r/Millennials • u/MagicianDue6103 • 1h ago
Other whatever you do, do not watch this movie in 2026
(Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg - 2001)
This movie was upsetting and hard to watch in 2001. How are we feeling now? Yassified jude law is the only comic relief. Some highlights, gonna trauma dump bc I need to sleep tonight and I am completely wrecked:
- Haley Joel Osment's acting in this film recalls the emotions of all of his others from this time, and in the context of this film, it is gut wrenching. Like is the actor of our generation who completely froze time.
- My son is Davids age in this movie and that has done something to me that makes me want to go wake him up and tell him I love him.
- What the fuck are we doing to the planet?
- A striking self awareness in this movie, on a human level, as if it was decided a long time ago that AI would be ushered in to destroy humanity.
- Disguised misogyny typical of 90s movies, of course sex robots... but it has a modern cruelty that is super detached and very very sad.
- Strong commentary on the mental and emotional load of motherhood.
- We are only here for a brief moment, but our actions, our consequences, our refuse will be our legacy.
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u/ears_of_steam 1h ago
I saw it when I was 17; my relationship with my parents was poor at the time. I cried throughout the 3rd act.
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u/Risaza 1h ago
It’s a great movie, one of my favorites.
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u/EternalMage321 1h ago
It went a little off the rails towards the end, but overall pretty good.
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u/ProgrammerOk3315 1h ago
The ending isn't meant to be taken literally.
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u/EternalMage321 36m ago
You mean aliens finding the robot kid on an archeological dig and making a clone of his mom that loves him, but only for a day WASN'T MEANT TO BE LITERAL?
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u/DowntownStructure180 1h ago
I remember this and while it was really well acted and tragic, it just... kept going so long, and new things kept getting introduced, and at some point theres aliens... it just became bloated enough that it just became misery porn. Most later Spielbergs did this, just needed some solid editing.
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u/mikethebirdboy 1h ago
Those aren’t aliens at the end. They’re a future generation of advanced robots built after humanity has long been extinct. Hence why they’re excavating old New York searching for earlier robotic models which have memories of humans. David is important to them because his mind.
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u/mkhannah23 1h ago
I love this movie. I never cry during movies, but this completely broke me for days afterwards. I think about the themes and questions it asks all the time: what obligation do we have to our creations? If an artificial intelligence is programmed to feel love, is it love? If an ai is made in the shape of a child, is it any different than the adult versions of the same thing? What makes the child different and why?
And my favorite quote by Jude Law, “I am. I was.”
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u/SparkyDogPants 1h ago
I saw this in theaters with my dad when I was 10/11. It was so uncomfortable.
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u/OriginalTayRoc 1h ago
Almost watched this with my 11 year old son last night glad we went with a Jim Carrey instead
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u/freshwaterfins 1h ago
Cried terribly as a child seeing this. Basically howled as an adult because David reminds me so much of my special needs son. One of my favorites but a very painful watch.
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u/rydan Older Millennial 1h ago
I scammed Hollywood Video into letting me watch it for free. They had a deal where if an in demand movie was not in stock they'd give you a voucher to get it free. It was my birthday which also meant free movie. So I just sort of hung out near the register to catch someone asking if a movie was available. Guy goes up to the counter and asks if AI is available. It wasn't. He gets voucher. Armed with his information I find a random movie, show them my id with my birthday on it, ask if AI is available, get voucher. Return next day to get $1 cashback on my free movie (another deal they had). Ask if they have AI available. They do. I hand them my voucher. Watch it. Terrible movie. Hated it. Return next day to get another $1 cashback. I think I then rented a third movie with my $2 cashback and paying a $1 out of pocket which I then returned the next day to get back the $1 basically giving me 3 free movies.
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u/Artemis87 59m ago
Cried so hard when it first came out. My mom had passed not long before and watching him wait for his mom to come to come back..... Ouch.
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u/Noshoesmagoos 1h ago
I wouldn't be too upset by this movie if you think it's some glimpse into the near future, because it isn't.
The way things are going irl none of us will be able to afford a robot, so it won't become normalized in society like in the movie. The materials to make it wouldn't be profitable so lifelike robots couldn't be mass produced.
That's what is so fun about scifi. Imagining our society as it is today but with crazy technological advancements and the impact they'd have on us.
You should watch Gattica next.
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u/Prize_Ostrich7605 8m ago
I imagine future where society collapses on the cusp of robot integration, everything is neatly packed in boxes, ready to be shipped out. Like the company ran full steam ahead, ran out of money and everything just stopped. Like a y2k shutdown, robots were supposed to be online by a certain date, system updated and we ran out of gas. the robots that had been implemented locked up, and caused a full eleectrical black out. Since all analog knobs were removed for sexy displays and sleak design, there isn't a way to bring it back online.
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u/TrowaMask 53m ago edited 47m ago
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Looking at how quickly humanoid robotics is advancing in China, especially when it comes to manufacturing costs / economies of scale, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine capable household robots costing less than a car by 2055. That's within many of our lifetimes.
Some Chinese humanoid robots are already pretty affordable, even if their capabilities are currently limited. Another 30 years of technological progress and mass production could make a huge difference.
But whether AI will actually be advanced enough by then to give us robots as intelligent and autonomous as those in the movie is the real question. I wouldn't rule out that future on manufacturing costs alone.
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u/MySincereOpinion Millennial 1h ago
It wasn't really a bad one but towards the end was quite upsetting
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u/TrowaMask 1h ago
Nice post.
The timing around watching this movie when it first came out interestingly coincided with the solidified end of any of my childlike wonder and naivety.
I recently completed Future Man (really far out there comedy I enjoyed), with Haley Joel Osment in it. He's certainly not the adorable young boy he was. Still awesome though.
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u/DyingStarlight0123 1h ago
I watched this in the theater with my parents when I was 10. About maybe 10, 15 minutes left in the movie, I was so disturbed that I told my parents that I'm just going to wait outside the theater and walked out in the middle of the movie. I ended up finishing the movie as an adult, and I wasn't any less disturbed. Just stared into space for some time after the movie ended.
It's a great movie, though. Would recommend.
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u/OkDeer120 1h ago edited 56m ago
God this movie absolutely wrecked me. I remember I laid in my mom’s bed and couldn’t stop sobbing at the ending
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u/essstabchen Early 90's Millennial 49m ago
I just recently watched this movie and it's like 3 different movies in one. It had no idea what it wants to be or what tone it's going for.
It's less than the sum of its well-crafted parts.
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u/ClyanStar 23m ago
I actually saw it recently, and i think the endings is rediculously bad writing, but overall... meh. Pretty harmless movie imo.
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u/Pdxthorns17 7m ago
This gave me the biggest existential crisis as an 8-year-old. It terrified me about death, isolation, and eternity.
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u/4T_Knight 3m ago
The scrapyard scene and the flesh fair definitely stayed with me after all these years. Sure, there's the artifical intelligence angle--but just seeing all those older models just made me think about all the tech that has come and gone within the last decades. Every now and then I'll think of some random thing being advertised from an old commercial or paper ads, and head to the usual spots to see if it commands value from dedicated groups or if they've become practically worthless.
Then I often think about how some of these things were sold by the millions, and now they're either languishing someplace in someone's house either completely forgotten or getting occasional use, at a thrift shop, a warehouse, in a landfill, or the remaining ones that were never used that ended up getting recycled or destroyed.
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