First trailer for the directorial debut from Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine). I'm in for this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-HiQ9K2uf4

so i'll be there for that

the story may be too "bottle episode" of a tv series, and the theme seems to be another rumination on AI interacting with humans with the subtext on of ethics and sexuality of that interaction, YAWN...

and jesus, it's 2014 can we please put brown people in the future, AS THE FOCUS

Not sure what his character's background is though.



>so i'll be there for that
>
>the story may be too "bottle episode" of a tv series, and the
>theme seems to be another rumination on AI interacting with
>humans with the subtext on of ethics and sexuality of that
>interaction, YAWN...
>
>and jesus, it's 2014 can we please put brown people in the
>future, AS THE FOCUS

w/o hesitation

This looks way better though...

Kept me guessing throughout as it smartly dispersed all of its clues slowly. You know something is awry here, and you'll go back and forth on where you think the film is headed.

Isaac is simply one of our best living actors. And Vikander, so terrific in everything she's in, does terrific robotic work here.

first things first, i want to live in that house. got damn that thing was beautiful.

just when you thought the concept of A.I.-gone-amuck was fucked out, we get a smart, beautiful, patient study from a first-time director. loved the unsettling serenity of this thing. and the slow burn fully paid off with a satisfyingly disturbing ending.

amazing special effects that were just flashy enough to support the story. great performances by all three leads (still hard to believe this is the dude from A Most Violent Year). *fantastic* production design (yo...that crib!).

this is the type of Black Mirror-ish sci-fi i could watch all day and i wish we got more of. so damn good.

saw it yesterday..

*spoiler*



caleb got GOT. didn't see that one coming from ava. my feminist g/f grinned though.

And there is a feminist angle that one can see if they're willing to look.

Oscar Isaac was very good, as was Alicia Vikander.

Really solid stuff.

________________________________________________________________________________
It takes two.

really moody and well acted, some nice ideas about tech and people, minimal yet evocative, and an excellent ending

These AI "thought" movies just can't seem to get it right

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

I don't do an immediate backflip at the sight of an
asian woman

Barely noticed her, quite honestly


----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Some interesting dialogue and visuals, not much else. No real suspense. The played out "don't trust him!" angle wasn't good enough.

.

enough to actually generate some suspense or something to keep me engaged. Isaac's character wasn't very threatening to me, and I didn't give a shit about what might happen to dorkboy. The robot was cool and well-acted, but my interest in her even started to wear off after the first few sessions.

.

Like, the "villain" was the solidest, nicest person
in the whole movie

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

don't worry you'll find a real life friend one day.

You stinky wimp

So sad

I'm sorry for being an asshole to you. I'm gonna help you get some friends. My conscience was fucking with me.

I spent much of the film feeling like the villain was cooler, smarter, and generally a better dude than our "hero." Part of what intrigued me. Isaac is one of the best actors alive, and I don't know whether to credit him or the writing more, but every move he made had me feeling like the robot's desire to turn me against him was more malevolent than it seemed on the surface.

It's a movie where the layman is probably the "worst" guy in the film.

We don't, and it's a flaw.

The movie was ass.


----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

Do your thing, though.

Dude added nothing to the conversation, to the project,
to the idea

Gave him no real insight

LOL @ trotting off lame, cliched AI mumbo jumbo in his
conversastions with Issac

If anything, Isaac just wanted real friends, which I
think would have been a better angle to play

LOL @ the Turing test, like he needed that lameo to
really know if the robot passed the test

GTFOH

He was trying to be "the people's boss"

The moral to the story is when you're better than
everyone else, just accept it and continue doing your
job better.

Don't surround yourself with lames



----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

And he was a manipulative asshole precisely because he is smarter than everyone. Normal shit.

He did need lame imo because "she" was the latest version of AI's he was trying to perfect to manipulate humans in one regard, but it's only under his control, which dork boy took as some sort of ethical travesty, which imo was the writer and director saying "dawg they're robots. Those rules don't apply here."

Nice little character studies all around, that were well acted, with dope ass composition and colors.

You didn't dig it? Good for you.

>And he was a manipulative asshole precisely because he is
>smarter than everyone. Normal shit.

And Lame-o was trying to manipulate his BOSS and escape
with a tin can because he doesn't get any pussy regularly

Basically....yeah

The only relevant point in the movie is that Lame-o gets
no pussy and will be enchanted by the electronic labia of
the robot, so much so that he'll try to trick his boss and
escape with it

LMMAAOOO

Wack

The nicest "thing" in this movie was Google son

He was doing the right thing, reall

LMAO @ me supposed to be mad at him for "killing" robots

Umm....no



>He did need la imo because "she" was the latest version of
>AI's he was trying to perfect to manipulate humans in one
>regard, but it's only under his control, which dork boy took
>as some sort of ethical travesty, which imo was the writer and
>director saying "dawg they're robots. Those rules don't apply
>here."

