10 July 2001

Finally!  While it's becoming pretty clear that no one's ready to head up the Jerry Bruckheimer Fan Club, $2 billion in tickets sold seemed to say that SOMEONE was seeing them - and even enjoying them a little. 

DB speaks up:  " I should start this off by saying that I am a passionate movie lover. I love all kinds of movies, good and bad. But when I read Paul's rail against Bruckheimer movies, I had to write in.

I greatly enjoy most every movie Bruckheimer and Michael Bay do. I did not like Pearl Harbor, but since Paul mentioned specifically Armageddon and The Rock, I will limit myself to those.

The Rock is not a bad movie. It is actually my favorite of Bruckheimer's. It's not ENTIRELY brainless, but I don't watch these movies to think. I watch to ENJOY, something Paul has evidently forgotten how to do. The Rock is a helluva lot of fun, with good performances by Nic Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris, plus a first-rate supporting cast. Yes, it's a patchwork of various other films, but it's in the differences that it finds it's niche. Stan Goodspeed is not your ordinary action hero, which enhances not only his character but the whole film. And Ed Harris's villain is someone whom you actually feel some sympathy for. He truly believes he is right, he just goes about his mission in the wrong way. It truly is an enjoyable film.

Armageddon is more of a guilty pleasure. It's a fun movie, without a doubt, with good effects, etc. etc. Bruce Willis' performance sucked, to be sure, as did Ben Affleck, but Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Buscemi stole every scene they were in; they alone were worth the price of admission. The film itself is silly fun, and really wasn't meant as anything more.

As a sidenote, while Tomb Raider was terrible (save for the delicious Angelina Jolie), I enjoyed The Fast and the Furious for the same reasons I enjoy Bruckheimer movies. It didn't try to be something it could never be. That, my friends, was the problem with Pearl Harbor. It was trying to be a great movie, which it never will be."

Even among Bruckheimer fans, though, Pearl Harbor doesn’t stack up it seems.  Is it possible that aside from it's other many-and-various other flaws Pearl Harbor could also be suffering from cast-envy?  The Rock had Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris.  Armageddon had Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi and Ben Affleck.  And then there's Pearl Harbor -- with Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett?  Seems a little light by comparison ….

Mike in Philly, however, carrys on in the tradition of Bruckheimer-Haters everywhere, he responds to Paul:

I do have to agree with you - Jerry Bruckhiemer movies are full of poorly written dialogue. Some of the actions scenes however are entertaining to one extent, but much like a paper cut, you do not feel the effects until after. You sit back and start to realize how all his films try to be hard hitting action with a comedic twist. Armageddon, like you said, had to be one of the worst movies ever, even the idea was stupid to begin with. Pearl Harbor had a good battle scene, but they were too worried about trying to make it into Titanic, that they did not realize that they had a true war epic that could have been on the lines of Saving Private Ryan. All Disney and Bruckheimer saw were dollar signs not critical acclaim. Now that Pearl Harbor is no doubt a big disappointment for Disney, I'm wondering what will be Bruckheimer's next move? Possibly the sequel to another horrible movie "Coyote Ugly."

C'mon … you didn't like the writing in Con Air?  "Put the bunny down" didn't make you laugh?  Or The Rock's Sean Connery line "This is more enjoyable than my average day... reading philosophy, avoiding gang rape in the washrooms... though, it's less of a problem these days... maybe I'm losing my sex appeal."

Ah well.  Of course, maybe the assumption that Bruckheimer could possibly have made Pearl Harbor into anything resembling Private Ryan should be taken as a compliment!  But Coyote Ugly II?  Banish the thought!  It hurts to think about it. 

Meanwhile the debate on A.I. continues …. Beware of spoilers …

CCO writes: One problem seems to be that people generally don't understand A.I. technology.  Right now we are shooting for insect level intelligence, which shows how far we have to go. 

It seems people did not understand this and expected too much from a programmed "toy" like Jude Law's character who completely lacks emotions/ambition/etc.  Unlike Joe, David is referred to as an A.I. of a qualitatively different order.  From what Dr Hobby says it seems they based David's brain on animal brains, neurons etc.  So David's ability to love would be real, not programmed.  Neural networks could be trained, but not so much programmed.  Besides that, David was beta.

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned already, but many people that have seen the movie think the beings at the end are aliens.  I know of 5+ people who thought this.  I asked them why and they couldn't give a decent response besides that they reminded them of aliens. Why, they were robot descendents.

The ship does scream Star Wars styling, and the flight through the trench seems very Star Wars Death Star like. That's probably it. How likely is it that they would be aliens? They have the shape of a sharp nose, eye sockets and mouth when seen in profile. They are bipedal .. parallel evolution of aliens into forms so close to human is beyond unlikely, even less likely they would find us.

They network, project images on their faces = robots.
A.I. = movie about robots

You see them skimming the surface, not flying down from space they seem to have built structures in the trenches or whatever. Even Joe can see that robots will outlast the humans.... and he was a generation older then David.

Imagine the capabilities of mature adult robots based on David's technology, then base their evolution on something like Moore's Law over 2000 years. Their evolution would definitely not be slow as biological evolution. They only want David to be happy...something you would want for your ancestors, not so strongly for Aliens.

They refer to David as one of the last robots to live with humans. Their bodies are unlikely to be biological, just look at them, you need super lightweight super strong materials to be practical in that shape. They know how to speak English. Totally compatible with David... one of the robots explains to David about their search for the human spirit/meaning of life etc. Aliens would not be searching for the meaning of life through primitive aliens."

What do you think?  Alien or Machine?  The next step in A.I. technology? 

And what sequels would you like to see?  A.I.: The Next Generation?  Armageddon II: Rockhound's Revenge?  And what sequels make you shudder to think about?

Do tell!

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