CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Artificial Intelligence (A.I) is a science fiction investigating the

concept of thinking robots at the higher level. This movie was based on the

short story Super-toys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldis, a British author.

He was born in 1925 and well known for his works of science fiction and for

his advocacy of the establishment of science fiction as a literary genre. Super-

Toys Last All Summer Long is first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1969. This

short story is about the tale of humanity in an age of intelligent machines and

of the aching loneliness endemic in an overpopulated future. It becomes the

inspiration of Stanley Kubrick to make a project in the mid-80’s that he

worked with his friend, Steven Spielberg in the early 90’s but Stanley

Kubrick couldn’t finish it yet until he died in 1999. After his death, Steven

Spielberg made this movie based on the screen story by Ian Watson, a British

science fiction author and was born on 1943. After Stanley Kubrick’s death,

Steven Spielberg made this movie that finally released in June 2001 and

become as a tribute to Stanley Kubrick.

Artificial Intelligence is movie directed by Steven Spielberg. He was

born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United states. Along his

works as director in Hollywood, Spielberg has won three Academy Awards

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and also won in Academy Award for best Director and Best Picture. The

themes of Spielberg’s movie often deal with ordinary characters searching for

or coming in contact with extraordinary beings or finding themselves in

extraordinary circumstances. Spielberg asserted that his father influenced him

and described himself as feeling like an alien during childhood. A strong

consistent theme in his family-friendly work is a childlike, such as Close

Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, and Artificial

Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence is a science fiction movie which has three major

characters and the story is set in the mid-21st century where the global

warming has led to ecological disasters all over the world, and a drastic

reduction of the human population. As describes in the narrator speech in the

movie:

“Those were the years after the ice caps had melted because
of the greenhouse gases, and the oceans had risen to drown
so many cities along all the shorelines of the world.
Amsterdam. Venice. New York. Forever lost. Millions of
people were displaced, climate became chaotic. Millions of
people were displaced, climate became chaotic. Hundreds of
millions of people starved in poorer countries. Elsewhere, a
high degree of prosperity survived when most governments
in the developed world introduced legal sanctions to strictly
license pregnancies, which was why robots, who were never
hungry and who did not consume resources beyond those of
their first manufacture, were so essential an economic link in
the chain mail of society.” (A.I, I, 00:01:26)

It begins with the Professor Hobby (William Hurt) demonstration

about creating an artificial being has been the dream of man in the company

whiles the rain pouring down outside the company. It shows that the climate

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at that time unpredictable. Professor Hobby suggests to create a human

mechanical of robotic child who has eternal love to their parents. Some of

team members refuse Hobby’s idea and he keeps trying to suggest them for

making a robotic child who has eternal love.

Female team member : But you haven't answered my

question. If a robot could genuinely
love a person, what responsibility
does that person hold toward that
mecha in return? It's a moral
question, isn't it?
Hobby : The oldest one of all. But in the
beginning, didn't God create Adam
to love him? (A.I, I, 00:06:30)

Finally, the robotic child is created and the company tests the robotic

child to Swinton family who is stared by Sam Robards as Henry and Frances

O’Connor as Monica who have a comatose son because of a disease beyond

the science. The name of robotic child is David who is stared by Haley Joel

Osment. David is adopted by a Swinton family to replace their comatose son.

At first, Monica refuses David as a mecha child because Monica never

been with mecha before. David with his childish face can make Monica turn

her feeling and then accepted David as his son. She reads some codes to open

the seal in order his enternal love belongs to her forever.

Monica : Can you feel my hand on the back of your neck?

David : Yes.
Monica : Does any of this hurt?
David : No.
Monica :Okay. Now. Look at me? Ready? Cirrus. Socrates.
Particle. Decibel. Hurricane. Dolphin. Tulip.
Monica. David. Monica... All right…I wonder if I
did that right. I don’t-
David :What were those words for, Mommy?
(A.I, I, 00:22:01)

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 Teddy (voiced by Jake Angel) is a robot doll who can talk and walk

become the David’s pet bear and accompany David in his journey. It is

belong to Martin before and shut down because Martin bored with his toys.

It reflects that kids have toys with high technology. The traditional toys has

really lost because the invention in technology so high.