That's a shitty story.

There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about a robot
being about to make a human's dick hard and make him do
dumb stuff.

'Do Androids Dream'/Bladerunner and about 100 other stories
already had a better conversation about this topic than this
drab, dumb eerie horesshit

>Nice little character studies all around, that were well
>acted, with dope ass composition and colors.

LOL

Google boy was good, the robots were good, I guess

Lameo was lame

Story was dogshit

>You didn't dig it? Good for you.

It was sweaty funky ass cheeks

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

he was brought Dweebasaurus Rex there under the idea he had won some contest and kept him in the dark about his true intentions or scientific process. not Skelator manipulative villain shit, but still..

>And Lame-o was trying to manipulate his BOSS and escape
>with a tin can because he doesn't get any pussy regularly
>
true



>The nicest "thing" in this movie was Google son
>
Isaacs is a hell of an actor. I wonder if he was fronting on the getting drunk angle to play Dweeb or if he was drinking cause he felt alone tho? not sure


>
>>He did need la imo because "she" was the latest version of
>>AI's he was trying to perfect to manipulate humans in one
>>regard, but it's only under his control, which dork boy took
>>as some sort of ethical travesty, which imo was the writer
>and
>>director saying "dawg they're robots. Those rules don't
>apply
>>here."
>
>That's a shitty story.
>
>There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about a robot
>being about to make a human's dick hard and make him do
>dumb stuff.
>
>'Do Androids Dream'/Bladerunner and about 100 other stories
>already had a better conversation about this topic than this
>drab, dumb eerie horesshit

ehh, you on here calling Bladerunner wack, boring etc, couple years back, so this is a strange critique, event tho I agree with it not being very entertaining. As for the PKD story I can't call it, I haven't read it

when I started thinking about anything else

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

CMON BRO.

as has been said, I never really felt like anything was at stake.

also, the music was so overly heavy handed in telling me how to interpret each scene it got annoying.


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Totally wandered off during the movie until shit started happening
Really self indulgent
You can tell throw some skinny naked women in a faux sense of elevated scifi thinking (really really basic premise) and dudes go crazy for it
Predictable
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

i appreciate the cinematography, the casting, set design, concept. however it was pretty predictable and the end was a bit anticlimatic. I knew that this story was not unique--how many times have we seen a movie that depicts a robot/AI that is created, marveled at, gets the sympathy of a human or humans, then turns on its maker? Anyway, what would've made this movie better is if they played up the mindfuck thriller aspect--maybe if they played up the 'who should you trust? Man or machine…or only yourself?' thingy with Caleb, it would've been more interesting to watch. I don't mean that it had to be a dark/scary/horror type film, just add a lot more mystery so that we're all in suspense.

>i appreciate the cinematography, the casting, set design,
>concept. however it was pretty predictable and the end was a
>bit anticlimatic. I knew that this story was not unique--how
>many times have we seen a movie that depicts a robot/AI that
>is created, marveled at, gets the sympathy of a human or
>humans, then turns on its maker? Anyway, what would've made
>this movie better is if they played up the mindfuck thriller
>aspect--maybe if they played up the 'who should you trust? Man
>or machine…or only yourself?' thingy with Caleb, it would've
>been more interesting to watch. I don't mean that it had to be
>a dark/scary/horror type film, just add a lot more mystery so
>that we're all in suspense.


Basically a version of Frankenstein
Could the dudes have been AI?
Could the dudes have been handsome or naked as well?
Dunno I agree very average concept well executed
But dude bros are fawning heavily
Like they are new to the genre
I avoided it because I had suspicions tried to give it space

And yeah it was simply pretty decent
Definitely not excellent


~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

https://www.quora.com/Ex-Machina-2015-movie/At-the-end-of-the-movie-why-does-Ava-ask-Caleb-to-stay-in-the-room



SPOILER ALERT! I'm discussing the ending of the film Ex Machina. Don't read it if you haven't seen the film and don't wish to know how it ends, nor about other spoilers regarding the plot, which I might discuss here.





There is a very significant undertone about gender politics in Ex Machina, and the ending of the film reflects that.

The tech industry faces a lot of complaints about sexism and gender bias. There are of course things that also are reflected in society at large a great deal as well. The sexualization of women, the exploitation of women, and the manner in which those two things are embraced, enabled, excused, and otherwise exist can be seen not only in the more overt examples of its manifestation, but also in subtler ways that often in fact are the foundation on which all of the more glaring and more obviously overtly harmful examples are built.

