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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 8, 2020 11:43:22 GMT -5
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" is a short story by Brian Aldiss first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1969 and can be read here: www.wired.com/1997/01/ffsupertoys/The best way to experience it is to not know anything about it, so if you haven't read it before do that now (it's very short, only takes a few minutes). SPOILERS FOLLOW... It is fairly common knowledge this is the story that inspired the movie "A. I. Artificial Intelligence" which Stanley Kubrick did pre-production for and Steven Spielberg brought to fruition. To Spielberg's credit, he obviously tried hard to retain some Kubrick's disturbing bleakness but it didn't mix well with his own whimsical sentimentality. I loved the movie, but had to admit it was a mixed bag with some odd shifts in tone, making it a sort of Frankenstein's Monster stitched together by two brilliant directors with very different sensibilities. The story it is based upon, by contrast, is nearly perfect, lean and efficient and focused. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to read the original short story without thinking of the movie, and so I'll never be able to experience the poignant twist. It deals with one of my favorite sf themes: artificial intelligence and in particular our moral responsibility to it if we create it. Recently, they've been exploring this theme on the WESTWORLD TV show, and maybe it was that along with digging into my old sf collection that made me look up this short story... Definitely worth a read.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 10, 2020 17:39:00 GMT -5
Yes, the movie was off. Spielberg grates on me the more the years go by. He seems like he is always off the mark on something.
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