A.I - Last 45 minutes... (1 Viewer)

[andreasingo]

I just saw A.I. It opened just a week ago here in sweden. When people started to get anxious to get out of the theater (lots of moans) I had one of my best movie experiences of my whole life.
The ending gave me the same feeling as I get when I watch a classic Kubrick film. Just this overwhelming feeling that I have watched something that I never have seen before. Nothing have remotely been done that resembles this. Actually I was awestruck the whole way from the middle of the film but when I thought it was over (ever if I knew beforehand that there were several endings to come) the movie fastforwarded 2000 years... Well, the movie entered totally Kubrick territory.
This felt like watching 2001 for the first time.
The genius of this film is that it totally goes against conventions. Everyone knows that you can't make cold fairytales and you can ABSOLUTELY NOT mix science-fiction with fairytales! It's a law you can't have several endings. Especially not three! Well, Kubrick and Spielberg just broke those stupid laws.
Like everyone have said I can't stop thinking about this film and yes, it follows me in my dreams!
It defies every storytelling rule ever created and in my opinium the film wouldn't have been half as good without the ending. This film is one for the ages folks.

 

[Mitty]

I agree that the ending is fine and vital.
A lot of people felt it would be more powerful if it had ended...
Spoiler:...with David at the bottom of the water inside the submergible trying to get the attention of the blue fairy
...but not me. That would have been like Pinocchio ending with Pinocchio still inside the whale.
The most important revelation that occured to me was the identity of the narrator(s).
It was described by many as 1/2 an hour of Spielberg schmaltz at the tail end of a Kubrick film, but the only truly Spielberg-ian moment I saw was at the very end before the fade to black of...
Spoiler:Teddy climbing onto the bed with David and his mother.
------------------
Do you like SCARY MOVIES?
Scary Movie Challenge: 13, 12, 11 10 to go!

 

[andreasingo]

I agree.
The narration is very important to understand the ending. Like in Barry Lyndon the whole narration is done from the narrators perspective. Even if he tells one thing that from HIS perspective is a good thing doesn't mean that thing is good from OUR perspective. We have to understand that the narrator is not a human being. Alien or Mecca - personally I think it's a Mecca created by a Alien species. Now the twist is the love Monica gives David during the last scenes is not true love. The love is as artificial as David. But David does not understand that. To David there is no difference between love given by a artificial person and a real person as long as he thinks it's his mother. David was never loved. The ending was sad for David and even worser for mankind. I don't think many people in the audience understood that.
[Edited last by andreasingo on October 12, 2001 at 07:21 PM]
[Edited last by andreasingo on October 12, 2001 at 07:25 PM]

 

[Darren Davis]

yeah. I thought it was going to end and started getting a feeling of disappointment but those last 40 minutes or so actually sent chills down my spine. I wish that movie got more attention. How well did it do at the box office? Well, I'll definitely be getting this one on DVD.
------------------

 

[Tino]

In short, far and away, the BEST film of the year so far. I seriously doubt it will be replaced.
------------------
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus.

 

[Edwin-S]

----It's a law you can't have several endings.----
I have never heard of this law. I have seen films that have more than one ending before. These may not be the best examples but "Aliens" and "The Iron Giant" come to mind.
The thing with the robot is that he never really does become "human". He merely finally receives the stimulus which allows his program to terminate. The last 30 minutes felt like Spielberg schmaltz to me. The rest of the film up to the last 30 minutes was pretty good. If the film would have ended 30 minutes earlier, the tribulations the character went through would have been all the more tragic. The last 30 minutes basically was a happy ending.....at least from his perspective because he finally succeeded in attaining his "dream".
------------------

 

[andreasingo]

I can't see how those 30 minutes could be thought of as happy. Eerie is the word that sums them up best IMHO. The horror in those last scenes with Monica is that we know that everything really is lost, the only love that exists is artificial.
Those last 30 minutes were conceived by Kubrick by the way.

 

[Sam E. Torres]

contrary to what a lot of my friends and family keep saying, i thought the ending was perhaps the best part of a.i....they all say it drags on and it wasn't necessary, but i thought it was simply breathtaking. i had tears in my eyes from the beautiful cinematography Spoiler:when david "wakes up" in his house...man, the dvd cannot come soon enough.

------------------

[email protected]
[Edited last by Sam E. Torres on October 13, 2001 at 05:59 PM]

 

[andreasingo]

Tino. I think so too. I think A.I was the finest piece of science-fiction since, well, since 2001. It certainly was the most unpredictable film I ever have seen.

