A.I. (film)
Encyclopedia
A.I. Artificial Intelligence, also known as A.I., is a 2001 science fiction
drama film
directed, produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg
. Based on Brian Aldiss
' short story
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
", the film stars Haley Joel Osment
, Frances O'Connor
, Jude Law
, Sam Robards
, Jake Thomas
and William Hurt
. Set sometime in the future, A.I. tells the story of David, a child-like android uniquely programmed with the ability to love.
Development of A.I. originally began with director Stanley Kubrick
in the early 1970s. Kubrick hired a series of writers up until the mid-1990s, including Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw
, Ian Watson
and Sara Maitland
. The film languished in development hell
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 believably portray. In 1995, Kubrick handed A.I. to Steven 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. A.I. was greeted with mixed positive reviews from critics. This film was dedicated to Kubrick's memory after the end credits, saying "For Stanley Kubrick".
has led to melting polar ice cap
s, flooded coastlines and a drastic reduction of the human population. There is a new class of robots called mechas, advanced humanoids capable of emulating thoughts and emotions. David (Haley Joel Osment
), a prototype model
created by Cybertronics, is designed to resemble a human child and to display love for its human owners. They test their creation with one of their employees, Henry Swinton (Sam Robards
), and his wife Monica (Frances O'Connor
). The Swintons' son, Martin (Jake Thomas
), was placed in suspended animation
until a cure can be found for his rare disease. Although Monica is initially frightened of David, she eventually warms to him after activating his imprinting
protocol, which irreversibly causes David to project love for her, the same as any child would love a parent. He is also befriended by Teddy (Jack Angel
), a robotic teddy bear, who takes it upon himself to care for David's well being.
A cure is found for Martin and he is brought home; a sibling rivalry
ensues between Martin and David. Martin convinces David to go to Monica in the middle of the night and cut off a lock of her hair, but the parents wake up and are very upset. At a pool party, one of Martin's friends activates David's self-protection programming by poking him with a knife. David clings to Martin and they both fall into the pool, where heavy David sinks to the bottom while still clinging to Martin. Martin is saved from drowning, but Henry in particular is shocked by David's actions, becoming concerned that David's capacity for love has also given him the ability to hate. Henry persuades Monica to return David to Cybertronics, where David will be destroyed. However, on the way Monica decides to abandon David in the forest (alongside Teddy) to hide as an unregistered mecha instead of being destroyed. David is captured for an anti-mecha Flesh Fair, an event where obsolete mechas are destroyed in front of cheering crowds. David is nearly killed, but the crowd is swayed by his realistic nature (David, unlike other mechas, pleads for his life) and he escapes, along with Gigolo Joe (Jude Law
), a male prostitute
mecha on the run after being framed for murder.
The two set out to find the Blue Fairy, whom David remembers from the story The Adventures of Pinocchio. He is convinced that the Blue Fairy will transform him into a human boy, allowing Monica to love him and take him home. Joe and David make their way to Rouge City. Information from a holographic answer engine called "Dr. Know" (Robin Williams
) eventually leads them to the top of Rockefeller Center
in partially-underwater Manhattan. They fly to New York a flying submersible vehicle called an amphibicopter they stole from police, who are still chasing Joe. David meets his human creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt
), who excitedly tells David that finding him was a test, which has demonstrated the reality of his love and desire. It also becomes clear that many copies of David are already being manufactured, along with female versions. David sadly realizes he is not unique. A disheartened David attempts to commit suicide by falling from a ledge into the ocean, but Joe rescues him with the amphibicopter. David tells Joe he saw the Blue Fairy underwater, and wants to go down to her. At that moment, Joe is captured by the authorities with the use of an electromagnet. David and Teddy take the amphibicopter to the fairy, which turns out to be a statue from a submerged attraction at Coney Island
. Teddy and David become trapped when the Wonder Wheel
falls on their vehicle. Believing the Blue Fairy to be real, David asks to be turned into a real boy, repeating his wish without end, until the ocean freezes and his internal power source drains away.
2,000 years later, humans are extinct and Manhattan is buried under several hundred feet of sea ice. Mechas have evolved into a highly advanced alien-looking humanoid form. They find David and Teddy and discover they are functional mechas who knew living humans, making them special and unique. David is revived and walks to the frozen Blue Fairy statue, which cracks and collapses as he touches it. Having received and comprehended his memories, the advanced mechas use them to reconstruct the Swinton home and explain to David via an interactive image of the Blue Fairy (Meryl Streep
) that it is not possible to make him human. However, at David's insistence, they recreate Monica from DNA
in the lock of her hair which had been saved by Teddy. Unfortunately, she can only live for a single day and the process cannot be repeated. David spends the happiest day of his life with Monica and Teddy, and Monica tells David that she loves him and has always loved him as she drifts to sleep for the final time. David lies down next to her, closes his eyes and goes "to that place where dreams are born".
Voices
" in the early 1970s, hiring the short story's author, Brian Aldiss to write a film treatment
. In 1985, Kubrick brought longtime friend Steven Spielberg on board to produce the film, along with Jan Harlan
. Warner Bros.
agreed to co-finance A.I. and cover distribution duties. The film labored in development hell
, and Aldiss was fired by Kubrick over creative differences in 1989. Bob Shaw
served as writer very briefly, leaving after six weeks because of Kubrick's demanding work schedule, and Ian Watson
was hired as the new writer in March 1990. Aldiss later remarked, "Not only did the bastard fire me, he hired my enemy [Watson] instead." Kubrick handed Watson The Adventures of Pinocchio for inspiration, calling A.I. "a picaresque robot version of Pinocchio".
