Track 1 The Mecha World is a faboulous piece of work. It actually sounds alot like Phillip Glass, especially the constant (what seems to be) synth rythim in the background. It made the drive home much more adventurous than usuall.

Track 2 is fair game. Didn't have enough time to concentrate on it.

Track 3 Replicas is Williams finally visiting again atonality ala Close Encounters with a little bit of ET thrown in for good measure. Voices, timbres and yes the harp (oh the harp) feature prominetly here as well. (By the way, the harp is heavenly represented in track 1 as well).

Hide and Seek, the next track is the one part of the score, besides the end title, that I hoped would be featured on the album. Full of playfullness - and an odd almost otherworldy quality - this is an exeptional piece. It is both warm, loving and yet not too much so. It really represents the getting used to through play and discovery that this piece accompanies.

Track 5 is essentially the same song as For Always (the duet) with just Lara Fabian singing the song. Although I love the song, I find it a waste of space on the album, I mean, why do we need essentially the same song again, albeit with one person singing? Especially since I don't remember this song in the movie in the first place. But a great song it is. In fact, I would wager, this is the first really good pop-song from the mind of Williams ever. Let him finally get the Oscar for this one...but that is just me speaking again.

Strings seem to play the major part in Cybertronics and while I am barly one minute into this one, I can tell you it is a mix of Born on the fourth of July and the second half of JFK. It is very modernistic, very soothing.

Yes, track 7 is the one with the moon rising and we get another full powered chase scene from the maestro. Funny, thus far the score is much heavier orchestrated than I thought. About one minute into this track John Williams turns hip on us. Techno for about thirty seconds (the part that leads to it - even though simply a few seconds in length is just amazing). There seems to be a strange, almost middle eastern voice that accompanies the techno motive and I wonder what Williams was trying to say here, since that section is but a few seconds in length. I would love to continue this track, especially at this part (3 minutes) because it is getting so very good, but I have to get up early and I want to share a bit of the other tracks for all of you.

Track eight then is Stored Memories and Monica's Theme. At this point (and I might be mistaken) this seems to be the part that features are undernourished aliens so prominently. Again , angel like voices feature heavenly in here. Monica's theme (performed with what seems to be a cello - but what do I know) is esentially the main theme and the one used for the song For Always.

Do I really have to even write about track 9 (the end title)? A more beautiful and loving piece hasn't been composed in quite some time, this is certainly one soul wrenching and deeply moving piece seldom heard in cinema music these days (and yet so artisticly composed).

Rouge City is again composed with this odd, yet fitting rising and lowering string accompaniment that gives one this rather eery feeling. It is dark, anticipating and yet very melodic. It reminds me for some reason of Herrmann and Vertigo. Also again, the piano has a field day in some parts that actually made me shudder (then again, could be the air conditioner). About three minutes into the track the music gets more joyful...but I must go on.

The search for the blue ferry is track 11. Since it is late, I shall leave it up to all of you to experince and will move on to track 12 The Reunion.

First off, the track is over 7 minutes long and starts off rather in the middle of lightheartiness and darkness. Eventually the piano takes center stage with a beautiful rendering of Monica's Theme. I am usually not too fond of Williams use of the piano (the Accidental Toursit just about killed me - although I can't stop playing that score once I listen to it). But this is just grandiouse in a minor way. Not much orchestration here. Just piano and some strings and well...buy the album and you tell me. Gosh this is just too beautiful.

Ok, ok, time is running, tommorrow will be here faster than my snoring can last so let me give you an overall here:

I am shocked. After seeing the movie I thought this was a rather minimalist kind of score, always repeating the same theme over and over again (kind of like The Accidental Tourist). But, trust me, it is not. It is a varied, sometimes quite, often fully orchestrated masterpiece. Yes, I call it a masterpiece, you may disagree. In fact, this is the best Williams score since...oh heck...I don't know how long. I love Williams. He is my fave. But this score, is the first one in a long time where every track, and I do mean every track is a gem for the ears. Where every note is the sound of love and advernture to the soul. If one can actually fall in love with a soundtrack score, then I am.

