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jackThis is another film (like Signs) that some people seem to think is the cleverest film since sliced bread, and others think is just insane.
Firstly, the trailer didn't do it justice whatsoever, "His love is real. But he is not," is the worst scmhaltzy saccharine catchphrase ever that doesn't literally involve ponies made out of sugar. Although to be fair, it does kind of encapsulate the way in which I thought the film sucked.
It felt like someone got hit on the head by some sort of heavy printer and forget all philosophy/science/ideas about artificial life in the last sixty years. I really tried to get into the film and give it the benefit of the doubt, but I mostly failed. It felt too much like a mechanical recycling of out-dated ideas made deep and meaningful by having someone stand on a skyline silhouetted against a moon.
If you have two beings. One who risks his own existence to help the other for no reason except to make them happy. And one who can emit water from his face. Which do you feel has the better grasp of love? I'm going for the first. But the entire film, both the characters in it, and the themes of the story, seem predated on the idea that it's the first. That you can have a class of beings like vulcans, who do things, help each other, and talk about what they desire, but lack a magical emotion phlogiston, and so their desires and emotions aren't real because they don't involuntarily overrule their actions and happen to be expressed audibly.
This is an old idea, certainly, but I think most science fiction written since the invention of the valve tends towards an interpretation I find more plausible, that emotions aren't a magic gloss that makes previous behaviour worthwhile, but the emergence of certain behaviours.
I felt that the film-makers were flicking through a book of tropes on "how to make a moving scene" that for me detracted a little. Any story of this sort has to have a scene where the robot who thinks he's a boy does something a boy would do and a robot wouldn't, and ironically damages himself thereby. Under other circumstances I'd find it tragic.
If it were more stylised it would have worked for me -- if it were a fairy story, then a golem who was brought to life, tried to eat, and damaged his innards would ring exactly true. If it were less stylised it might actually have felt like a realistic scenario, and I would have sympathised. But as it was, I saw all the beautiful scenery and camera work, but it did not whatsoever ring true to me that (a) it would not be known in advance if David would try to eat. Surely either he has simple safeguards against dangerous behaviour, and wouldn't do that, or doesn't, and they would have already discovered it[1]. And (b), that he has a hole in the back of his throat going straight into his internal works. Nice imagery, yes, but the most fucking stupid thing. (Although if you think that's dumb, wait for the ending!)
[1] This seems to echo the fundamental problem. It's as if he were, like a boy, trained to avoid eating stuff (or simply not given any desire to do so), but that's sufficiently open-endedly embedded that it might be overridden by sudden natural boyish desire. But if they could tune him that well in the first place, then he was already a real boy and the whole 'love' thing is superfluous.
They hit just about every old idea on the theme. But seemed to feel it was enough to say them without any kind of showing why they happen or what they mean. Eg. the idea that David might be able to hate, and lacking any idea of right and wrong, seriously hurt someone, would be chilling. But they cop out and have the mistrust of him randomly down to paranoia and misunderstanding. They say people are scared of robots. They have a big robot-destruction orgy. But they don't show any actual hate, nor any reason for it.
I won't bore you with more examples, but essentially every film is a beautifully presented example of a meaningful event that taken literally is so stupid you can appreciate neither the meaning nor the beauty. For instance, humans antipathy toward robots is expressed by a scene where spare robots are captured and violently destroyed in a sort of circus. The imagery is really good. If it made the slightest sense whatsoever it'd be chilling. But it doesn't.
A few examples, not that the individual examples matter, it just annoys me that if a good/sensible idea would be as thematically appropriate, why always pick the stupid one? But just for the record:
* WHAT KIND OF EFFING POWER SUPPLY LASTS TWO THOUSAND YEARS IN THE DARK?
* how come they're so crowded and short of labour that humanoid robot are a sane solution, yet women stay at home all day doing the laundry?
* So, there's a magic code that turns on his love. Uh-uh.
* And if his parents don't want him, the factory can't just reboot his brain, they have to scrap him. Oh noes. (OK, you might think identity was places in the brain, could easily be transplanted between robot bodies, and deletion was equivalent to death, but no, not even 2000 years in the future had the film caught up with this idea.)
* Hunting stray robots is more financially effective than buying a $10 mannequin and a small speaker than can say "help"
* David is sufficiently impulsive to suddenly appear and creep his mother out, but not sophisticated enough to follow simple instructions like "make a noise when you walk"
The film really is well done. Some people had their doubts about the combination of Kubrick and Spielberg, but they really do combine well -- the fundamental problems are unrelated, if they'd stuck to Aldiss' (or anyone's) ideas about robots and confined themselves to expressing them, it would have been a brilliant film.
