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Oct 23, 2003

  • 10/23/2003 09:32:00 AM
Brian Aldiss was one of the very few science fiction authors I had reading access to when I was a kid. He being British, his books were abound in the local British library in the city I lived. Artificial Intelligence in Steven Spielberg's take on an Aldiss short story by the name 'SuperToys Last All Summer Long'.

A.I is a cool story, I don't know how it did at the box office. There are always a number of failings to be pointed out when it is an SF movie. Science fiction traverses a realm where we haven't been yet, everyone's concept of the future differs, even though you and me are not Asimov or Bradbury or Clarke, everyone has an opinion of her/his own when it comes to the future. The success of an SF writer depends on how much his version of the future matches or atleast captures the interest of the majority of the population.

Artificial Intelligence as the title implies centers around robots, intelligent in the ways they are intended to be, by their makers ie human beings. The robots are called mecha (from mechanical?) and we, humans are called orga(organic) and now that everyone can think, scientists cross over to the forbidden territory of love. They make a mecha child who can love, and that is Haley Joel Osment. He has given a wonderful performance, as the eleven year old mecha boy, whose quest is to find the blue princess and make her grant his one wish, so that his (human) mother will love him. It is a fairytale, one set in the future, that makes it possible to have its own sets of trappings and rules, essentially different from the fairytales we have been hearing till now. Its has a good storyline, some lousy acting if you don't count Osment and Jude Law, who makes an appearance as Gigolo Joe, the lover Mecha, a fabulous futuristic landscape of Manhattan half flooded with sea (and you thought global warming was a joke, eh?) and a talking teddy bear, which is an aging super toy. If you like fairytales with a flair and a 'future', you might like this one. Oh, you like science fiction like in Star Wars?!??!! Then I am not quite sure.
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