory of David's terror and the way he desperately clutched at Martin, begging him (SAVE ME!), utterly devastating. But during the actual viewing I merely felt surprised, for it came on the heels of David's insidious robotic laugh (AH-HA-HA-HA-HA!) which had reminded me to this point that David was wholly machine. From this point on, however, David's demeanor little by little seemed more human as things progressed. The Osment kid's performance reflected a gradual more-human progressive change.

My impression is that a lot of naysayers from both messageboards are not being fully honest with themselves when they say they couldn't suspend disbelief i.e. not be affected by "this robot's programmed feelings"; moreover, I think their words manifest a resistance, of sorts, that precludes them from admitting the truth, to themselves and/or to others.

Let me stoke the fires even more by stating sure, it's one thing for the on-screen characters to be indifferent to David's plight: After all, he's just another mecha. But the viewer has no such everyday frame of reference to draw from and it's why I feel David ultimately comes off as much more real boy than machine. Than Teddy. Especially in contrast to the Flesh Fair mechas who were clearly represented as little more than decrepit past-their-prime nuts and bolts.

I remain committed to understanding this film's pull on me, flaws and all. You may now fire back when ready.

Given the information in the film, you know David is going to feel a knife cut in a way that the woman robot in the opening scenes did not. David reacts to situations like a human--he asks to be saved in both this situation and in the holding cage at the Flesh Farm, he later rejects the world he's a part of and tries suicide.