Three weeks later Watson gave Kubrick his first story treatment, and concluded his work on A.I. in May 1991 with another treatment, at 90 pages. Gigolo Joe was originally conceived as a GI mecha, but Watson suggested changing him to a male prostitute. Kubrick joked, "I guess we lost the kiddie market
." In the meantime, Kubrick dropped A.I. to work on a film adaptation of Wartime Lies
, feeling computer animation was not advanced enough to create the David character. However, after the release of Spielberg's Jurassic Park
(with its innovative use of computer-generated imagery), it was announced in November 1993 that production would begin in 1994. Dennis Muren
and Ned Gorman, who worked on Jurassic Park, became visual effects supervisor
s, but Kubrick was displeased with their previsualization
, and at the expense of hiring Industrial Light & Magic.
In early 1994, the film was in pre-production
with Christopher "Fangorn" Baker as concept art
ist, and Sara Maitland
assisting on the story, which gave it "a feminist fairy-tale focus". Maitland said that Kubrick never referred to the film as A.I., but as Pinocchio. Chris Cunningham
became the new visual effects supervisor. Some of his unproduced work for A.I. can be seen on the DVD, The Work of Director Chris Cunningham. Aside from considering computer animation, Kubrick also had Joseph Mazzello
do a screen test
for the lead role. Cunningham helped assemble a series of "little robot-type humans" for the David character. "We tried to construct a little boy with a movable rubber face to see whether we could make it look appealing," producer Jan Harlan reflected. "But it was a total failure, it looked awful." Hans Moravec
was brought in as a technical consultant.
Meanwhile, Kubrick and Harlan thought A.I. would be closer to Steven Spielberg's sensibilities as director. Kubrick handed the position to Spielberg in 1995, but Spielberg chose to direct other projects, and convinced Kubrick to remain as director. The film was put on hold due to Kubrick's commitment to Eyes Wide Shut
(1999). After the filmmaker's death in March 1999, Harlan and Christiane Kubrick
approached Spielberg to take over the director's position. By November 1999, Spielberg was writing the screenplay based on Watson's 90-page story treatment. It was his first solo screenplay credit since Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(1977). Spielberg remained close to Watson's treatment, but removed various sex scenes with Gigolo Joe, which Kubrick had in mind. Pre-production was briefly halted during February 2000, because Spielberg pondered directing other projects, which were Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
, Minority Report
and Memoirs of a Geisha
. When he decided to fast track A.I., Spielberg brought Chris Baker back as concept artist.
The original start date
was July 10, 2000, but filming was delayed until August. Aside from a couple weeks shooting on location in Oregon
, A.I. was shot entirely using sound stages at Warner Bros. Studios. The Swinton house was constructed on Stage 16, while Stage 20 was used for Rouge City and other sets. Spielberg copied Kubrick's obsessively secretive approach to filmmaking by refusing to give the complete script to cast and crew, banning press from the set, and making actors sign confidentiality agreements. Social robotics expert Cynthia Breazeal
served as technical consultant during production. Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law applied prosthetic makeup
daily in an attempt to look shinier and robotic-like. Costume designer Bob Ringwood (Batman
, Troy
) studied pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip
for his influence on the Rouge City extras. Spielberg found post production on A.I. difficult because he was simultaneously preparing to shoot Minority Report.
was released by Warner Bros. Records in 2001. The original score
was composed by John Williams
and featured singers Lara Fabian
on two songs and Josh Groban
on one.
The film's score also had a limited release as an official "For your consideration Academy Promo" -- this three CD set commands top dollar prices on e-bay and is the holy grail among fans of the composer, John Williams
. Academy Promos have now been discontinued, but they were generally sent out by the studios to other composers and members of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration as Best Original Score at the Oscars. The three CD set features many tracks that are unreleased, and not available on the original single CD edition which makes it a must-have collectible.
titled The Beast
to promote the film. Over forty websites were created by Atomic Pictures in New York City (kept online at Cloudmakers.org) including the website for Cybertronics Corp. The Cybertronics CEO is voiced by Topie Nguyen. There were to be a series of video games for the Xbox
video game console
that followed the storyline of The Beast, but they went undeveloped. To avoid audiences mistaking A.I. for a family film
, no action figures were created, although Hasbro
released a talking Teddy following the film's release in June 2001.
A.I. had its premiere
at the Venice Film Festival
in 2001.
, 73% of the critics gave the film positive notices with a score of 6.6 out of 10. The website described the critical consensus perceiving the film as "a curious, not always seamless, amalgamation of Kubrick's chilly bleakness and Spielberg's warm-hearted optimism. [The film] is, in a word, fascinating." By comparison Metacritic
collected an average score of 65, based on 32 reviews, which is considered favorable.
Producer Jan Harlan stated that Kubrick "would have applauded" the final film, while Kubrick's widow Christiane
also enjoyed A.I. However, Brian Aldiss was vocally displeased with the film, stating, "It's crap. Science fiction has to be logical, and it's full of lapses in logic." Richard Corliss
heavily praised Spielberg's direction, as well as the cast and visual effects. Roger Ebert
wrote that it was "Audacious, technically masterful, challenging, sometimes moving [and] ceaselessly watchable. [But] the movie's conclusion is too facile and sentimental, given what has gone before. It has mastered the artificial, but not the intelligence." On July 8, 2011, Ebert reviewed A.I. again when he added it to his "Great Movies" pantheon. Leonard Maltin
gives the film a not-so-positive review in his Movie Guide
, giving it two stars out of four, writing: "[The] intriguing story draws us in, thanks in part to Osment's exceptional performance, but takes several wrong turns; ultimately, it just doesn't work. Spielberg rewrote the adaptation Stanley Kubrick commissioned of the Brian Aldiss short story "Super Toys Last All Summer Long"; [the] result is a curious and uncomfortable hybrid of Kubrick and Spielberg sensibilities." However, he calls John Williams' music score "striking". Jonathan Rosenbaum
compared A.I. to Solaris
(1972), and praised both "Kubrick for proposing that Spielberg direct the project and Spielberg for doing his utmost to respect Kubrick's intentions while making it a profoundly personal work." Film critic Armond White
, of the New York Press
, praised the film noting that "each part of David’s journey through carnal and sexual universes into the final eschatological devastation becomes as profoundly philosophical and contemplative as anything by cinema’s most thoughtful, speculative artists–Borzage
, Ozu
, Demy
, Tarkovsky
."
