Artificial Intelligence

When people ask me what my favorite movie is, I always give the generic answer of telling them "I don't have one, they're all so different." But tonight I was reminded of a movie that not only has me crying my eyes out every single time I see it, but always keeps me engaged with issues about the human condition, the future, and most of all, our need to give and receive love.

There's a lot of criticism out there that Steven Spielberg has lost his cinematic touch for a while now. But this movie is proof that he has and always will be a sci-fi movie mastermind now and forevermore. The following scene (the ending) I'm about to show you comes in two parts. Everything about it is perfectly tragic and beautiful. Hailey Joel Osmond is amazing as "David" the Meccha robot who has spent his whole life searching for the blue fairy in Pinnochio, to make him a real live boy so that his mother will love him.

Alas, to refresh your memory on the movie, I must provide you a premise. Because if not, it'd just be a waste of your time:

"David" a neglected robot, was created as a substitute for a couple who's real son had died. After the couple's inability to accept "David" as a real boy, they desert him and David spends the bulk of his time on earth looking for the Blue Fairy. Fast forward 2000 years later and the world has shifted from a carbon-based society to a silicon-based society. Meaning, holographic, blob-looking aliens now rule the world and read minds and shit. Anyway, they find "David" still frozen in his amphibicopter staring at a Coney Island statue of the Blue fairy, hoping it could finally make him into a real boy. Aliens were able to revive David (aka, recharge his batteries) and retrieved all of his life memories to recreate his home for him all over again...

Start @ 1:37 to end:


Watch whole thing (BEWARE, WATER WORKS @ 2:30 MARK.)


If the past 15 minutes haven't pulled at your heart strings even the slightest, maybe it's time you checked to see if you're a robot. Just saying...

Still need to grasp my thoughts on what I want to say about this film. It may be too personal for me to write as a blog post, but to me this scene wasn't just about me wanting to call my dad every day and telling him i love him. It was a movie that tackles the issue of our very existence and purpose here on earth. We all hope that even though our physical bodies may deteriorate, that our spirit and legacy will survive long into the future. So some of us spend our whole lives preparing ourselves for what happens after we expire. The movie, i think was not intended to have a didactic message, like we needed to stop and smell the roses or something. The silent beauty of sci fi is that it uses the future to comment on our current state of humanity. The exact opposite of what we as humans spend our whole lives doing--using the now to prepare for the future; even if its a future we may never physically be a part of.

I took a class on sci-fi films once and realized its an extremely thoughtful, intelligent, and important genre of film that can actually inspire audiences. Anyway, I could talk about space and time and everything in between, but the beauty of good movies is that the film speaks for itself. So, with that said, thank you for devoting at least 15 minutes of your times to give me the opportunity to share with you this film.

With a "Vulcan" hand sign firmly in tact, I leave in peace.

Live long and prosper,
J