Jake Thomas as Martin, Monica’s natural son in comatose because his

disease and predicted that he can not life. Magically, Martin recovers from his

coma and return to home. Monica tried to share her love to her both sons, but

Martin keep set aside and he feel jealous with David as a mecha for him.

When Martin asks Monica to read the fairy tale of Pinocchio that inspires

David to be real boy in order to please and can be accepted by his mother.

Then he tries to get his dream come true by passing many adventures with

Teddy after he is abondoned by his mother in the wood because of his mother

desperate frustration about his being and her recover son back to home. She

feels the pain between her natural child and her adopted child that is a

mechanical.

David passed many adventures to find the Blue Fairy in the Pinocchio

story tale. This story tale has influenced David to be real boy like Pinocchio.

He meet with Joe is stared by Jude law, a programmed robot as a love toy for

women. Joe is one of the prostitute robot to fulfill the human sex need. It

potrays that technology of robot has been increase highly and spread in all

human need. All activities can be changed with robot.

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 In the journey to find blue fairy, David caught by Lord Johnson-

Johnson and brought in Flesh Fair where the human has contravention of

mechanical. It is showed the fear of minority because the mechanical never

died and they are created smarter than the human itself. In Flesh Fair, David

and Joe are showed in front of human anger, but the luck become in David.

The people released him and he can continue his journey to the Manhattan

which is drowned as a place which, “the waters and the wild with a fairy,

hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping then you can understand.”

(A.I, I, 00:14:58)

In Manhattan, David finds his replica also named David and it makes

him confuse that he is not the only one then break the robot with the lamp.

Soon, Professor Hobby come and tell to him how he is so proud to him can

have a dream to be a real boy that it cannot be for a robot to think like that.

Professor Hobby invites David to go inside and David find many robots

which similar to him, some of it in box and some of it only the head.

At that time, David feels desperate. When he jump to beneath sea he

find his Blue Fairy in the water and he goes to the under water where there is

an old city of New York and finds the replica of Blue Fairy. He goes to

beneath sea with Teddy by an amphibicopeter and trap in cage. In the cage,

he keeps beg to the Blue Fairy replica to make him into a real boy until two

thousand years passed and the human is not exist where the earth is freeze.

Narrator :
And David continued to pray to the Blue Fairy there
before him, she who smiled softly, forever...she who
welcomed forever. Eventually the floodlights dimmed

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 and died, but David could still see her palely by day,
and he still addressed her, in hope. He prayed until all
the sea anemones had shriveled and died. He prayed as
the ocean froze and the ice encased the caged
amphibicopter, and the Blue Fairy too, locking them
together where he could still make her out – a blue
ghost in ice - always there, always smiling, always
awaiting him. Eventually he never moved at all, but
his eyes always stayed open, staring ahead forever all
through the darkness of each night, and the next
day...and the next day... (A.I, II, 00:38:21)

After two thousand years passed, the alien tries to find human

civilization in earth which has been freeze. They find David in the cage and

release him and wake up him to get the information about human. The alien

save David and make a house like his house which he ever live with his

mother. When David wakes up, he thinks that he has arrived in home but

actually it is not his house. The alien explain that he make the replica of his

house to make him happy. But, David asks to alive his mother. The alien

grants what David want but his mother will be alive only one day after that

she will be died.

The ending of Artificial Intelligence, in which David is given the

chance to spend a single day with a reincarnation of his long-dead mother, is

an explicit insertion of elements of the fable into science fiction. It is

fantastical because the science of cloning by replicating the DNA in a hair, in

this case can produce only a twin of us and never our true selves.

Artificial Intelligence is a movie by Steven Spielberg that was made in

July 10, 2000 but it was delayed until August. The Swinton’s house was

constructed on Stage 16 at Warner Bros while stage 20 was used for other

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sets of Artificial Intelligence which was mostly shot on sound stages except

for a couple of scenes in Oregon. The premiere Artificial Intelligence was

released in the Venice Film Festival in 2001. The film opened in 3,242

theaters in the United States on June 29, 2001. It earned $29,352,630 during

its opening weekend. Artificial Intelligence went on to gross $78.62 million

in US totals as well as $157.31 million in foreign countries, coming to a

worldwide total of $235.93 million. The film was a modest financial success

since it recouped more than twice the amount of its $100 million budget.

