Why can’t I have a Jude Law robot?

This post contains Artificial Intelligence spoilers

With the seasons changing and the temperature dropping, it’s inevitable to be sick. And indeed, during the weekend, I caught the cough, flu and fever.

And all throughout the duration, I was feeling lousy, miserable, and in dire need of cuddles. With Cart at work and me being home alone and feeling dramatic, the only thing that I could think of was Jude Law to take care of me. Or specifically, Jude Law in the form of a robot in Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence is an interesting movie set in the not too distant future, in a world where increasingly, robots looks and act realistically like humans. And these robots are given various types of tasks to assist humans, such as nannies, domestic helpers and such.

To me, what’s great is that they are very commited in their tasks. And they will continue to serve their duty faithfully, till the end. While there are mainly two divides between the embracing nature of having them as opposed to ‘robots taking over the world’ mentality, personally I don’t have a problem with it. After all, having them has made life easier. Moreover, there are plentiful of aspects where robots cant completely take over a human’s role.

That’s Jude Law on the right, playing the character, Gigolo Joe, complete with his Ken-doll hair and the shiniest outfit I’ve ever seen. He’s probably be a good companion to any sick women.

Although to be honest. I dont know how much I’d tolerate his character after 5 minutes or so, because what comes out of his mouth is SO corny and cheesy.

“I think you’re afraid of letting go and this is starting to excite me. Are you afraid of seeing the stars? I can show you how to reach them”

“You are a goddess. You wind me up inside. But you deserve much better in your life. You deserve… me.”

“I know all about women. About as much as there is to know. No two are ever alike and after they’ve met me, no two are ever the same.”

And the music … Joe likes to cock his head and 30’s music like Fred Astaire’s Cheek to cheek will start making the entire situation even more corny.

Nevertheless, I thought that Artificial Intelligence was an interesting movie. Although I thought that it was majorly one sided in its view in thinking that humans will never be able to have a bond with robots.

Everyday we bond with our piece of technology. If you take away any random person’s handphone, you’ll see how at loss they would feel. And have you seen the news about the guy who loves his game so much that he married his Nintendo DS character?

I also have a huge problem with the character Monica who plays the mother. She does not seem to be very bright.

For someone who lives in the future, you would have thought that they would be more aware on the intricacies on how to care for a robot. The biggest being to correct or reward for each task done. After all, that’s the whole point to the term, “Artificial Intelligence” – that something will be able to learn and grow through experience and mistakes.

Thus I had a big issue when David, the boy-android opens the door while Monica was in the toilet, mistaking it for a hide and seek game. Why didnt she correct his behaviour and tell him about the human needs for privacy?

Or during the sibling rivalry between Monica’s real son during dinner. Martin started to provoke David to start eating when we all know that robots cannot eat. And while the two parents saw what was going on, they did not do anything but continued to sit, talking docile-ly, to both of the boys “Stop it. Stop it. Dont do that”

Cute teddy bear robot by the way

You don’t need to be a parent or live in the future to know that, that tone never works.

And they are both so irresponsible. Even though both of them knew very well that once David’s love-program was activated, there was no way of going back or restart David as how he was before. It’s not like a digital pet Tamagotchi! Monica goes ahead and activated the program without even consulting her husband.

And in the end, without investigating why David pulled Martin into the swimming pool, both of them simply judged that he would be a threat around the family. To this, I understand because every family wants their child to be safe.

What I don’t understand is that even with the knowledge that there are anti-mecha flesh fairs, which was kind of like a monster truck demolition but with robots, and that it would be dangerous for David to be by himself, she just abandons him in the forest like that.

I think that having him dismantled at the factory would be a much much more merciful. Like the dog euthanasia scene from the fly 2.

But of course, if David was to be dismantled at the factory, the movie would probably be over in just half the duration.

There are quite a number of movies that talks about the moralities of having an android companion. Like the Bicentennial Man, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and maybe even eXisTenz.

But one of the best ones that I watched in regards to this topic was actually from an anime called Chobits.

I’m not so into anime, but I appreciated the storyline that embraces and addresses that there are a group of people who appreciates robots and there are a group of people that are against them.

Unlike A.I which is one sided.

But why am I rambling about A.I. anyway? Cough cough cough. Oh yeah, its because I am sick. Having a robot helper would be nice. Then he could do the housework, cook me hot meals, help me with Italian, do the marketing, give me endless cuddles … etc. etc. etc.

If you liked this post, you might enjoy

• My non-review of Julie and Julia
• What I really thought of Angels and Demons
• Leap years! An actually decent Singaporean movie