The first act is about David with his family. If his behaviour felt at all realistic -- if for instance, it felt as if he were learning to become more real over time -- Kubrick's slow moving, deliberate, beautiful scenes would convey it brilliantly. But in fact, it feels like David acts at random, like he's always emotionless, but occasionally puts on a good act for no particular reason.
The second really is brilliant, mainly due to Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, a lover robot with a wonderful slightly cheesy style. Here is love -- he befriends David immediately and helps him fulfil his quest. It's just like everyone involved was just too dumb to spot it.
The third is the most controversial. David is randomly trapped under the sea in a way tangentially related to his quest to become real. He is discovered 2000 years later[2] by a bunch of descendants of robots that have a peaceful utopian society but aren't sure if they're missing the essence of life.
At this point, someone is seized with the sudden conviction that the stupidity so far was possibly too subtle, and they really need to hammer it home. They resurrect the most stupid trope they can find -- the "we'll clone an adult human, complete with memories, from dead cells"
But even that is not enough. they read her adult self from echoes in the space time continuum, still need a physical sample to create a body, and this only works for one day, after which she dies when she goes to sleep whatever they do. Let's hear it for non-deterministic bullshit. I think that's literally one of the most stupid things I've ever heard. they read her adult self from echoes in the space time continuum, still need a physical sample to create a body, and this only works for one day, after which she dies when she goes to sleep whatever they do.
If they just said "We can bring your mother back, but only for one day", we could swallow the premise. These guys are good at cinematography, they could have brought it off. But no. They have to justify it with scientific bullshit infinitely more stupid. These future robots sit down and explain all this bullshit to a ten year old boy, at great length, and he nods sagely.
But bringing his mother back for a day made him feel a real boy, so there was a happy ending.
That went on a long time. Possibly I was unfair. There were bits I liked. But the bits I didn't seemed so unfortunate I couldn't help examining them in great depth.
[2] There were three moments I thought the film might have done something clever, but I was wrong each time:
* Firstly, when David was abandoned in the woods I thought he was trying to abandon Teddy in the woods. That would have been creepy.
* When he was trapped under water, I thought he was going to discover he'd shut down in the water and 2000 years had passed without us noticing -- that would have been a twist
* Thirdly I thought he was supposed to be in a car crash and be adopted by a couple who didn't know he was a robot. That would have been good. Or was that an 80s film about tic-tac-toe, I forget?
Firstly, the trailer didn't do it justice whatsoever, "His love is real. But he is not," is the worst scmhaltzy saccharine catchphrase ever that doesn't literally involve ponies made out of sugar. Although to be fair, it does kind of encapsulate the way in which I thought the film sucked.
It felt like someone got hit on the head by some sort of heavy printer and forget all philosophy/science/ideas about artificial life in the last sixty years. I really tried to get into the film and give it the benefit of the doubt, but I mostly failed. It felt too much like a mechanical recycling of out-dated ideas made deep and meaningful by having someone stand on a skyline silhouetted against a moon.
If you have two beings. One who risks his own existence to help the other for no reason except to make them happy. And one who can emit water from his face. Which do you feel has the better grasp of love? I'm going for the first. But the entire film, both the characters in it, and the themes of the story, seem predated on the idea that it's the first. That you can have a class of beings like vulcans, who do things, help each other, and talk about what they desire, but lack a magical emotion phlogiston, and so their desires and emotions aren't real because they don't involuntarily overrule their actions and happen to be expressed audibly.
This is an old idea, certainly, but I think most science fiction written since the invention of the valve tends towards an interpretation I find more plausible, that emotions aren't a magic gloss that makes previous behaviour worthwhile, but the emergence of certain behaviours.
I felt that the film-makers were flicking through a book of tropes on "how to make a moving scene" that for me detracted a little. Any story of this sort has to have a scene where the robot who thinks he's a boy does something a boy would do and a robot wouldn't, and ironically damages himself thereby. Under other circumstances I'd find it tragic.
If it were more stylised it would have worked for me -- if it were a fairy story, then a golem who was brought to life, tried to eat, and damaged his innards would ring exactly true. If it were less stylised it might actually have felt like a realistic scenario, and I would have sympathised. But as it was, I saw all the beautiful scenery and camera work, but it did not whatsoever ring true to me that (a) it would not be known in advance if David would try to eat. Surely either he has simple safeguards against dangerous behaviour, and wouldn't do that, or doesn't, and they would have already discovered it[1]. And (b), that he has a hole in the back of his throat going straight into his internal works. Nice imagery, yes, but the most fucking stupid thing. (Although if you think that's dumb, wait for the ending!)