James Berardinelli
found the film "consistently involving, with moments of near-brilliance, but far from a masterpiece. In fact, as the long-awaited 'collaboration' of Kubrick and Spielberg, it ranks as something of a disappointment." He particularly criticized the ending: "The film's final half-hour is a curiosity, and not a successful one — a prolonged, needless epilogue which force-feeds us a catharsis
that feels as false as it is extraneous to an otherwise fine story." Mick LaSalle
gave a largely negative review. "A.I. exhibits all its creators' bad traits and none of the good. So we end up with the structureless, meandering, slow-motion endlessness of Kubrick combined with the fuzzy, cuddly mindlessness of Spielberg." Dubbing it Spielberg's "first boring movie", LaSalle also believed the robots at the end of the film were aliens, and compared Gigolo Joe to the "useless" Jar Jar Binks
, yet praised Robin Williams for his portrayal of a futuristic Albert Einstein
. Peter Travers
gave a mixed review, concluding "Spielberg cannot live up to Kubrick's darker side of the future." But he still put the film on his top ten list that year for best movies. Spielberg responded to some of the criticisms of the film, stating that many of the "so called sentimental" elements of A.I., including the ending, were in fact Kubrick's and vice-versa the darker elements were his own. However, Sara Maitland, who worked on the project with Kubrick in the 1990s, claimed that one of the reasons Kubrick never started production on A.I. was because he had a hard time making the ending work.
Screenwriter Ian Watson
has speculated, "Worldwide, A.I. was very successful (and the 4th highest earner of the year) but it didn’t do quite so well in America, because the film, so I’m told, was too poetical and intellectual in general for American tastes. Plus, quite a few critics in America misunderstood the film, thinking for instance that the Giacometti-style beings in the final 20 minutes were aliens (whereas they were robots of the future who had evolved themselves from the robots in the earlier part of the film) and also thinking that the final 20 minutes were a sentimental addition by Spielberg, whereas those scenes were exactly what I wrote for Stanley and exactly what he wanted, filmed faithfully by Spielberg."
"People pretend to think they know Stanley Kubrick, and think they know me, when most of them don't know either of us," Spielberg told film critic Joe Leydon
in 2002. "And what's really funny about that is, all the parts of A.I. that people assume were Stanley's were mine. And all the parts of A.I. that people accuse me of sweetening and softening and sentimentalizing were all Stanley's. The teddy bear was Stanley's. The whole last 20 minutes of the movie was completely Stanley's. The whole first 35, 40 minutes of the film – all the stuff in the house – was word for word, from Stanley's screenplay. This was Stanley's vision."
"Eighty percent of the critics got it all mixed up. But I could see why. Because, obviously, I've done a lot of movies where people have cried and have been sentimental. And I've been accused of sentimentalizing hard-core material. But in fact it was Stanley who did the sweetest parts of A.I., not me. I'm the guy who did the dark center of the movie, with the Flesh Fair and everything else. That's why he wanted me to make the movie in the first place. He said, 'This is much closer to your sensibilities than my own.'"
s Dennis Muren
, Stan Winston
, Michael Lantieri
and Scott Farrar were nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects
, while John Williams was nominated for Original Music Score
. Steven Spielberg, Jude Law and Williams received nominations at the 59th Golden Globe Awards
. The visual effects department was once again nominated at the 55th British Academy Film Awards
. A.I. was successful at the Saturn Award
s. Spielberg (for his screenplay
), the visual effects department, Williams and Haley Joel Osment (Performance by a Younger Actor
) won in their respective categories. The film also won Best Science Fiction Film
and for its DVD release. Frances O'Connor and Spielberg (as director) were also nominated.
American Film Institute
Lists
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed, produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
. Based on Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
' short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" is a short story by British science fiction author Brian Aldiss, first published in 1969. The story deals with humanity in an age of intelligent machines, and of the aching loneliness endemic in an overpopulated future where child creation is controlled.- Plot :The...
", the film stars Haley Joel Osment
Haley Joel Osment
Haley Joel Osment is an American actor. After a series of roles in television and film during the 1990s, including a small part in Forrest Gump playing Tom Hanks' title character’s son, Osment rose to fame with his performance as Cole Sear in M...
, Frances O'Connor
Frances O'Connor
-Background:O'Connor was born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England to a pianist mother and nuclear physicist father. When O'Connor was two, her family moved back to Perth, Western Australia. O'Connor was raised a Roman Catholic and attended the Mercedes College in Perth...
, Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
, Sam Robards
Sam Robards
Sam Prideaux Robards is an American actor.-Life and career:Robards was born in New York City, the son of actors Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall. He began his acting career in 1980 in an off-Broadway production of Album, and made his feature film debut in director Paul Mazursky's 1982 film Tempest....
, Jake Thomas
Jake Thomas
Jake Thomas is an American actor and singer, perhaps best known for his role as Matt McGuire, the titular character's younger brother, in the Disney Channel show Lizzie McGuire. In 2002, he won a Young Artist Award for supporting actor for his performance in Artificial Intelligence: AI...
and William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
. Set sometime in the future, A.I. tells the story of David, a child-like android uniquely programmed with the ability to love.
Development of A.I. originally began with director Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
in the early 1970s. Kubrick hired a series of writers up until the mid-1990s, including Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, was a science fiction author and fan from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980...
, Ian Watson
Ian Watson (author)
Ian Watson is a British science fiction author. He currently lives in Northamptonshire, England.His first novel, The Embedding, winner of the Prix Apollo in 1975, is unusual for being based on ideas from generative grammar; the title refers to the process of center embedding...
and Sara Maitland
Sara Maitland
Sara Maitland is a British writer and feminist. An accomplished novelist, she is also known for her short stories. Her work has a magic realist tendency.-Biography:...
