A.I. Artificial Intelligence
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A.I. Artificial Intelligence, also known as A.I., is a 2001 American science fiction drama film directed by Steven Spielberg. The screenplay by Spielberg was based on a screen story by Ian Watson and the 1969 short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss. The film was produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Spielberg and Bonnie Curtis. It stars Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Brendan Gleeson and William Hurt. Set in a futuristic post-climate change society, A.I. tells the story of David (Osment), a childlike android uniquely programmed with the ability to love.
Development of A.I. originally began with producer-director Stanley Kubrick, after he acquired the rights to Aldiss' story in the early 1970s. Kubrick hired a series of writers until the mid-1990s, including Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, Ian Watson, and Sara Maitland. The film languished in protracted development for years, partly because Kubrick felt computer-generated imagery was not advanced enough to create the David character, whom he believed no child actor would convincingly portray. In 1995, Kubrick handed A.I. to Spielberg, but the film did not gain momentum until Kubrick's death in 1999. Spielberg remained close to Watson's film treatment for the screenplay.
The film divided critics, with the overall balance being positive, and grossed approximately $235 million. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards at the 74th Academy Awards, for Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score (by John Williams). In a 2016 BBC poll of 177 critics around the world, Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence was voted the eighty-third greatest film since 2000. A.I. is dedicated to Stanley Kubrick.
Plot
In the late 22nd century, rising sea levels from global warming have wiped out coastal cities such as Amsterdam, Venice and New York, and drastically reduced the population. A new type of robots called Mecha, advanced humanoids capable of thoughts and emotions, have been created.
David, a Mecha that resembles a human child and is programmed to display love for its owners, is sent to Henry Swinton and his wife Monica as a replacement for their son Martin, who has been placed in suspended animation until he can be cured of a rare disease. Monica warms to David and activates his imprinting protocol, causing him to have an enduring childlike love for her. David is befriended by Teddy, a robotic teddy bear who cares for David's well-being.
Martin is cured of his disease and brought home; as he recovers, he grows jealous of David. He makes David go to Monica in the night and cut off a lock of her hair. This upsets the parents, particularly Henry, who fears the scissors are a weapon.
At a pool party, one of Martin's friends accidentally pokes David with a knife, activating his self-protection programming. David grabs Martin and they fall into the pool. Martin is saved from drowning, but Henry persuades Monica to return David to his creator for destruction. However, Monica instead abandons both David and Teddy in the forest to hide as an unregistered Mecha.
David is captured for an anti-Mecha "Flesh Fair", where obsolete and unlicensed Mecha are destroyed before cheering crowds. David is nearly killed, but tricks the crowd into thinking he is human and escapes with Gigolo Joe, a male prostitute Mecha who is on the run after being framed for murder. The two set out to find the Blue Fairy, whom David remembers from The Adventures of Pinocchio and believes can turn him into a human, allowing Monica to love him and take him home.
Joe and David make their way to the resort town Rouge City, where "Dr. Know", a holographic answer engine, leads them to the top of Rockefeller Center in the flooded ruins of Manhattan. There, David meets a copy of himself and destroys it. David then meets his creator Professor Hobby, who tells David that he was built in the image of the professor's dead son David, and that more copies, including female versions called Darlene, are being manufactured.
Disheartened, David falls from a ledge, but is rescued by Joe using their amphibicopter. David tells Joe he saw the Blue Fairy underwater and wants to go down to meet her. Joe is captured by the authorities using an electromagnet. David and Teddy use the amphibicopter to go to the Fairy, which turns out to be a statue at Coney Island. The two become trapped when the Wonder Wheel falls on their vehicle. David asks repeatedly to be turned into a real boy until the ocean freezes and is deactivated once his power source is drained.
Two thousand years later, humans have become extinct and Manhattan is buried under glacial ice. The Mecha have evolved into an advanced, intelligent, silicon-based form. They find David and Teddy and discover they are original Mecha that knew living humans, making them special.
David is revived and walks to the frozen Fairy statue, which collapses when he touches it. The Mecha use David’s memories to reconstruct the Swinton home and explain to him that they cannot make him human. However, David insists that they recreate Monica from DNA in the lock of hair. The Mecha warn David that the clone can only live for a day, and that the process cannot be repeated. David spends the next day with Monica and Teddy. Before she drifts off to sleep, Monica tells David she has always loved him. Teddy climbs onto the bed and watches the two lie peacefully together.