My advise...get it. You won't be dissapointed, because I agree with Spielberg here: this score proves again that John Williams is the greatest musical storyteller of all time. Please Mr. Williams, perform this score at your Hollywood bowl concert...

I shall go to bed now, falling asleep with the great, wonderful and so unique sound of John Williams...what could be better than this.

Thanks for being patient with this long - first reaction - hope didn't bore you guys too much.

Good nite,

Scotty

NP: Now common, do I really have to tell you at this point?

quote:

---

blue ferry is track 11

---

You mean blue fairy.

quote:

---

NP: Now common

---

common? you mean "come on."

Signed,
JJ, who will not give up the fight for good grammar.

if those are the only mistakes you found, you has got to go back to school dude.

Lol.

Scott

Rather than being aliens at the end of A.I., I took the figures as being advanced mechas from 2000 years after the fact. It makes sense. Gigolo Joe even said that all that will be left are mechas when talking to David. The Cybernetics logo on the door and window to Hurt's place had a figure similar to the guys at the end. These mechas are using David as the best link to their past... the humans. I have seen people talk about this on other message boards. What do you guys think?

--Brian

NP: A.I.

PS: Scotty, no "Final Fantasy" CD?

(The Star Trek part of me answers, "Well, it was just a high-pitched version of communication that's evolved over thousands of years....")

I think it works better also in terms of the Heroic quest, where the chosen one must become the savior of their society, and though David isn't a literal representative of the human species, he's representative of the human potential.

And I think just the opposite about David's heroic journey. I think it is much more dramatically appropriate that David 'awaken' in a time where he is no longer an outsider, where mechas are now all there is. And as someone stated in another thread here, mechas who are trying now to replicate human life, and not doing so well because there is so much they don't understand about themselves.

If it is without a doubt, why are we debating this?

Where is the proof?

I'm just saying that I think I watched this film as closely as anyone did...I didn't see proof...(as per a Kubrick ending, it was slightly clouded and ambiguous.....)

It's not so inconcievable that a foriegn species could find the Human race to be a genius species.

Again, not to mention the obvious story parallels about humans birthing mecha and then mecha birthing humans 2000 years later.

Aliens just don't make any damn sense, as far as story integrity goes. If they were aliens, they would be coming out of nowhere, storywise.

I have this saying, that a movie can get away with one big conceit... that is, one thing that doesn't hold true in our world today but holds true in the world of the movie. The best movies have one conceit only... if you ask an audience to accept more than one, or if you keep asking them as the story progresses, you are betraying the audience.

Examples:

Back To The Future Conceit: time travel is possible in Doc's Browns modified Delorean. Everything else in this movie that is fantastical springs logically from this one thing.

Tootsie Conceit: a man could convincingly disguise himself as a woman in order to get an acting job. Again, everything else, no matter how crazy, follows logically from this one precept.

One counter-example is What Dreams May Come, a beautiful movie to be sure... but one that grievously violates the one conceit rule. It keeps dolloping on rules and regulations to the afterlife, long after the groundwork should have been set in stone. This is one of the many reasons people never quite 'got' this movie.

Anyways, back to A.I.. I believe that if those creatures were in fact aliens, the movie would be violating its one principal conceit... that the world is a technologically advanced place where mechas that emulate human behavior are a reality. It is akin to the movie stopping 2/3 of the way in and saying, "Oh by the way... aliens exist too. Just thought all needed to know that." It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and I refuse to believe that Spielberg or Kubrick would leave such a thing so ambiguous.

**************SPOILER ALERT***************

In a recorded interview at USC's Cinema School, Zemeckis rather jokingly states that the unopened package contained "a waterproof, solar-powered satellite phone, of course."

This is one of the best organized listens in a long time. Pretty much everyone I know that has seen the movie has said that the music was fascinating. All were surprised to see that JW was the composer (these are not "film music" fanatics) even though their instincts kept telling them that it sometimes felt/sounded like his music.

Only the cold at heart could avoid this one at Oscar time....unless "Harry Potter" ends up even better than this. The first great score of the new millenium -- how ironic.

Be that as it may, I'd like to join in on the discussion about the mecha/aliens debate.

