On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 11:03:41AM -0500, Marvin Long, Jr. wrote: > > I've had enough time to digest A.I. since seeing it on Saturday to make > some preliminary comments. I may need to see it again before I go into > heavy detail, though. Again, these are just preliminary comments. > > 1. If _2001:A Space Odyssey_ and _Blade Runner_ are considered great SF > films (not just sci fi, but true Science Fiction), then A.I. deserves to > be up there with them. It's a difficult movie--it's hard to be happy with > this movie--but it's a great film. > > 2. Professional reviewers who bitch and moan about how the movie has too > much Spielsberg schmaltz and not enough Kubrickian grit are blowing smoke > rings out their backsides. They've allowed their stereotyped > expecatations of two disparare moviemaking styles to get in the way of > watching the actual film. > > SPOILER ALERT! (Mild spoilage, I think, but it pays to be safe.) > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > > > 3. The movie has some technical and logical flaws. I'd say that is an understatement. I went in expecting sci-fi, and I was very disappointed. If I had expected a fairy-tale, I think I would have had a much better time. Here are a few of the things that I question. Some of them don't stand very well on their own but rather fit in with my impression of the general level of technology (for example, Star Trek has amazing sensors and tractor-beams and many sci-fi stories gloss over power sources for things like robots, but with such amazing technology in AI why did none of the humans survive?): 1) They have been making robots for 50 years and this is the first time anyone tried very hard to make a robot with real emotions? 2) There is no good reason for the imprinting being irreversible. An adequate hardware and software protected reset command should be easily doable. 3) Anything the robot puts in its mouth mucks up the inner workings? Nobody thought of a bag attached to the throat? (also, how can he go underwater without wetting his circuit boards?) 4) No discussion of safeguards built into the robots against hurting people or property damage? 5) An ice age came on so quickly? And no humans survived? 6) Sea-level rose in New York by 300 feet? 7) How could the police helicopter's "magnet" thingie levitate/attract Gigolo Joe from a distance of 100 feet without affecting David or any of the other metal around? Is this some sort of "tractor-beam", a la Star Trek? 8) David's power lasted for about 1000 years? (maybe he went into some low power mode? still, even hundreds of years is hard to imagine) 9) None of the humans attempted to download their personalities and knowledge into a robot (seeing as how some robots survived?) 10) The super-advanced robots can pull information out of the very fabric of space time, and create selective memories (David's "mother" didn't recall everything), but they can't create a human or robot with those memories that can last for more than a day? -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.com/
