AI: Artificial Intelligence Film Review Blog Post by Valery, Nathalia, Ella and Alexa

A film loved by thousands, this film sparked a conversation whether or not humanoid robots can feel like actual humans. To give them a sense of personhood and validity in our progressive society.

• Directed by Stephen Spielberg
• Produced by Stephen Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Bonnie Curtis
• Written by Stephen Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Brian Aldiss and Ian Watson
• Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor and Jack Angel
• Running time: 145 minutes (2 hours and 25 minutes)

If you are interested and want to know more, watch the trailer to get a gist of things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_19pRsZRiz4

Summary

The movie A.I. is set in the future, when all the ice caps have melted and robots, referred to as Mecha, live among humans. Cybertronics, a company responsible for the creation of robots decides on making a new type of Mecha: one that is capable of loving. A few months pass and finally the prototype is ready to be tested.

Couple Monica and Henry Swinton, who's son, Martin, is critically ill of an incurable disease, adopt the first humanoid robot that can love, David. Henry surprises Monica with David as a way to cope with the indefinite loss of their biological son. However, Monica is opposed to the idea of a replacement for Martin and doesn’t agree with living with David.

Monica attempts to accept David and is informed by her husband that if they want to adopt him, they must “imprint” themselves upon David, to activate the part of him that is capable of loving. Once the imprinting process is over, it cannot be undone. Therefore, if Monica and Henry decided to return David to Cybertronics, David would be destroyed. Monica finally decides to go ahead with the imprinting process, which includes reading select words in a specific order. Once David got imprinted, he starts showing signs of real love and begins acting as a real son would to his mother. He is also given Martin’s old robot teddy bear, Teddy.

Martins disease is suddenly cured and he is brought back to good health. When David and Martin meet, he considers David as a doll or something to be played with, rather than a brother. The two boys are read the fairy tale “Pinocchio” and David is moved when he sees that the Blue Fairy in the story turns Pinocchio into a real boy. He wishes the same for himself.

Martin tries to get David into trouble numerous ways, such as making him eat (which he is incapable of doing), convincing him to cut off some of Monica’s hair, and an incident at Martin’s birthday party, when David appeared to be drowning him in the pool. Henry tells Monica to return David to Cybertronics to be destroyed, however on the way there, Monica decides she cannot let this happen to him and releases David in the forest with Teddy. David is convinced that the reason he was abandoned was because he isn’t a real boy, and starts on a quest to find the Blue Fairy from the fairy tale, so that she can turn him into a real boy as well.

Meanwhile in Rouge City, a Mecha named Gigolo Joe, a male prostitute, finds his client dead in her bed, killed by her husband who tries to frame him for the murder. Joe is on the run, he hides his Mecha license and flees from Rouge City.

Back to David and Teddy, David comes across Mecha searching for spare parts to repair themselves with. All of the Mecha are captured by someone named Lord Johnson Johnson and brought to the “Flesh Fair,” a fair where Mecha are brutally murdered for the amusement of humans. David and Gigolo Joe are about to be killed when David starts protesting in fear. Spectators believe he is a real boy because of his fear and riot, resulting in the escape of the two Mecha.

David tells Joe of his search for the Blue Fairy, and is told that they will ask “Dr. Know,” a simulation that will answer any questions you have. Dr. Know simply tells David that the Blue Fairy can be found  "at the end of the world where the lions weep.” Before they’re able to leave, Joe is swarmed by police officers, who are there to arrest him for the murder of his client. David takes control of the police helicopter, that was left unattended, and saves Joe from getting arrested. They begin flying to Manhattan in search of the Blue Fairy.

The two end up at a Cybertronics building, in which David finds and exact duplicate of himself and destroys it.

Professor Hobby, his creator, introduces himself and tells David everything. He tells him that the myth about the Blue Fairy lead him home (back to Cybertronics). While wandering around, David comes across multiple duplicates of himself, some in boxes ready to be sold. Realizing that he can never be a real boy, David jumps off the building into the water below, but is fetched out by Joe. David tells Joe that while he was underwater he saw the Blue Fairy and needs to go back down there. Joe gets pulled into the sky by the police, but allows David to go back underwater. He enters the submerged Coney Island amusement park and gets trapped under the ferris wheel. However, he is now in front of a statue of the Blue Fairy from a Pinocchio themed section of the amusement park. David prays that he will become a real boy so that he can return home to Monica.