Artificial Intelligence is interesting movie. Some movie experts said

that Artificial Intelligence is good movie from Steven Spielberg which can be

enjoyed by children and adults. One of the movie expert is Holm (2001) in

dvdjournal state that Artificial Intelligence is an ambitious movie and it may

signal a change in Spielberg. The darkening of the vision is a good thing.

Spielberg is now confronting aging, death, and loss in an interesting manner.

The film is all of a piece. Blackwelder (2001) said that Artificial Intelligence

is an admirable cinematic feat. This movie is a mesmerizing mix of

cautionary futuristic fairy tale, prudently measured intentional corniness and

neon-colored three ring circus.

Artificial Intelligence is nominated for 22 Awards and winning six

among of them. It is winning Public Choice Award and World Sountrack

Award for John Williams, Best Performance in a Feature Film-Supporting

Young Actor for Jake Thomas in World Sountrack Awards, Future Film

Festival Digital Award for Steven Spielberg, Readers Choice Award for Best

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Foreign Language Film Steven Spielberg, Hollywood Makeup Artist and Hair

Stylist Guild Award for Best Character Hair Styling-Feature for Candance

Neal, Karen Asano-Myers, Terry Baliel in Hollywood Makeup Artist and

Hair Stylist Guild Awards, BMI Film Music Awards for John Williams in

BMI Film and TV Awards, Best Music for John Williams, Best Performance

by a Younger Actor for Haley Joel Osment, Best Special Effects for Dennis

Muren, Scoot Farrar, Stan Winston, Michael Lantieri, Best Writing for Steven

Spielberg in Saturn Awards.

Beside Artificial Intelligence has good responses, there are also gain

some protests. Some of them come from Holm (2001) in Dvdjournal states

that there is a lot of narrative confusion Artificial Intelligence because the

movie starts out one thing, becomes another and ends up a third. There is also

some terrible writing in this screenplay. The whole orga versus mecha

terminology is ugly and awkward. Wallace (2002) said that Artificial

Intelligence is very bad movie. Artificial Intelligence is fails in every level as

hard science fiction, as satisfying fantasy, as fairy tale, as a drama and also as

an honorable attempt. The concept of robot child is rather strange. The

robotic child have a password contain of a random of collection words that

will be sealing the enternal love for one parent and loves you forever. If the

parents ever decide do not want him anymore, he will have to be destroyed.

Because, the robotic child will not be able to adjust to love anyone else. The

robotic child is also created in ten or eleven years old. The parents will not

want have a child who never grows.

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 Artificial Intelligence is most interesting movie from Steven

Spielberg. There are three aspects that make Artificial Intelligence is

interesting. First, this movie is the first movie from Steven Spielberg which is

both children and adult. It is children because this movie is about a fable of

little boy who chase down his dream and learn how become fully human just

like a story of Pinocchio. The narrator’s tells in gentle voice in telling the

fairy tail for children. This movie give the audiences some laughs, some

cathartic tears, and some tension. It is adult because this movie is brutal,

complex, ambiguous and cold. In this movie shows the prostitute place and

the cruel world in flesh fair where the human hunting the metal old to destroy.

Second, this movie is about the human brutality. David who will be

the lasting memory of human race is exploited by his creators, mistrusted by

his father, betrayed by his brother, abandoned by his mother, hunted and

almost executed by the amusement of people who disagree about the

artificiality. This movie reflects the human’s moral degradation and the death

of humanity.

The last is Artificial Intelligence tells about the human mechanization.

It reflects in each major character that they cannot separate from the

mechanical. This movie tells about each character who tries to replace the lost

love one. In the beginning, Dr. Hobby demonstrate the new robotic who

“caught in a freeze-frame-always loving, never ill, never changing” and “love

will be the key by which they acquire a kind of subconscious never before

achieved.” (A.I, I, 00:05:46)

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 Dr. Hobbby creates David to replace his son who had been death.

Monica who is exploited by Cybertonic replaced his real son who is coma and

in freeze with David. And the last, after 2000 years David creates his clone of

Monica and life with her for one day. Both David and Martin is son who

caught in freeze and can not life without mechanical aid. When Martin come

back home, Martin slump in his wheelchair, pale and limp, dangling with the

plastic tubes, an oxygen mask strapped over his nose and mouth. It is shows

that he can not breathe with mechanical aids like David as robotic child. This

movie reflects the higher technology of society where society try to replace

all dimension with mechanical object.

