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In Reply to: A.I. posted by Alan on July 10, 2001 at 21:24:24:
My take on A.I. has some similarities to yours, as I didn't jive much with the technology arguments and I watched the film in three steps.1. I started with the film's opening question: "If you create something capable of loving you, are you morally obligated to love it in return?" The answer, I thought (for both myself and Spielberg), was: "Yes, of course!" From that point on, I watched the film from David's point-of-view.
2. Then I asked: Are humans capable of that kind of unconditional love?" The unfortunate answer: No. This was the big test of the first two acts of the film and the humans flunked miserably. David's mother rejects her adopted child too readily to protect her natural child (and the father never connects with him). David is a hunted outcast and cannot be comforted by a nanny robot. David's creator is more interested in David as a scientific milestone, which does nothing to give David a sense of uniqueness and self-worth.
3. Then I asked: "Can humans justify creating such an entity?" or "Is there some moral justification for David's existence?" If not for the final act, I would have answered: no. In an indirect form of redemption for humans, it is only David's technological successors who give him the love he needs, albeit a limited and qualified one. David's existence is an unfortunate casualty of the process of creating these successors. Why is it limited to one ideal day by the space-time mumbo jumbo? I don't know. But maybe it means that these future beings aren't all-powerful, omniscient, and god-like. If they achieved God-hood, then why would they continue to seek out knowledge (they want to know what the humans were like) and strive for improvement in their own existence, or as Randy Bey wrote below, "Where's the motivation?".
Or maybe I just wasted $7.50 seeing "E.T." all over again, damnit!
Follow Ups:
> > "If you create something capable of loving you, are you morally
> > obligated to love it in return?"this I think is a very deep question, that would be pretentious to answer, especially in the settings of this movie. How can a mother love a robot the same was she loves her son when the robot melts in front of her face after eating foods, and the has his electronics guts open up to get fixed? How can the people of today society have the capacity to answer such a question?
Spieldberg attempts to answer this questions because most people think they have answers for it as it is indeed a very interesting question. That is where Spieldberg excels: touching hearts of the masses; and that's why he is so rich and famous. He is also a great director.
One interesting consequence of this movie is that today we question the worthiness of advance technologies, medical or otherwise. Some people argue that such technologies may be harmful in the hand of criminals and so on and so forth. Here we have a situation when technologies are successfully implemented: when David ask, "please turn me into a real boy", he is a real boy as far as human emotions are concerned (wonderfully portrayed by Osmone); a robot can't move emotions the way he does. So basically they successfully make a perfect robot; everything was perfect; the robots didn't take over the world, etc...And yet there's dilema. This's a great attempt by Spieldberg to show that we must be really careful with our actions...
However, he cheated... He took a present-day mother, put her in a 30th-ish century living with robots, showed the results to present-day audience, and hoped to make his points with this quick sleight of hands -- masterfully misdirected with appeals to emotions. His weakness is his slight bias, in this case towards the machines; he undoubtedly roots for the mechas. This is a big difference between him and Kubrick.
So although its not a perfect movie, its still a great one.
Again, I contend that within the context of the story, the use of robots is only a vehicle to explore the issue of how children are treated by adults. Sure, SS has sent a message that we must generally be careful with our actions (global warming for one), but the profound message is more specific to what happens to the children. If he's "rooting for the meca's", it's really, again, only a metaphor for identifying the real victims of adult human narcissism and greed. And one of the things we know from research and data is that a statistically significant percentage of victims become perpetrators, as do most of the human adults in the film. The William Hurt character, the mother, the father, the guy who killed his wife, the fans at the Flesh Fair, are all narcissistic perpetrators, to one degree or another.
> > "If you create something capable of loving you, are you morally
obligated to love it in return?" < < Why would it be pretentious in any way to answer this question? It's probably the whole premise of the story. Of course we are morally obligated. We take on the obligation every time we choose to deliver a new being into the world. And for the most part we fail miserably at fulfilling our obligation. By the way, my face looked just like David's every time my parents made me eat liver.
I will again put forth my conviction that most of the complaints of structure, technological incongruities, and such, are ways we can distract ourselves from the painful truth of the story. It's just a simple story about how, if parents could create the perfect child, they would still find a way to screw it up.
I will again put forth my conviction that most of the complaints of
structure, technological incongruities, and such, are ways we can
distract ourselves from the painful truth of the story. It's just
a simple story about how, if parents could create the perfect child,
they would still find a way to screw it up.
That's a way to look at it, more specific than what I pointed out. As in any good story, there're many ways to look at it.
> > "If you create something capable of loving you, are you
morally obligated to love it in return?" < <Why would it be pretentious in any way to answer this question? ....Of course we are morally obligated. We take on the obligation every time we choose to deliver a new being into the world.
This is not quite the same. We are talking about robots. Still, the problem is in "the obligation to love". Some feel obligated to love their children; others just do. For me, its funny to have love and obligation hands in hands. I dont understand that. Do you? Do you think that we can presently answer questions about love? If so, great. If not, isn't it pretentious to assert having the mentality and understanding of such an advanced society to answer questions about love, espcially to the machines that we create . Isn't it pretentious to ask 'when God created the atoms, do we expect him to love them back'? Love or any type of hormone-induced action requires the specific mentality, lifestyle, understanding, together with a bunch of other mysterious things to even begin to hope to understand. How many here couldn't figure out why their daughters fall in love with a seemingly complete loser?
Spieldberg did a great job of underscoring the problems, but he gave answers for them too.
If he's "rooting for the meca's", it's really, again, only a metaphor
for identifying the real victims of adult human narcissism and greed.
My point here is that this shows Spieldberg's weakness. It seems as though there's a need for him to provide an answer, to have a proof to his thesis. When theyre too difficult, he forces them. Kubrick would still have forced the issue, but instead put it on the table and said, 'heres your problem deal with it'. But thats why Spieldberg is so beloved; he reassures so eloquently what most already believe; we feel mentally satisfied and agreeable after watching him.
There is nothing outside the text, which serves the same function as a Rorschach test in evoking your unresolved conflicts. I still contend that you feel melancholy when you touch yourself. I think you can take it from here. And please, no more transference -- you claim to be a pro.
Good job.
Boo hoo! Mine did too and I *liked* the stuff!clark
Me to...mum gave it to us when she thought we were sick (skip school to get liver). Cooked in a vinegar sauce with parsley accompanied with boiled new potatoes.(Looks at watch...)
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