The movie jumps two thousand years in the future and we see the new world. Humans have died out and the world seems to be in a new ice age. Futuristic Mecha come across David and Teddy frozen in the ice. The Mecha use both of their memories to recreate a version of Monica and Henry’s house. David meets the Blue Fairy and wishes to see Monica again, but is told that since she is now dead, only her DNA would bring her back. Teddy gives David the piece of Monica’s hair that he cut off earlier in the movie, and is able to bring her back just for one more day. David, Monica and Teddy, spend the entire day together and finally, Monica tells David she loves him and goes to sleep, never to wake up again. Feeling happy knowing that he was loved and having spent another day with Monica, David himself goes to sleep.

FILM TECHNIQUES

One of the important film techniques in the movie include framing. The framing was always very well done and serves a specific goal or purpose. For example, in the scene where David nearly drowns Martin in the pool, only Martin is rescued from the water. The camera zooms out while still focused on David at the bottom of the pool, lying motionless. A long shot of a birds eye view of the pool, is effective for many reasons. For one, it captures his feeling of abandonment and emphasizes that no one is around to help him, by choice. The use of framing in this scene really helps get the point across that the humans look out for their own before they would with Mecha.

Another successful use of framing, would be the last scene in which David is lying on the bed with Monica, who is now sleeping. The camera pans away from the two slowly and ends from the outside of their house looking in, with the lights turned off. The use of this slow zoom out, as well as long shot ,compliments the scene because it gives the audience a sense of conclusion. Simply by the framing and camera work we as the viewers get closure; David is content, the two are sleeping together and the movie as a whole has come to a wrap. The framing only serves to further portray that sense of closure for David, as well as ourselves.

On a different note, lighting is also an important film technique. Lighting changes an entire scenes mood and way of being interpreted by the audience. One example of lighting in the film that stood out, is when David gets abandoned in the forest by Monica. Almost immediately the lighting becomes less bright and creates a more dark, and mysterious mood. It also portrays how David is feeling; his mood is low, so is the lighting. In all the forest scenes, the lighting is low key, showing a continuation of this sense of thrill and uncertainty for the viewer.

In the last scene, in which a simulation of Monica wakes up and sees David standing before her, the lighting was high key and bright. This was a conscious decision done by the movie creators, and the reason for it, is to give the audience the feeling of joy and clearly illustrate the sense of happiness both David and Monica have in the moment. David finally accomplished his very long journey to be accepted by Monica once again and this whole scene is everything David has been waiting for throughout the entire film. For this reason, the lighting is very important to help demonstrate the happiness between the characters.

The characters are the most essential part of any film. David is the main protagonist and throughout the film, has a lot of character development. For example, at the beginning of the movie, before David was imprinted by Monica, he was still very robot like in some ways. He would fit into the category of the uncanny valley. He was humanlike, but still didn’t know many of the social cues among other things that humans possess naturally. However, after he has been imprinted, he begins acting increasingly like a real boy. The audience therefore sympathizes with David as he goes through many difficult situations, even though he is only a robot. This being said, the characters are important because they tell the story.

Teddy is an overlooked, yet important character in the movie. He is the robotic talking teddy bear given to him by Monica and is always alongside David. Although the movie is not entirely centered around Teddy’s character, he is still relevant, because it is as if he is loved by David and reciprocates the love. Teddy is always looking out of David and is a loyal friend to him. In the scene at the Flesh Fair, in which Teddy and David are separated, a worker is shown carrying Teddy to the lost and found. Teddy repeats over and over that he is looking for David and needs help finding him. His main concern while being away from David, was finding him again.

Choice of actors is a very crucial decision for any film. More specifically, Haley Joel Osment did a remarkable job playing the part of David. One detail that really impressive, was how you never saw him blink in any of his scenes. This was obviously done to better portray the character as a humanoid robot, therefore, it's fascinating that he can refrain from blinking in all of his scenes. What's more impressive, is about how professional Haley Joel Osment was even as a young child; he handled the role with absolute maturity and really put himself into Davids shoes. The scene that had the most effect on us involving the acting was when David was abandoned in the woods by Monica. The scene was so intense and heartfelt, that you forget he’s acting.