. The film languished in development hell
Development hell
In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
for years, partly because Kubrick felt computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
was not advanced enough to create the David character, whom he believed no child actor would believably portray. In 1995, Kubrick handed A.I. to Steven Spielberg, but the film did not gain momentum until Kubrick's death in 1999. Spielberg remained close to Watson's film treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
for the screenplay. A.I. was greeted with mixed positive reviews from critics. This film was dedicated to Kubrick's memory after the end credits, saying "For Stanley Kubrick".
Plot
Global warmingGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
has led to melting polar ice cap
Polar ice cap
A polar ice cap is a high latitude region of a planet or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land; only that it must be a body of...
s, flooded coastlines and a drastic reduction of the human population. There is a new class of robots called mechas, advanced humanoids capable of emulating thoughts and emotions. David (Haley Joel Osment
Haley Joel Osment
Haley Joel Osment is an American actor. After a series of roles in television and film during the 1990s, including a small part in Forrest Gump playing Tom Hanks' title character’s son, Osment rose to fame with his performance as Cole Sear in M...
), a prototype model
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
created by Cybertronics, is designed to resemble a human child and to display love for its human owners. They test their creation with one of their employees, Henry Swinton (Sam Robards
Sam Robards
Sam Prideaux Robards is an American actor.-Life and career:Robards was born in New York City, the son of actors Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall. He began his acting career in 1980 in an off-Broadway production of Album, and made his feature film debut in director Paul Mazursky's 1982 film Tempest....
), and his wife Monica (Frances O'Connor
Frances O'Connor
-Background:O'Connor was born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England to a pianist mother and nuclear physicist father. When O'Connor was two, her family moved back to Perth, Western Australia. O'Connor was raised a Roman Catholic and attended the Mercedes College in Perth...
). The Swintons' son, Martin (Jake Thomas
Jake Thomas
Jake Thomas is an American actor and singer, perhaps best known for his role as Matt McGuire, the titular character's younger brother, in the Disney Channel show Lizzie McGuire. In 2002, he won a Young Artist Award for supporting actor for his performance in Artificial Intelligence: AI...
), was placed in suspended animation
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...
until a cure can be found for his rare disease. Although Monica is initially frightened of David, she eventually warms to him after activating his imprinting
Imprinting (psychology)
Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior...
protocol, which irreversibly causes David to project love for her, the same as any child would love a parent. He is also befriended by Teddy (Jack Angel
Jack Angel
Jack Angel is an American voice actor, who has worked on many children's television series, movies and video games.-Life and career:Angel was born in Modesto, California...
), a robotic teddy bear, who takes it upon himself to care for David's well being.
A cure is found for Martin and he is brought home; a sibling rivalry
Sibling rivalry
Sibling rivalry is a type of competition or animosity among children, blood-related or not.Siblings generally spend more time together during childhood than they do with parents. The sibling bond is often complicated and is influenced by factors such as parental treatment, birth order, personality,...
ensues between Martin and David. Martin convinces David to go to Monica in the middle of the night and cut off a lock of her hair, but the parents wake up and are very upset. At a pool party, one of Martin's friends activates David's self-protection programming by poking him with a knife. David clings to Martin and they both fall into the pool, where heavy David sinks to the bottom while still clinging to Martin. Martin is saved from drowning, but Henry in particular is shocked by David's actions, becoming concerned that David's capacity for love has also given him the ability to hate. Henry persuades Monica to return David to Cybertronics, where David will be destroyed. However, on the way Monica decides to abandon David in the forest (alongside Teddy) to hide as an unregistered mecha instead of being destroyed. David is captured for an anti-mecha Flesh Fair, an event where obsolete mechas are destroyed in front of cheering crowds. David is nearly killed, but the crowd is swayed by his realistic nature (David, unlike other mechas, pleads for his life) and he escapes, along with Gigolo Joe (Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
), a male prostitute
Male prostitution
Male prostitution is the practice of engaging in sexual acts for money. Compared to female sex workers, male sex workers have been far less studied by researchers, and while studies suggest that there are differences between the ways these two groups look at their work, more research is needed.Male...
mecha on the run after being framed for murder.
The two set out to find the Blue Fairy, whom David remembers from the story The Adventures of Pinocchio. He is convinced that the Blue Fairy will transform him into a human boy, allowing Monica to love him and take him home. Joe and David make their way to Rouge City. Information from a holographic answer engine called "Dr. Know" (Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
) eventually leads them to the top of Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
in partially-underwater Manhattan. They fly to New York a flying submersible vehicle called an amphibicopter they stole from police, who are still chasing Joe. David meets his human creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
), who excitedly tells David that finding him was a test, which has demonstrated the reality of his love and desire. It also becomes clear that many copies of David are already being manufactured, along with female versions. David sadly realizes he is not unique. A disheartened David attempts to commit suicide by falling from a ledge into the ocean, but Joe rescues him with the amphibicopter. David tells Joe he saw the Blue Fairy underwater, and wants to go down to her. At that moment, Joe is captured by the authorities with the use of an electromagnet. David and Teddy take the amphibicopter to the fairy, which turns out to be a statue from a submerged attraction at Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
. Teddy and David become trapped when the Wonder Wheel
Wonder Wheel
Wonder Wheel is a tall eccentric Ferris wheel located at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park, Coney Island, in southernmost Brooklyn, New York City, USA....
falls on their vehicle. Believing the Blue Fairy to be real, David asks to be turned into a real boy, repeating his wish without end, until the ocean freezes and his internal power source drains away.