First off, the argument about the creatures considering humans an advanced species is quite misleading if we consider the fact that these creatures (2000 years later) were vastly more advanced than the human beings. Thus, this point doesn't really prove that they are mechas or aliens either way.

Further, how is it that these creatures, if indeed they are mechas, were able to survive the ice age, while everyone else vanished (with the exception of David and Teddy)? Also, if they admired the human race so much, how is it they didn't safe the humans from extinction? After all, they were able to survive themselves.

As far as the physical apperance goes, it is a litlle persumptious to assume other worldy creatures would have to adhere to the same physical limitations we are accustomed to here on earth. After all, with that kind of analy, a glowworm would be nothing else but a lightbulb.

Transportation: why would earth bound mechas, need such sophisticated transportation during the ice age?

Lastly, the creatures were clearly facinated by David and the history of the human race. Had they been mechas, they must have had some experience with humans, for they would have lived at least as long as David, after all, someone had to build them.

To simply state they were mechas, without clearly demonstrating why they would be, is to say the backstreet boys are gay just because they are the backstreet boys. I believe the evidence points more towards aliens than mechas.

Oh and the conceit thingie: Interesting indeed, but really doens't do much to the point. A writer can write whatever he/she wishes, and sometimes becomes a much better storyteller by violating such rules. You summed it up best and showed the whole issue at hand when you said you refuse to believe...nothing would change your mind at this point then (short of Spielberg e-mailing you saying they are indeed aliens). It has nothing to do with your theory, but all to do with what you want to believe.

If I stepped on some toes, sorry, didn't mean to and if I didn't step on any toes...good.

Scott

Click here

To tell you the truth, even though I was convinced that they were mecha, I think it would've worked just as well if they were aliens. In that capacity, not only would David be the final surviving link to the human race, but he would be providing useful information not only across a span 2000 Earth years, but across the universe. I'm surprised Spielberg didn't make it less obvious; as it is, it's hard not to see them as mecha if you listen and watch them closely.

Back on topic, when I popped in the A.I. CD yesterday, I was fully expecting to be skipping tracks in order to find those one or two moments of score that I really liked in the film. Surprisingly, I listened to it all the way through and enjoyed every bit of it. I didn't think it'd make a very good listening experience apart from the film, but I was quite wrong.

A large part of it is the track arrangement...placing the Mecha World track first on the album was a great choice. Favorite track? Probably The Search for the Blue Fairy. I assume that the theme near the end of that track is "The Blue Fairy" theme, as it's heard faintly when the mecha create one for David a little later, so it's not required to pop up much, but I sure wish we had more of this theme. It's quite good.

A great score in the film, and also a great listen apart from it.

NP: Final Fantasy (Goldenthal) 4/5

PS: Anyone else think that Stored Memories sounds a heck of a lot like parts of Silvestri's score for The Abyss?

EDIT: Just a quick thought. There are people wondering how these advanced mecha would've surived the ice age on Earth. Here's my theory: it never said that these advanced mecha lived on Earth. Perhaps, when the ice age began, they packed up and moved to the moon for a thousand years, and those that evolved away from Earth are now coming back to investigate their heritige.

When looking at it that way, they can almost be considered mecha AND alien, pleasing both camps.

Your explanation of how the mechas survived the ice age is a very good one that I can readily accept. What I just would like to know, is if they were able to safe themselves, why didn't they save the human race as well?

During the action sequences, I can clearly hear some Lost World mixed with Duel of the Fates. "Abandoned in the Woods" sounds a lot like the theme from Angela's Ashes. There's definitely some Sabrina, and a touch of Aliens throughout the disc. The only track that to me sounds fully original is the track on which the song "For Always" is based. Beautiful, very touching piece of score. That track alone makes it worth the $15, I think.

Good, solid score from J.W.

Overall: 3.5/5

NP: A.I. of course... round 2.

Another thing I noticed... The first couple of seconds of the score bears some resemblence to Close Encounters... and The Matrix

Much better score the second time around!!!
****/*****

And it's only getting better and better...

NP: A.I. (round 10!!!)