Jude Law is another actor who perfected his role in the movie. He portrayed an emotionally reserved, yet caring character throughout the film and left a lasting impression on viewers. Viewers therefore sympathize with his character. His facial expressions are his most defining trait, because of how well he uses them to his advantage. Overall, Jude Law did an outstanding performance of Joe and couldn’t have done it any better.

Special effects are always a hit or miss in any movie. The effects in this film were very well done and had a lot of credibility to them. During the Flesh Fair, many Mecha were murdered before it was David and Joe's turn. In each case, the robots were either tortured, dismembered, burned and so on. Each scene, in which a Mecha died, required a lot of special effects, which were done very well and wouldn’t be questioned, especially considering the film is nearly two decades old.

Special effects were also used throughout the film for all of the non-humanoid Mecha. Once again, the Mecha at the Flesh Fair all required many special effects as well as the futuristic Mecha at the very end of the film. The scene and probably the movie as a whole, would be impossible to realize without the use of special effects and therefore, it's one of the key factors in the film.

UNIVERSAL THEMES/ISSUES/QUESTIONS RAISED

1. A question raised in regards to the film is is it possible for a human to love a robot at the same level they would love a human?
2. A big issue that is seen throughout the film, is whether or not artificial intelligence, that are created to experience love the way a human would, is capable of actually feeling the love and if they should be treated differently from humans or not. For example, Henry and Martin both refer to David as a toy/doll/not being real and don’t treat him the same way they would a human. Monica on the other hand, locked David in a closet because she didn’t want to look after him anymore. This all goes to prove that the A.I. are looked at and treated with different levels of respect, compared to humans. The Flesh Fair is another good example of how Mecha are treated as property and entertainment, instead of intelligent beings in any way.  On the topic of knowing whether or not robots are capable to truly experiencing love, it would be very hard to know the difference between feeling love and them being created/taught to love. Say that once a robot loves a human without an imprinting process, then we can know the answer to that issue.
3. Should we grant humanoid robots personhood and belonging in our society, such as voting rights and citizenship?

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Artificial intelligence is a film that touches upon numerous metaphors and emotions that are portrayed in a magical way. The visuals in this film are without a doubt beautiful and executed in a way that looks believable and accurate. For example, to go from a magical city where robots live and with endless amounts of bright lights to then go to Manhattan which is completely devastated and submerged under water is an outstanding way to show how varied and capable the film makers are. With that being said, there are some weaknesses in the acting due to the mix of characters. Seeing as some of the characters were robots and others were human, it was hard to follow the kinds of emotions that were meant to be portrayed by specific actors. There were many times Monica had very withdrawn and flat acting when other times she  was extremely emotional and transparent. This made the acting feel choppy and hard to follow. Another aspect that stands out a lot is the fact that the film was given from one director to another. Kubrick had originally made the film and gave it to Spielberg and when Kubrick passed away in 1999, Spielberg put things in motion in order to make the film a reality (Harlan et al, 2009). The issue with this is that the film becomes incredibly long due to Spielberg’s decision to change the ending. 

Originally, Kubrick had finished the movie without a happy ending and with room for interpretation and Spielberg chose to add a whole new ending to put his own twist on making sure there would be a happy ending for the audience (Vlastelica, 2018). This caused very mixed reactions because it felt as though the film was split up into two parts and created separation and length and this was definitely a huge downfall in the film, even though it was well executed for the most part, the length and the addition of another level of futuristic aspects to the ending caused some confusion and loses the point (Harlan et al, 2009). All in all, the film is interesting and embarks on important philosophical and ethical questions while leaving room for debate but loses itself towards the end.

This film should be rated at 3.5 stars out of 5.

1) The uncanny valley is one of the most obvious and important links to make between the film and this course. There are many moments throughout the film, that the uncanny valley is almost perfectly presented. First, the definition of the uncanny valley is that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observer's emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond, in which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the robot's appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels. 

With that being said, an example from the film is when David, Monica and Henry, are all sitting down for dinner, David begins to laugh in a very inhuman way and create feelings of uneasiness, but as he kept laughing, he started to become less distinguishable from that of a human and Monica and Henry both began to laugh with him. This is a very clear example of the uncanny valley. As the film goes on and David imprints on Monica, it becomes clear that he is so comparable to a human that his actions and reactions become creepy for the audience and create some uncomfortableness. These are perfect links between the film and the uncanny valley, which is a concept covered in this course.