2,000 years later, humans are extinct and Manhattan is buried under several hundred feet of sea ice. Mechas have evolved into a highly advanced alien-looking humanoid form. They find David and Teddy and discover they are functional mechas who knew living humans, making them special and unique. David is revived and walks to the frozen Blue Fairy statue, which cracks and collapses as he touches it. Having received and comprehended his memories, the advanced mechas use them to reconstruct the Swinton home and explain to David via an interactive image of the Blue Fairy (Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
) that it is not possible to make him human. However, at David's insistence, they recreate Monica from DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
in the lock of her hair which had been saved by Teddy. Unfortunately, she can only live for a single day and the process cannot be repeated. David spends the happiest day of his life with Monica and Teddy, and Monica tells David that she loves him and has always loved him as she drifts to sleep for the final time. David lies down next to her, closes his eyes and goes "to that place where dreams are born".
Cast
- Haley Joel OsmentHaley Joel OsmentHaley Joel Osment is an American actor. After a series of roles in television and film during the 1990s, including a small part in Forrest Gump playing Tom Hanks' title character’s son, Osment rose to fame with his performance as Cole Sear in M...
as David, an innovative mecha created by Cybertronics and programmed with the ability to love. He is adopted by Henry and Monica Swinton, but a sibling rivalry ensues once their son Martin comes out of suspended animation. Osment was Spielberg's first and only choice for the role. Osment avoided blinking his eyes to perfectly portray the character, and "programmed" himself with good posture for realism. - Frances O'ConnorFrances O'Connor-Background:O'Connor was born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England to a pianist mother and nuclear physicist father. When O'Connor was two, her family moved back to Perth, Western Australia. O'Connor was raised a Roman Catholic and attended the Mercedes College in Perth...
as Monica Swinton, David's adopted mother who reads him The Adventures of Pinocchio. She is first displeased to have David in her home but soon falls in love with him. - Jude LawJude LawDavid Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
as Gigolo Joe, a male prostitute mecha programmed with the ability to mimic love, like David, but in a different sense. To prepare for the role, Law studied the acting of Fred AstaireFred AstaireFred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Gene KellyGene KellyEugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
. - Sam RobardsSam RobardsSam Prideaux Robards is an American actor.-Life and career:Robards was born in New York City, the son of actors Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall. He began his acting career in 1980 in an off-Broadway production of Album, and made his feature film debut in director Paul Mazursky's 1982 film Tempest....
as Henry Swinton, an employee at Cybertronics and husband of Monica. Henry is reluctant to take David home, and soon sees David as dangerous to his family. - Jake ThomasJake ThomasJake Thomas is an American actor and singer, perhaps best known for his role as Matt McGuire, the titular character's younger brother, in the Disney Channel show Lizzie McGuire. In 2002, he won a Young Artist Award for supporting actor for his performance in Artificial Intelligence: AI...
as Martin Swinton, Henry and Monica's first son, who was placed in suspended animationSuspended animationSuspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...
. When Martin comes back, he convinces David to cut off a lock of Monica's hair. - William HurtWilliam HurtWilliam McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
as Professor Allen Hobby, responsible for shepherding the creation of David. He resides in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, which is crippled by the effects of global warming but still functioning as Cybertronics' headquarters. David is modeled after Hobby's own son, also named David, who died at a young age. - Brendan GleesonBrendan GleesonBrendan Gleeson is an Irish actor. His best-known films include Braveheart, Gangs of New York, In Bruges, 28 Days Later, the Harry Potter films, The Guard and the role of Michael Collins in The Treaty...
as Lord Johnson-Johnson, the owner and master of ceremonies of the Flesh Fair.
Voices
- Jack AngelJack AngelJack Angel is an American voice actor, who has worked on many children's television series, movies and video games.-Life and career:Angel was born in Modesto, California...
as Teddy, David's robotic teddy bear. - Ben KingsleyBen KingsleySir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
as narrator and the leader of the futuristic mechas. He also appears briefly as one of the technicians who repairs David after he eats spinachSpinachSpinach is an edible flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae. It is native to central and southwestern Asia. It is an annual plant , which grows to a height of up to 30 cm. Spinach may survive over winter in temperate regions...
. - Robin WilliamsRobin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
as Dr. Know, a holographic answer engine. (Cameo) - Meryl StreepMeryl StreepMary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
as Blue Fairy. (Cameo) - Chris RockChris RockChristopher Julius "Chris" Rock III is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted in the US as the 5th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central...
as a mecha killed at the Flesh Fair. (Cameo)
Production
Kubrick began development on an adaptation of "Super-Toys Last All Summer LongSuper-Toys Last All Summer Long
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" is a short story by British science fiction author Brian Aldiss, first published in 1969. The story deals with humanity in an age of intelligent machines, and of the aching loneliness endemic in an overpopulated future where child creation is controlled.- Plot :The...
" in the early 1970s, hiring the short story's author, Brian Aldiss to write a film treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
. In 1985, Kubrick brought longtime friend Steven Spielberg on board to produce the film, along with Jan Harlan
Jan Harlan
Jan Harlan is a film producer and the brother of Christiane Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick's widow. He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany on May 5, 1937....
. Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
agreed to co-finance A.I. and cover distribution duties. The film labored in development hell
Development hell
In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
, and Aldiss was fired by Kubrick over creative differences in 1989. Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, was a science fiction author and fan from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980...
served as writer very briefly, leaving after six weeks because of Kubrick's demanding work schedule, and Ian Watson
Ian Watson (author)
Ian Watson is a British science fiction author. He currently lives in Northamptonshire, England.His first novel, The Embedding, winner of the Prix Apollo in 1975, is unusual for being based on ideas from generative grammar; the title refers to the process of center embedding...
was hired as the new writer in March 1990. Aldiss later remarked, "Not only did the bastard fire me, he hired my enemy [Watson] instead." Kubrick handed Watson The Adventures of Pinocchio for inspiration, calling A.I. "a picaresque robot version of Pinocchio".
Three weeks later Watson gave Kubrick his first story treatment, and concluded his work on A.I. in May 1991 with another treatment, at 90 pages. Gigolo Joe was originally conceived as a GI mecha, but Watson suggested changing him to a male prostitute. Kubrick joked, "I guess we lost the kiddie market
Toyetic
Toyetic is the suitability of a media property, such as a movie, for merchandising spin-off lines of licensed toys, games and novelties. For example, Saturday morning cartoons in the early 1980s and 1990s were well known for this, in particular Pound Puppies; My Pet Monster; and Rude Dog and the...
