Page 69 - Student: dazed And Confused

The story begins with David the robot boy already established within the family,
where the film introduces him later, telling us the background to the family's loss and to the
company that made him. The story ends with David watching his parents rejoice at their
news, and to this effect, the corresponding scene is where Martin comes home for the first
time. This story proceeds past this point in the film. Although Supertoys was the basis for
this film, many more stories could have been written for this film. Supertoys, however, sets
up the characters and the story, thereby giving the Warner Brothers company enough
freedom to allow the producers to take it where they want. Everything after the first half an
hour - which directly addresses the text - is technically padding as it maintains only two of
the characters until the end. The rest of A.I. is almost a whole different film as it explores

issues related to the text.
For example, both Davids are feeling rejected because of his inability to
communicate with his mother, but only in the film does he find some-one he can
communicate with - Gigolo Joe. Both Davids appear to be unaware that he is a robot, but
only in the film does he learn what he is. Monica and Henry are trying to be parents to this
mechanical child, but only in the film do we sense that she has developed a mothers' love
for him as he is taken away. Of course, both have similarities beyond the story - broader
themes such as globalisation, consumerism, realism and artificiality, the achievement of
perfection and the advances of science and technology. These issues, although raised in

Supertoys, are made more real and almost urgent in A.I. as it has been written in such a way
as to play upon the fears and realities of the audience. For example, in a Flesh Fair scene
Lord Johnson-Johnson declares that he is "only demolishing artificiality." He then proceeds
to try burning David and Joe to the outrage of his crowd because David is "just a boy." This
kind of rebellion and return to morals is not seen in the text. This element of realism for the
future has been added for the film, as many of the above elements have been.
A.I. has been heavily padded, but it was all to give it cinematic quality - a film which
could not have been made if the whole two hours had been just an extended script of
Supertoys. I could argue that everything added to the film was at the expense of something
taken away from the story; a problem explored deeply by the writing team. The team

decided on a series of events to show us the things they felt were important, and then
decided which events were going to be most visually powerful. As the film effectively deals
with the entire short story in the beginning of the film, I do not feel that the story has been
creatively adapted for the big screen as there was none of the final 90 minutes there to
adapt. Although I know academically that A.I. is padded to go further into certain storylines,
I do not think this is anything to be critical of. The audience at large need to see things
actually addressed rather than just touched upon.

TUTOR NOTES -