From the explanation above, the researcher would like to explore

analyzing human mechanization as reflected in Artificial Intelligence by

Steven Spielberg using a sociological approach entitled: HUMAN

MECHANIZATION AS REFLECTED IN STEVEN SPIELBERG’S

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE(2001): A SOCIOLOGICAL

APPROACH.

B. Literature Review

Based on the researcher’s observation there are several researcher

was already analyzed. The first is Adam Rutherford (2001, Trends) entitled

Artificiality Embodied. It focus on robots intelligence in Artificial

Intelligence. The result of this study is the robots in the Artificial Intelligence

is the potrayal of human morality that robot is only a mechanichal object and

robot intelligence can only learns and copies human behaviour and emotion.

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 The second is Tim Kreider (2003, University of California) entitled

A.I: Artificial Intelligence. It focus on Steven Spielberg character in Artificial

Intelligence. In this study found that the director tries to reflects human

condition through this movie. It is showed in the movie that there was a fairy

tale in the movie reflect human dream, the character of Joe as gigolo reflects

the sexuality of human, whereas Monica and David reflects human morality.

The differences between the writer and the two previous studies are

the theme and the perspective. From first previous study, Adam Rutherford

writes that the robots in and second is Tim Kreider writes that Artificial

Intelligence reflects human condition while the writer analyzes Artificial

Intelligence movie focus on human mechanization reflected in Steven

Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence based on Sociological Approach.

C. Problem Statement

Based on the research background above, the researcher proposes the

problem of the study as: “How is the human mechanization reflected in

Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence movie?”

D. Limitation of the Study

The writer will focus on the human mechanization in American

society reflected in Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence movie by using

Sociological approach.

E. Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the studies are as follows:

1. To analyze the movie based on its structural elements.

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 2. To analyze the movie based on the Sociological Approach.

F. The Benefits of the Study

By presenting this research, the writer hopes that there will be some

benefits as follows:

1. Theoretical Benefit

This study gives additional information to literature research especially

those dealing with Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence.

2. Practical Benefit

This study can develop the writer’s skill and ability in applying the

Sociological Approach in Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence.

G. Research Method

1. Type of the Study

This type of research is qualitative in which the research does

not need statistic to collect, to analysis, and to interpret.

2. Object of the Study

The researcher took Artificial Intelligence movie and its script

as the object of the study.

3. Type of the Data and the Data Sources

The types of data in this study are dialogues and scenes of the

movie. There are two data sources, namely primary and secondary

data sources:

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 a. Primary Data Sources

Primary data sources are taken from the movie Artificial

Intelligence directed by Steven Spielberg.

b. Secondary Data Sources

Secondary data sources are gained from the biography of the

director, books and other relevant information that are related to

the study and also website about Steven Spielberg’s Artificial

Intelligence.

4. Technique of the Data Collection

The collecting data technique is done by watching and learning

the movie. The data are collected from books and articles related to

the topic. There are 6 techniques of data collecting, as follows:

a. Watching and learning the movie repeatedly.

b. Reading the movie script to get more understanding.

c. Reading some related references to observe the theory, data and

information.

d. Making notes of important part and both primary and secondary

data sources.

e. Classifying the data into some categories.

f. Arranging and developing the selected data

5. Technique of the Data Analysis

The writer employs descriptive analysis in analyzing the data

through sociological approach. Here, the writer tries to describe the

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 structural elements of the movie and sociological analysis. Hence the

collected data will be interpreted and analyzed in detail through

sociological approach.

H. Research Paper Organization

The research paper organization of Human Mechanization as

Reflected in Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence Movie: A Sociological

Approach is as follows: Chapter I is introduction which explains the

background of the study, literature review, problem statement, objective of

the study, limitation of the study, benefit of the study, research method and

research paper organization. Chapter II is underlying theory that consists of

notion of sociology, the major principles of sociology, and theoretical

application. Chapter III includes the social historical background of American

society in the twenty-first century. Chapter IV will cover the structural

analysis of the movie. Chapter V is sociological analysis. Chapter VI contains

conclusion and suggestion.

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