." In the meantime, Kubrick dropped A.I. to work on a film adaptation of Wartime Lies
Wartime Lies
Wartime Lies is a semi-autobiographical novel by Louis Begley first published in 1991. Set in Poland during the years of the Nazi occupation, it is about two members of an upper middle class Jewish family, a young woman and her nephew, who avoid persecution as Jews by assuming Catholic identities...
, feeling computer animation was not advanced enough to create the David character. However, after the release of Spielberg's Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
(with its innovative use of computer-generated imagery), it was announced in November 1993 that production would begin in 1994. Dennis Muren
Dennis Muren
Dennis Muren, A.S.C. is an American film special effects artist, most notable for his work on the films of Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and George Lucas. He has won eight Oscars for Best Visual Effects.-Early life:...
and Ned Gorman, who worked on Jurassic Park, became visual effects supervisor
Visual effects supervisor
In the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
s, but Kubrick was displeased with their previsualization
Previsualization
Previsualization is a function to visualise complex scenes in movie before filming. It is also a concept in still photography...
, and at the expense of hiring Industrial Light & Magic.
In early 1994, the film was in pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
with Christopher "Fangorn" Baker as concept art
Concept art
Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design...
ist, and Sara Maitland
Sara Maitland
Sara Maitland is a British writer and feminist. An accomplished novelist, she is also known for her short stories. Her work has a magic realist tendency.-Biography:...
assisting on the story, which gave it "a feminist fairy-tale focus". Maitland said that Kubrick never referred to the film as A.I., but as Pinocchio. Chris Cunningham
Chris Cunningham
Chris Cunningham is an English music video film director and video artist. He was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1970 and grew up in Lakenheath, Suffolk....
became the new visual effects supervisor. Some of his unproduced work for A.I. can be seen on the DVD, The Work of Director Chris Cunningham. Aside from considering computer animation, Kubrick also had Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Francis Mazzello III is an American actor who is best known for his roles as Tim Murphy in Jurassic Park, Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, and Dustin Moskovitz in The Social Network....
do a screen test
Screen test
A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film and/or in a particular role. The performer is generally given a scene, or selected lines and actions, and instructed to perform in front of a camera to see if they are suitable...
for the lead role. Cunningham helped assemble a series of "little robot-type humans" for the David character. "We tried to construct a little boy with a movable rubber face to see whether we could make it look appealing," producer Jan Harlan reflected. "But it was a total failure, it looked awful." Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec is an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. Moravec also is a futurist with many of his publications and predictions focusing on...
was brought in as a technical consultant.
Meanwhile, Kubrick and Harlan thought A.I. would be closer to Steven Spielberg's sensibilities as director. Kubrick handed the position to Spielberg in 1995, but Spielberg chose to direct other projects, and convinced Kubrick to remain as director. The film was put on hold due to Kubrick's commitment to Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle . The film was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and was his last film. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually-charged adventures of Dr...
(1999). After the filmmaker's death in March 1999, Harlan and Christiane Kubrick
Christiane Kubrick
Christiane Kubrick is a German actress, dancer, painter and singer. She was born into a theatrical family, and was the wife of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick from 1958 until his death in 1999.-Biography:...
approached Spielberg to take over the director's position. By November 1999, Spielberg was writing the screenplay based on Watson's 90-page story treatment. It was his first solo screenplay credit since Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
(1977). Spielberg remained close to Watson's treatment, but removed various sex scenes with Gigolo Joe, which Kubrick had in mind. Pre-production was briefly halted during February 2000, because Spielberg pondered directing other projects, which were Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in the United States and India as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is a 2001 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The film is the first instalment in the Harry Potter film series,...
, Minority Report
Minority Report (film)
Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C...
and Memoirs of a Geisha
Memoirs of a Geisha (film)
Memoirs of a Geisha is a 2005 film adaptation of the novel of the same name, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Spyglass Entertainment and by Douglas Wick's Red Wagon Productions. It was directed by Rob Marshall. It was released in the United States on December 9, 2005 by...
. When he decided to fast track A.I., Spielberg brought Chris Baker back as concept artist.
The original start date
Start date
The start date of a film refers to the first day of principal photography.A film project which has been green-lit does not typically enter pre-production until it has been assigned a start date, and for this reason a film with a start date is generally regarded as more likely to proceed to...
was July 10, 2000, but filming was delayed until August. Aside from a couple weeks shooting on location in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, A.I. was shot entirely using sound stages at Warner Bros. Studios. The Swinton house was constructed on Stage 16, while Stage 20 was used for Rouge City and other sets. Spielberg copied Kubrick's obsessively secretive approach to filmmaking by refusing to give the complete script to cast and crew, banning press from the set, and making actors sign confidentiality agreements. Social robotics expert Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Lynn Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is the director of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Laboratory...
served as technical consultant during production. Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law applied prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup is the process of using prosthetic sculpting, molding and casting techniques to create advanced cosmetic effects...
daily in an attempt to look shinier and robotic-like. Costume designer Bob Ringwood (Batman
Batman (1989 film)
Batman is a 1989 superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name, directed by Tim Burton. The film stars Michael Keaton in the title role, as well as Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl and Jack Palance...
, Troy
Troy (film)
Troy is a 2004 epic war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen based on the events of the Trojan War. Its cast includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector.It was nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design.-Plot:...
) studied pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
for his influence on the Rouge City extras. Spielberg found post production on A.I. difficult because he was simultaneously preparing to shoot Minority Report.
