In a message dated 3/25/02 9:27:35 PM, Colin wrote << The only tiem I felt anything was when they were making a side show of the destroying of the robots. Fairly typical human behaviour. >>
I think this was one of the themes -- the tossing away of things no longer useful -- and making a disgusting show of it (certainly relevant, given the popularity of disgusting shows in US TV like Fear Factor, adn the WWF). There *was* a jolting break in the movie when Kubrick's influence (the detachment and subtlety of the opening scenes) gave way to the over-the-top Spielburgian stuff (the sudden apearance of the fake moon and the robot hunters; worse still, the scene with Law and Osmond with the cartoon-like oracle), but the cavalier attitude of humans towards robots was a unifying theme, I thought. Then, the scene where mysterious beings dug out the newly-thawed oceans and found Osmond, and brought back his "world" for him, for one day -- it may have seemed fairy-talish to an extent, but I spotted some irony. I believe these beings were meant to be an advanced race of robots from the distant future -- also designed and built by whom? Previous advanced robots, created by other robots, and so on, back to humans at some point? Who knows? Remember, though, that at one point the beings said "He's the last [something] who had actual contact with 'them' [or something to that effect]" [emphasis mine] "Them" being humans. So at some point, humans died out, and these beings had had no direct contact with humans. The apparent sadness of the beings, and their compassion for this poor "old" robot (Osmond) were, I think, intended as ironic counterpoint/contrast to the callousness of the humans in the earlier scenes, who threw away intelligent (albeit constructed) beings as soon as they became old, useless, etc. Even if the intelligent beings were robots from some other place, or even hybrids, or flesh-and-bone beings from elsewhere, the contrast of their behavior with that of the humans in the early scenes still stands. Just my thoughts; admittedly, I liked the movie, but I agree it was hard to understand, the direction-style transitions were too obvious, and the movie ran too long. But it did make sense to me. Non-mechanical hugs to all, Walt
