YouTube suggestions actually got something right for once and put this trailer in front of me a few days ago, despite me not having heard a darn thing about this movie prior. I definitely wouldn’t have thought it was sci-fi based on the title.

The front half of the trailer, I was a bit unimpressed. The visuals are nice, but the scenes/dialog shown didn’t suggest anything new or unusual or interesting, but by the end I was intrigued, after the kid showed up. I’m hoping the kid isn’t too much of a spoiler, though.

I have good memories of Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and while it’s damn hard to find genuinely good child actors, I suppose I have a bit of cautious hope that this might riff on some of the feelings/thoughts I had in A.I.

I guess this movie is an original property, not based on an existing game, book, or series, which is nice.

The trailer seems to show an awful lot of the movie, and I’m unsure if that’s because there’s so much more to show, or someone felt they couldn’t make a trailer that didn’t show it. That said, I did think the trailer wasn’t interesting until the kid, so perhaps the choice was correct, since it was the thing that hooked me.

  • @IonAddisOP
    link
    11 year ago

    If I can respond to my own post…after a few more watches of the trailer…

    From a “mythology” or at least “reference” POV, I think it’s interesting the kid is a little girl but gives heavy Dalai Lama (Dal-A.I.?) vibes. (It kicks a bit of patriarchy over too, as IRL the Dalai Lama isn’t ever a girl, and as I understand it there’s still quite a bit of sexism when you compare how Buddhist nuns are treated compared to Buddhist monks.)

    Clearly the movie is going to explore some religious themes, and not just the abrahamic religions. Obviously, AI in this universe knows it had a creator, in contrast to humans that never truly “know”. And in the opening the main guy talks about heaven and hell, and the kid later talks about it too.

    The kid looks like some attempt to do some sci-fi twist on religion and reincarnation. Like, maybe the AIs went kind of Buddhist and the kid is an attempt to reincarnate and seek redemption? Like, they know they’re not good, not going to heaven, so they’re trying to find enlightenment via the other religions?

    Are we going to see the main character lose his child–then have her reincarnated as a robo-Buddhist nun?

    I’m actually getting MUCH more excited about this movie as I put together the themes. I just think the initial trailer focused too much on semi-generic action, when I’d find comparative religion in a sci-fi setting much more interesting.