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrackSoundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
was released by Warner Bros. Records in 2001. The original score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
was composed by John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
and featured singers Lara Fabian
Lara Fabian
Lara Fabian is a Belgian-Italian international singer who also holds Canadian citizenship. Multilingual, she sings in French, Italian and English....
on two songs and Josh Groban
Josh Groban
Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. His four solo albums have been certified at least multi-platinum, and in 2007, he was charted as the number-one best selling artist in the United States with over 21 million records in that country...
on one.
The film's score also had a limited release as an official "For your consideration Academy Promo" -- this three CD set commands top dollar prices on e-bay and is the holy grail among fans of the composer, John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
. Academy Promos have now been discontinued, but they were generally sent out by the studios to other composers and members of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration as Best Original Score at the Oscars. The three CD set features many tracks that are unreleased, and not available on the original single CD edition which makes it a must-have collectible.
Marketing
Warner Bros. used an alternate reality gameAlternate reality game
An alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
titled The Beast
The Beast (game)
The Beast was an alternate reality game created by a team at Microsoft to promote the Steven Spielberg film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. The Beast, which ran for twelve weeks in the spring and early summer of 2001, is one of the most influential early ARG games.-Defining ARG:An ARG is a game...
to promote the film. Over forty websites were created by Atomic Pictures in New York City (kept online at Cloudmakers.org) including the website for Cybertronics Corp. The Cybertronics CEO is voiced by Topie Nguyen. There were to be a series of video games for the Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
that followed the storyline of The Beast, but they went undeveloped. To avoid audiences mistaking A.I. for a family film
Family film
A family film is a film genre that is designed to appeal to a variety of age groups and, thus, families.In December 2005, Steven Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came first in a poll of the 100 Greatest Family Films. The genre today generates billions of dollars per annum.Family...
, no action figures were created, although Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
released a talking Teddy following the film's release in June 2001.
A.I. had its premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in 2001.
Box office
The film opened in 3,242 theaters in the United States on June 29, 2001, earning $29,352,630 during its opening weekend. A.I went on to gross $78.62 million in US totals as well as $157.31 million in foreign countries, coming to a worldwide total of $235.93 million. A.I. earned twice as much money overseas as it did in North America, which was fairly unusual for 2001, when foreign grosses had not yet begun to regularly amount to the heavy majority of the receipts for Hollywood films. The film was not clearly a financial success, since the producers collected only a fraction of the listed gross revenue (in particular, studios typically redeem less than half of foreign receipts) against a production and marketing budget of over $100 million.Critical response
The film received generally positive reviews. Based on 181 reviews collected by Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 73% of the critics gave the film positive notices with a score of 6.6 out of 10. The website described the critical consensus perceiving the film as "a curious, not always seamless, amalgamation of Kubrick's chilly bleakness and Spielberg's warm-hearted optimism. [The film] is, in a word, fascinating." By comparison Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
collected an average score of 65, based on 32 reviews, which is considered favorable.
Producer Jan Harlan stated that Kubrick "would have applauded" the final film, while Kubrick's widow Christiane
Christiane Kubrick
Christiane Kubrick is a German actress, dancer, painter and singer. She was born into a theatrical family, and was the wife of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick from 1958 until his death in 1999.-Biography:...
also enjoyed A.I. However, Brian Aldiss was vocally displeased with the film, stating, "It's crap. Science fiction has to be logical, and it's full of lapses in logic." Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
heavily praised Spielberg's direction, as well as the cast and visual effects. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote that it was "Audacious, technically masterful, challenging, sometimes moving [and] ceaselessly watchable. [But] the movie's conclusion is too facile and sentimental, given what has gone before. It has mastered the artificial, but not the intelligence." On July 8, 2011, Ebert reviewed A.I. again when he added it to his "Great Movies" pantheon. Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
gives the film a not-so-positive review in his Movie Guide
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide is a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969 and has been updated yearly since 1978. It was originally called TV Movies, which became Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide, which then became Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide...
, giving it two stars out of four, writing: "[The] intriguing story draws us in, thanks in part to Osment's exceptional performance, but takes several wrong turns; ultimately, it just doesn't work. Spielberg rewrote the adaptation Stanley Kubrick commissioned of the Brian Aldiss short story "Super Toys Last All Summer Long"; [the] result is a curious and uncomfortable hybrid of Kubrick and Spielberg sensibilities." However, he calls John Williams' music score "striking". Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
compared A.I. to Solaris
Solaris (1972 film)
Solaris is a 1972 film adaptation of the novel Solaris , directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled, because the scientist crew have fallen to...
(1972), and praised both "Kubrick for proposing that Spielberg direct the project and Spielberg for doing his utmost to respect Kubrick's intentions while making it a profoundly personal work." Film critic Armond White
Armond White
Armond White is a New York-based film and music critic known for his provocative and idiosyncratic film criticism, which some have characterized as contrarian. He is currently the editor of City Arts, for which he also writes articles and reviews...
, of the New York Press
New York Press
New York Press was a free alternative weekly in New York City, that was published from 1988 to 2011. During its lifetime, it was the main competitor to the Village Voice...
, praised the film noting that "each part of David’s journey through carnal and sexual universes into the final eschatological devastation becomes as profoundly philosophical and contemplative as anything by cinema’s most thoughtful, speculative artists–Borzage
Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor.-Biography:Frank Borzage's father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg , where she worked in a silk factory...
, Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu
was a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, Demy
Jacques Demy
Jacques Demy was one of the most approachable filmmakers to appear in the wake of the French New Wave. Uninterested in the formal experimentation of Alain Resnais, or the political agitation of Jean-Luc Godard, Demy instead created a self-contained fantasy world closer to that of François...
, Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
."
