Stanley Kubrick’s artificial intelligence thriller released after his death
There aren’t many true visionary filmmakers, though dozens, if not hundreds, of people have been called that over the years. Along with David Lynch and Agnès Varda, Stanley Kubrick is one of them, even if it isn’t exactly original to say so.
Throughout his lengthy career, Kubrick only made a handful of films, but each was experimental and groundbreaking. Whether he was pioneering new camera technology to make Barry Lyndon or pushing the boundaries of abstraction and special effects with 2001: A Space Odyssey, he insisted on moving the medium forward, even when no one was willing to take the leap with him.
For the most part, Kubrick either forced his movies over the line after years of stubbornness or discarded them after finding something new that tickled his fancy. But one film fit into a middle ground. For decades, he had a project on the go about artificial intelligence that he desperately wanted to bring to fruition, but kept pushing back due to a lack of adequate technology. He was agonisingly close to making it happen, but his death in 1999 meant that another filmmaker had to take the reins and make their own version. Initially dismissed, it has now become a cult classic.
Kubrick purchased the rights to Brian Aldiss’ short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long in the 1970s, which follows a family in the distant future whose child is a humanoid robot. The director, who had recently expanded the cinematic medium with 2001: A Space Odyssey, optimistically believed that in the near distant future, he would be able to use a robot to play the humanoid boy. He commissioned multiple writers to work on a script, anticipating that the proper technology was right around the corner. Years passed, and he shifted his optimism toward animation. Soon, he believed, he could simply use CGI to create the boy.
The lost Stanley Kubrick film brought to life by Steven Spielberg
Ever the perfectionist, Kubrick wasn’t willing to compromise, and the project languished for decades. By the mid-90s, he let go of his desire to direct the film and told Steven Spielberg – who had just unleashed the most cutting-edge use of CGI of all time in Jurassic Park – that he wanted him to direct it as long as he could stay on as producer. Spielberg balked, and suggested that Kubrick direct and he produce, a ballsy move if ever there was one. A few years later, Kubrick died, and it was up to Spielberg to do both.
AI: Artificial Intelligence was finally released in 2001 and featured a real actor (Haley Joel Osment) as the android boy, David. You might assume that the film’s focus on David was Spielberg’s doing. He was, after all, renowned for his sentimentality and tendency to tell stories from children’s perspective. The short story focuses more on the parents, but the movie deals almost entirely with David’s yearning to become a real boy and attain the unconditional love of his adopted human mother.
In truth, however, Spielberg was following Kubrick’s lead. The 2001 director referred to the movie as Pinocchio rather than AI, and his frosty, often downright alienating way of storytelling that was so apparent in 2001 gains the upper hand over Spielberg’s usual warmth.
Ultimately, AI: Artificial Intelligence is much more of a Kubrick movie than its credits suggest. Spielberg did his best to stay faithful to the late director’s vision, and the results are a testament to their joint efforts. Like many of Kubrick’s movies, it wasn’t fully appreciated when it was released. Dismissed for the sharp turn of its final sequence and supposedly muddled tone, AI: Artificial Intelligence is now hailed as one of the best films of the early 2000s.