2) Social robots are an important factor in this film as well as an important topic covered in this course. A social robot is an autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviours and rules attached to its role (Taipale et al, 2015). The definition is an accurate description of David as a social robot in the film A.I: Artificial Intelligence. When looking at David’s introduction into the film, he is presented as a robot created to serve as a child that will love you unconditionally. Throughout the entire movie, he follows social behaviours and rules that are attached to his role of being a child who craves his mother’s love. He shows social understanding of how he is “supposed” to act as a child even though he encounters some issues throughout the film. David is compared to a human child at a certain point in the film and this allows for a representation of how David conforms and follows the role of being a child, as a robot. At one point in the film, he hands his pyjamas to Monica and asks her to dress him. This is an example of David trying to fit into his social role, by doing what he thinks he’s supposed to do. This is an accurate link between the film and the course.

3)  Selfhood is another strong link that can be made between the film and this course. Selfhood is defined as an already demarcated sense of self and individuality and less about social, political and cultural relations, that could construct this concept. Throughout the film, we watch David discover selfhood through the journeys he experiences. David was programmed to love and desire which forces him to discover his sense of self and individuality through his encounters. The more he creates relationships with others or in his initial relationships with Monica and Henry, he is given attention and treated as special. This gives him feelings of individuality and importance, which becomes the most transparent when he reaches the destination of his maker, Dr. Hobby in Manhattan, and discovers several other “Davids” that look identical to him and makes him react with aggression and anger as he yells that he is “one of a kind,” countless times. The concept of selfhood that he discovers throughout the film goes hand in hand with the prior concept of material consciousness which discusses that a brain is not necessary to have consciousness. A sense of self and individuality depends on a certain level of consciousness and David shows many signs of this throughout the film, which would indicate that he in fact does have these abilities.

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

#1(specifically about the film) David gets send to the emergency after attempting to eating spinach after being teased and provoked. Who provoked him and what was David trying to prove?

#2(general)  Gigolo tells David “they made us too smart, to quick, and too many” and that we are suffering for the mistakes they made because when the end comes all that will be left is us. That’s why they hate us. Is this a valid reason to hate robots?

#3(general) At the end of the movie, Gigolo tells David that his mother does not love him, but only loves what he does for her. Is it possible to think that  a normal human being can love a robot just as much as a humans.

IMPORTANT WEB LINKS

Web-link #1

http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/can-you-fall-in-love-with-a-robot

This article, elaborates on the evolution of robots and how they are being produced humanlike to the point where it will be hard to tell real people and robots apart. The main question being asked in this article is weather or not we humans can fall in love with a robot. Studies mentioned in the article have said that humans might feel sympathy to robots if they think it is pain, which means that we can feel as much empathy for a robot than within a human. There are other indications that make it possible for humans to fall in love with a robot. As mentioned in the article, for example research has shown that people interacting via email, messenger or on the phone tend to have more of an intimate bond then those who speak face to face since there is no pressure interacting on the phone since there is a screen in between the two individuals, and that is the case for robots too because they don’t have a sense of judge which will make it easier for those who have social anxiety. At the end of the article there is a video of a robot name Sophia who is interacting with her producer who is explaining her functions and emotions. He also elaborates on the future of robots and how it will be very hard to distinguish humans and robots apart and how the AI will evolve to be our friend by helping us and teaching us.

Web link #2 https://www.empireonline.com/movies/artificial-intelligence/review/

This film review focuses on the characters behaviours and raises the right questions for watchers of the film to think about. What does it mean to love? Does the power to love makes us real? What is the price of loving? All making us look back at David and Monica’s relationship. Did the power of David to love Monica make him real?

WORKS CITED

CHECK MLA--DO THAT CORRECTLY

MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE BOX OFFICE

BIGTHINK

EMPIRE ONLINE

Harlan, Jan; Struthers, Jane M. (2009). A.I. Artificial Intelligence: From Stanley Kubrick to Steven Spielberg: The Vision Behind the Film. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500514894.

Taipale, S., Vincent, J., et al. (2015). Introduction: Situating the Human in Social Robots. In J. Vincent et al., eds. Social Robots from a Human Perspective, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 1-17

Vlastelica, R. (2018). In A.I., Steven Spielberg (and Stanley Kubrick) turned an eye to loneliness. Page to Screen. New York City. A.V. Club.