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
found the film "consistently involving, with moments of near-brilliance, but far from a masterpiece. In fact, as the long-awaited 'collaboration' of Kubrick and Spielberg, it ranks as something of a disappointment." He particularly criticized the ending: "The film's final half-hour is a curiosity, and not a successful one — a prolonged, needless epilogue which force-feeds us a catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."-Dramatic uses:...
that feels as false as it is extraneous to an otherwise fine story." Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
gave a largely negative review. "A.I. exhibits all its creators' bad traits and none of the good. So we end up with the structureless, meandering, slow-motion endlessness of Kubrick combined with the fuzzy, cuddly mindlessness of Spielberg." Dubbing it Spielberg's "first boring movie", LaSalle also believed the robots at the end of the film were aliens, and compared Gigolo Joe to the "useless" Jar Jar Binks
Jar Jar Binks
Jar Jar Binks is a fictional character from the Star Wars Saga , and the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. His primary role was to provide comic relief, but many reacted negatively to his character...
, yet praised Robin Williams for his portrayal of a futuristic Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
. Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
gave a mixed review, concluding "Spielberg cannot live up to Kubrick's darker side of the future." But he still put the film on his top ten list that year for best movies. Spielberg responded to some of the criticisms of the film, stating that many of the "so called sentimental" elements of A.I., including the ending, were in fact Kubrick's and vice-versa the darker elements were his own. However, Sara Maitland, who worked on the project with Kubrick in the 1990s, claimed that one of the reasons Kubrick never started production on A.I. was because he had a hard time making the ending work.
Screenwriter Ian Watson
Ian Watson
Ian Watson may refer to:* Ian Watson * Ian Watson , British science fiction author* Ian Watson , British cricketer* Ian Watson , British footballer...
has speculated, "Worldwide, A.I. was very successful (and the 4th highest earner of the year) but it didn’t do quite so well in America, because the film, so I’m told, was too poetical and intellectual in general for American tastes. Plus, quite a few critics in America misunderstood the film, thinking for instance that the Giacometti-style beings in the final 20 minutes were aliens (whereas they were robots of the future who had evolved themselves from the robots in the earlier part of the film) and also thinking that the final 20 minutes were a sentimental addition by Spielberg, whereas those scenes were exactly what I wrote for Stanley and exactly what he wanted, filmed faithfully by Spielberg."
"People pretend to think they know Stanley Kubrick, and think they know me, when most of them don't know either of us," Spielberg told film critic Joe Leydon
Joe Leydon
Joseph Patrick Michael "Joe" Leydon is an American film critic and historian. A critic and correspondent for Variety and a contributing writer for MovieMaker Magazine, he is the author of Joe Leydon's Guide to Essential Movies You Must See and a contributing critic for Leonard Maltin's Movie...
in 2002. "And what's really funny about that is, all the parts of A.I. that people assume were Stanley's were mine. And all the parts of A.I. that people accuse me of sweetening and softening and sentimentalizing were all Stanley's. The teddy bear was Stanley's. The whole last 20 minutes of the movie was completely Stanley's. The whole first 35, 40 minutes of the film – all the stuff in the house – was word for word, from Stanley's screenplay. This was Stanley's vision."
"Eighty percent of the critics got it all mixed up. But I could see why. Because, obviously, I've done a lot of movies where people have cried and have been sentimental. And I've been accused of sentimentalizing hard-core material. But in fact it was Stanley who did the sweetest parts of A.I., not me. I'm the guy who did the dark center of the movie, with the Flesh Fair and everything else. That's why he wanted me to make the movie in the first place. He said, 'This is much closer to your sensibilities than my own.'"
Accolades
Visual effects supervisorVisual effects supervisor
In the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
s Dennis Muren
Dennis Muren
Dennis Muren, A.S.C. is an American film special effects artist, most notable for his work on the films of Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and George Lucas. He has won eight Oscars for Best Visual Effects.-Early life:...
, Stan Winston
Stan Winston
Stanley Winston was an American visual effects supervisor, makeup artist, and film director. He was best known for his work in the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, Iron Man, Edward Scissorhands, and Avatar...
, Michael Lantieri
Michael Lantieri
Michael Lantieri is a special effects supervisor on films and also was the director of Komodo. He has worked on numerous films with Steven Spielberg. One of his most famous movies was "Mars Attacks!" where he had the job of creating the very much life-like animations.He was also part of destruction...
and Scott Farrar were nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects
Academy Award for Visual Effects
The Academy Award for Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects.-History of the award:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects to movies at its inaugural dinner in 1928, presenting a...
, while John Williams was nominated for Original Music Score
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
. Steven Spielberg, Jude Law and Williams received nominations at the 59th Golden Globe Awards
59th Golden Globe Awards
The 59th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and US television for 2001, were held on January 20, 2002.-Best Actor - Drama:Russell Crowe - A Beautiful Mind*Will Smith - Ali*Kevin Spacey - The Shipping News...
. The visual effects department was once again nominated at the 55th British Academy Film Awards
55th British Academy Film Awards
The 55th British Film Awards , given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts on 24 February 2002, honoured the best in film for 2001....
. A.I. was successful at the Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s. Spielberg (for his screenplay
Saturn Award for Best Writing
The following is a list of people who have won the Saturn Award for Best Writing.-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 3 awards*Christopher Nolan - 3 awards*William Peter Blatty - 3 awards-External links:* http://www.saturnawards.org/past.html#writing...
), the visual effects department, Williams and Haley Joel Osment (Performance by a Younger Actor
Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor
The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Performance by a Younger Actor:- References :* , Saturn Awards...
) won in their respective categories. The film also won Best Science Fiction Film
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
The Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film is a Saturn Award given to the best film in the science fiction genre by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.-Winners:-External links:*...
and for its DVD release. Frances O'Connor and Spielberg (as director) were also nominated.
American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Lists
- AFI's 100 Years of Film ScoresAFI's 100 Years of Film ScoresPart of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
– Nominated - AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
– Nominated Science Fiction Film
External links
- Jude Law Interview by Charlie RoseCharlie RoseCharles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
- Spielberg's AI: Another Cuddly No-Brainer by Stevan HarnadStevan HarnadStevan Harnad is a cognitive scientist.- Career :Harnad was born in Budapest, Hungary. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University and his graduate work at Princeton University's Department of Psychology...
- A.I./The Kubrick edit - Criticism and comparison