 

[Edwin-S]

---The horror in those last scenes with Monica is that we know that everything really is lost, the only love that exists is artificial----
I did not feel any horror in the last scenes because he basically attains what he is programmed for. To me, the parameters of his program was that he needed to be loved. There was no way to build into his program a means for him to differentiate between "true" love and artificial love. He finally receives "love" which satisfies the conditions of his program and allows him to fulfill the purpose for which he was built. He was most "human" earlier in the film in his interactions with his "parents" true son and in what he does at the building in New York city. If he had been able to realize that the "love" he was receiving was totally false and he still accepted it.....then it would be eerie, at least to me.
I did not know that the last thirty minutes was from Kubrick. It felt more like Spielberg to me.
------------------

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The movie should have ended with David's suicide. It was a ludicrous figment of Kubrick's crack pipe and trying to be Speilburg that generated those 2 extra and progressively sappier endings. I'm seriously considering shutting off the disc at the suicide every time i watch it, rather than endure the other half an hour of sap
Jeff Kleist

 

[Alex Spindler]

I have to agree that the endless "Blue Fairy" requests would have made a better ending (tragic does not mean bad ending). If you wanted to end it on a better note, then you could have had him malfunction after 1000 years and he begins the hallucinate the existing 'home' ending. For me, the narration at the end absolutely kills it. If it were silent, it would have been more palatable (as well as sidestepping the ludicrous 'one day' nonsense). As it stands, it feels like an inappropriate end to a great journey of a film. Regardless of who is to blame, the ending doesn't make the journey worthwhile, or worth repeating.
Wouldn't that be the ultimate easter egg, one that ends underwater and goes to black with "The End?". If it did, I might consider picking this up.

 

[Mitty]

I'll say it again. Without the ending the film is pointless. The whole revelation is in was who was telling the story, and to whom they were telling it. That's not revealed until the end, yes, with the voice over.
Children's stories are told in "Once upon a time...and they lived happily ever after" style and so is A.I., but with a twist. If one doesn't see the significance of that structure, I don't know what to say, other than that they're criticizing the film Spielberg didn't make, not the one he did.
All of this is, of course, my opinion.
------------------
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum9/HTML/007822.html
Scary Movie Challenge: 13, 12, 11, 10 9 to go!

 

[TheLongshot]

I still don't understand why people want it to end short of the end. If it ended there, I would have been very disappointed in the film. It wouldn't have had any point. Ending the way it did was about as well as you could end it, and is actually very Kubrickian. The only part that wasn't was the narration. Kubrick would have never had that narration. (I understand the reason for it, but it does lose some of the magic of the film.)
Actually, my girlfriend thought it was a sad ending. In some ways, more sad than being on the bottom of the ocean. David was given enough to love in a limited fashion, but not to grow.
I won't say that it wasn't without flaws, but I thought it was one of the more interesting films Spielburg has made in the past few years. It is a flawed masterpiece, and I respect the guts it took to make it.
Jason
------------------
My DVD Collection

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'd say the saddest part of the whole thing is how turned off American audiences were to the movie... what hope have we if people don't want to think?
------------------
My DVD Collection
My Preorders
My Wishlist

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I actually found the included ending to be more anti-intellectual than the previous 2. You could see it coming a mile away. The suicide was unexpected until seconds before, the Blue Fairy, while obvious, at least worked. The "Close Encounters" ending was just weak and unneccessary.
Jeff Kleist

 

[andreasingo]

"I did not feel any horror in the last scenes because he basically attains what he is programmed for. To me, the parameters of his program was that he needed to be loved. "
In the final scene (and the future of the super-meccas), love can basically be described as three spoken words "I love you" (A lie by the way - the super-meccas just wanted him to be happy) by a artificial person. If David wouldn't have accepted that the ending would have been less horrific. But David is a machine, he doesn't care if all humans are dead. He doesn't understand the difference. He's satisfied when the parameters of his program are set. Is that a happy future?
[Edited last by andreasingo on October 15, 2001 at 07:57 AM]

 

[andreasingo]

To those of you who thinks the voice-over was a Spielberg thing watch Barry Lyndon. Kubrick uses a voice-over throughout the whole film.
In A.I the revelation of the narrator is the key to understand the film and especially the ending.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Sometimes we as viewers has these expectations that we foisted upon directors, so when we get thrown a few curveballs, we don't know how to respond, and later shun such curveballs trying to re-order and re-integrate the film into our worldview. To me, that's unfair to the film.
Without the "sappy" end, there is no "film" experience, just a video journey without the payoff. This film is the fairy tale artform that survives 1000 years into the future, and is told from the uber-mecha point of view as the generations of humans/mechas has passed such fairy tales along the way.
------------------
PatCave; HT Pix; Gear; DIY Mains; DIY CC; Sunosub I + II + III; DVDs; Link Removed

 

[Jeff Kleist]

the payoff IS the suicide. Fairy Tales can have sad endings, and that's what it would have been had Kubrick not had the crack pipe so firmly wedged between his teeth
Sometimes a happy ending is NOT what you want.
Jeff Kleist