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What does it mean to want to be a "real" boy?
Steven Spielberg's futuristic retelling of Pinocchio is back on streaming
Every version of Pinocchio is different. Carlo Collodi's original 1883 fantasy novel is a cautionary tale about disobedience, while Disney’s 1940 musical fantasy is a sanitized coming-of-age adventure. There’s Robert Zemeckis’ jarring live-action version that is as soulless as it gets, and Guillermo Del Toro’s breathtaking stop-motion animation that turns Pinocchio into a complex source of chaotic desires. In a sense, the story of Marvel's Vision, stretched across multiple movies and shows from Avengers: Age of Ultron to VisionQuest, is a riff on the classic tale as well.
No matter the differences, Pinocchio works because it taps into the universal desire to belong. At its core, it's the story of a puppet who longs to be a real boy, but this desire comes with its own set of challenges.
Steven Spielberg’s criminally underrated 2001 sci-fi fantasy, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which he worked on with Stanley Kubrick and completed after Kubrick's untimely death, is an atypical retelling of Pinocchio. Set in the 22nd century, the film unfolds in a world that has been destroyed by a deadly climate crisis. There are no wooden puppets here, but an artificial boy, or mecha (humanoid robot) named David (Haley Joel Osment), longs to be a “real” boy as he yearns for the love of his mother. If you’re interested in this bleak Spielbergian tale, you’ll be pleased to know that A.I. Artificial Intelligence is currently streaming on Peacock.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence is a brutal coming-of-age story
Monica (Frances O'Connor) and Henry (Sam Robards) are devastated parents. Their son, Martin (Jake Thomas), is in a long-term coma due to a rare disease. To ease their pain, Henry brings home a prototype mecha child that is capable of experiencing unconditional love once its imprinting protocol is activated.
This android child, David, seems both naive and creepy, but shows tenderness towards Monica, who activates a line of code that triggers his programming to love her forever. David cannot participate in everyday human activities like sleeping or eating, but does his best to mimic and integrate. David also befriends Martin’s robotic teddy bear, aptly named Teddy.
Martin is unexpectedly cured some time later, and his return home creates a host of problems for David. The human child mocks the android for its inability to follow human norms, while his friends bully David to no end. David’s attempts to stick to his programming backfire. His desire to be loved becomes so strong that he shoves food into his mouth until his wiring is damaged. On one occasion, his self-defense modules activate, endangering the human children who threatened him in the first place. Soon after, the prototype meant to fill the void of a real child is discarded.
Spielberg’s heartbreaking retelling of Pinocchio
When A.I. Artificial Intelligence hit theaters in 2001, the discourse surrounding artificial intelligence was very different than the one we are being forced to have at the moment. Even so, it polarized critics and audiences alike. Some found the film's fairytale-like ending overly sentimental, while others saw Spielberg’s depiction of a callously cruel dystopian society as bleak and uncomfortable. These feelings persist, but the film is less about artificial intelligence and more about living in a society desensitized to human selfishness.
Whether David is capable of “real” feelings, or whether he’s simulating emotions like an AI chatbot, is irrelevant. Spielberg clearly wants us to view David’s condition as deeply tragic, much like Pinocchio’s desire to become a flesh-and-blood boy. He is a child mecha prototype whose programming is irreversible, meaning that his love for Monica will never waver or change, no matter how much time has passed.
Even after he witnesses the cruelty humans are capable of, David’s desire to belong and to be loved by his mother doesn’t change. Even after humans are wiped off the face of this earth, David remembers. Rather, he is doomed to remember, as his programming tugs at his strings, like an eternal puppeteer.
Spielberg’s ending, which I won't spoil here in case you've never seen the movie, reinforces how not-human David is. To love is to change, and to grieve our loved ones no matter how painful that might be. To be human is to evolve, but David doesn’t have that luxury either. He is stuck in a centuries-long stasis of wanting to be a real boy, and that desire might or might not have been fulfilled, depending on how you look at it. Can a mass-produced robot that’s meant to comfort grieving parents in the absence of a human child ever be “real”? This question haunts the entirety of Spielberg’s film.
Even so, A.I. Artificial Intelligence doesn’t work if we don’t empathize with David, especially if we accept that his feelings are decidedly unnatural. It is the same impulse as rooting for Pinocchio in every version of his story, even in the one where he rejects humanity and chooses to embrace his puppet nature forever.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence is streaming on Peacock.