[1] This seems to echo the fundamental problem. It's as if he were, like a boy, trained to avoid eating stuff (or simply not given any desire to do so), but that's sufficiently open-endedly embedded that it might be overridden by sudden natural boyish desire. But if they could tune him that well in the first place, then he was already a real boy and the whole 'love' thing is superfluous.
They hit just about every old idea on the theme. But seemed to feel it was enough to say them without any kind of showing why they happen or what they mean. Eg. the idea that David might be able to hate, and lacking any idea of right and wrong, seriously hurt someone, would be chilling. But they cop out and have the mistrust of him randomly down to paranoia and misunderstanding. They say people are scared of robots. They have a big robot-destruction orgy. But they don't show any actual hate, nor any reason for it.
I won't bore you with more examples, but essentially every film is a beautifully presented example of a meaningful event that taken literally is so stupid you can appreciate neither the meaning nor the beauty. For instance, humans antipathy toward robots is expressed by a scene where spare robots are captured and violently destroyed in a sort of circus. The imagery is really good. If it made the slightest sense whatsoever it'd be chilling. But it doesn't.
A few examples, not that the individual examples matter, it just annoys me that if a good/sensible idea would be as thematically appropriate, why always pick the stupid one? But just for the record:
* WHAT KIND OF EFFING POWER SUPPLY LASTS TWO THOUSAND YEARS IN THE DARK?
* how come they're so crowded and short of labour that humanoid robot are a sane solution, yet women stay at home all day doing the laundry?
* So, there's a magic code that turns on his love. Uh-uh.
* And if his parents don't want him, the factory can't just reboot his brain, they have to scrap him. Oh noes. (OK, you might think identity was places in the brain, could easily be transplanted between robot bodies, and deletion was equivalent to death, but no, not even 2000 years in the future had the film caught up with this idea.)
* Hunting stray robots is more financially effective than buying a $10 mannequin and a small speaker than can say "help"
* David is sufficiently impulsive to suddenly appear and creep his mother out, but not sophisticated enough to follow simple instructions like "make a noise when you walk"
The film really is well done. Some people had their doubts about the combination of Kubrick and Spielberg, but they really do combine well -- the fundamental problems are unrelated, if they'd stuck to Aldiss' (or anyone's) ideas about robots and confined themselves to expressing them, it would have been a brilliant film.
The first act is about David with his family. If his behaviour felt at all realistic -- if for instance, it felt as if he were learning to become more real over time -- Kubrick's slow moving, deliberate, beautiful scenes would convey it brilliantly. But in fact, it feels like David acts at random, like he's always emotionless, but occasionally puts on a good act for no particular reason.
The second really is brilliant, mainly due to Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, a lover robot with a wonderful slightly cheesy style. Here is love -- he befriends David immediately and helps him fulfil his quest. It's just like everyone involved was just too dumb to spot it.
The third is the most controversial. David is randomly trapped under the sea in a way tangentially related to his quest to become real. He is discovered 2000 years later[2] by a bunch of descendants of robots that have a peaceful utopian society but aren't sure if they're missing the essence of life.
At this point, someone is seized with the sudden conviction that the stupidity so far was possibly too subtle, and they really need to hammer it home. They resurrect the most stupid trope they can find -- the "we'll clone an adult human, complete with memories, from dead cells"
But even that is not enough. they read her adult self from echoes in the space time continuum, still need a physical sample to create a body, and this only works for one day, after which she dies when she goes to sleep whatever they do. Let's hear it for non-deterministic bullshit. I think that's literally one of the most stupid things I've ever heard. they read her adult self from echoes in the space time continuum, still need a physical sample to create a body, and this only works for one day, after which she dies when she goes to sleep whatever they do.
If they just said "We can bring your mother back, but only for one day", we could swallow the premise. These guys are good at cinematography, they could have brought it off. But no. They have to justify it with scientific bullshit infinitely more stupid. These future robots sit down and explain all this bullshit to a ten year old boy, at great length, and he nods sagely.
But bringing his mother back for a day made him feel a real boy, so there was a happy ending.
That went on a long time. Possibly I was unfair. There were bits I liked. But the bits I didn't seemed so unfortunate I couldn't help examining them in great depth.
[2] There were three moments I thought the film might have done something clever, but I was wrong each time:
* Firstly, when David was abandoned in the woods I thought he was trying to abandon Teddy in the woods. That would have been creepy.
* When he was trapped under water, I thought he was going to discover he'd shut down in the water and 2000 years had passed without us noticing -- that would have been a twist
* Thirdly I thought he was supposed to be in a car crash and be adopted by a couple who didn't know he was a robot. That would have been good. Or was that an 80s film about tic-tac-toe, I forget?
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 02:55 pm (UTC)