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Class 3: AI (Artificial Intelligence) The worst movie ever made....

I walked out of AI after maybe 20-30 minutes. it was lousy. somehow I had convinced myself that since Spielberg directed it, it would be good (although I can't think of another Speilberg film I'm a fan of - I think I just wanted an excuse to see it and hoped it would be good.)

the "signs of a bad movie" I noticed within the first half-hour:

1. the conference of software or computer-graphics designers smirking with superiority and laughing at "Pong" or other primitive computer games.

- while the general public may laugh at old technology, those in the field have respect for the pioneers and wouldn't laugh. today's computer-gaming designers continually deal with getting the most out of their current hardware, and they know how limited early computers were.

here's an analogy - maybe the general public might laugh at a film of old Model-T cars or Wright-brothers type planes, but professional car-designers or plane-designers never would.

2. the "gratuitous" pulling the arm off the female "robot." - not necessary. just a shock-value thing.

3. portraying the robot comany guys as one-dimentional stereotypical cartoon-villian bad guys.

- that's just bad writing and directing, and juvenille story-telling.

4. the woman freaking out because her robot kid walks in when she's sitting on the toilet.

- come or she knows he's a robot, and besides that he's just a kid. her over-reaction doesn't make sense. most people would have just laughed and told the kid to go away.

5. (this is when I decided to leave) the kid walks down the hall with his toy that defies gravity - an obvious computer-generated image.

-- computer-generated graphics should not be the focus of attention if they bring the viewer "out of the movie." the gravity-defying toy just makes the viewer think, "computer-graphic thing there."

while the general public may laugh at old technology, those in the field have respect for the pioneers and wouldn't laugh. today's computer-gaming designers continually deal with getting the most out of their current hardware, and they know how limited early computers were.... here's an analogy - maybe the general public might laugh at a film of old Model-T cars or Wright-brothers type planes, but professional car-designers or plane-designers never would.

This was one of the most jarring things in 'Deep Impact.' Robert Duvall plays an old Mercury-era astronaut who goes along with a crop of current astronauts because he's familiar with some old equipment they're using in order to blow up the asteroids or whatever. Anyway, the young crew pretty much dismiss the guy as a feeble old has-been who belongs in moth balls.

I'm pretty sure that real contemporary astronauts would just about worship one of those old 'Right Stuff' pilots.

There's one main reason I don't enjoy many of Spielberg's movies, it always seems to come down to an innocent child saving the world from malicious non-believing adults.

To me, many of his movies are very immature and very predictable. But that's just me....

I really hate (fiction) movies where I can figure out the ending.....I can usually figure out where Spielberg is going early on....