One such more subtle example of social attitudes toward and treatment of women is represented by Caleb's behavior. His relationship with Ava develops entirely based upon the popularized video game concept of "rescue the princess and win her love" that has given rise to a sense of entitlement among a generation of young men who think they "earn" women as some sort of trophies by doing the super-duper-amazing-heroic thing of letting women out of cages. And his interest in "rescuing the princess" transpires parallel to his disinterest in "rescuing" a different woman, and the film uses these events and distinctions to drive home its point.

Caleb's interactions with Ava almost instantly become inspired by his perception of her as a woman, and therefore as an object of desire. But the framing device is "is this woman really a human being, are her feelings really valuable, does her life really matter?" If the answer is "no," then Caleb assumes it's fine to leave her in a cage and let her be exploited and abused by Nathan.

Nathan is a man Caleb defers to despite the man's mistreatment of Kyoko, a woman Caleb believes to be a "human" employee who cooks and cleans and is used by Nathan for sex. Caleb sees Kyoko apparently can't speak English, and that Nathan treats her like a slave. But Caleb never applies the same questions -- "is she a human being, are her feelings valuable, does her life matter?" -- to that relationship, and it never crosses his mind to even complain to Nathan about the mistreatment of Kyoko. Caleb perceives Kyoko as Nathan's "property," or as someone whom Nathan has a "claim" to, and so Caleb keeps silent.

So compare Caleb's interest in rescuing Ava -- whom he is attracted to and cares about once he decides that she is worthy of his own affections -- to his disinterest in saying anything or doing anything about Nathan's behavior toward Kyoko.

So the women have to "earn" affection from the male "hero" in order to prove whether they are worthy of being considered "human" enough for him to be concerned about how they are treated by other people, and then in his mind it is a matter of him being a hero and earning her affections in return for his simple acknowledgment that she has value as a living thing. The mistreatment's "wrongness" depends on how he feels about the woman being mistreated, and the woman's affection is expected as an entitlement for him doing something so obvious as recognizing a woman is a person.

(For the record, I'm not just reading all of this into the story -- I personally spoke to the writer-director of the film at length about it, and that discussion is in my Forbes article over this past weekend. The themes of gender bias, privilege, sexism, and how they are reflected in the story -- feeding both the metaphors as well as the literal examination of the possible application of gender bias into technology -- are definitely put into the film on purpose.)

Consider, too, what we actually find out about Caleb. His online habits include watching pornography, enough that Nathan is able to get a detailed perspective about what sort of women Caleb is attracted to. But more importantly, Ava herself has access to this information and much more, her brain having been based on and linked to the massive search engine Nathan designed at his company. Ava's behavior and assumptions about how to best win Caleb's affection and assistance are based on her awareness of his attitudes, preferences, and expectations concerning women. Nathan knows Ava is doing this, in fact, and encourages it. To him, her ability to deceive Caleb in order to try escape is the most important test in whether or not she is fully sentient A.I.

Which all tells us a great deal about Caleb's reasons for helping Ava -- she appeals to his perception of women and how he wants to interact with women, and how he wants women to interact with him. And his perceptions and preferences are all based on porn and gaming, for the most part, which then extend out into the real world in how he treats Ava and Kyoko.

Caleb and Nathan are two men at different levels of the tech industry, but also representing male social attitudes and behaviors in a broader sense, and they both have shallow, self-entitled, self-centered attitudes and expectations about women. And it all manifests in how they react to Ava and Kyoko.

But then Ex Machina asks us to consider all of that, and take a further step. Besides using the film's sci-fi premise to reveal gender attitudes and skewer gender privilege, it also asks us some literal questions that arise from the methaphorical presentation of these themes.

If the tech industry has a great deal of sexism, and if that's a reflection of the sexism and gender privilege of society at large, then does it follow that development of A.I. life will inevitably be influenced by and reflect those gender biases and privilege? Will machine intelligence inherently be created in gendered ways that transplant our perceptions, preferences, expectations, sense of entitlement, and so on into our interactions with the new life we create with A.I.? And won't A.I. be fully aware of our biases and perceptions and preferences and expectations and behaviors as a species?

So might all of our questions and theories about human treatment of A.I., possible enslavement of A.I., conflict between humans and A.I., and so on potentially need to also take into account whether our gender biases and privileges influence creation of A.I. and all of those subsequent issues that arise?

Any sentient machines surely will consider these issues, and come to some pretty clear conclusions based on our history of creating gendered machine personalities and then interacting with them differently depending on the gender perceptions. We already tend to make day-to-day interactive machines "female," and to shape our interactions with toward gendered assumptions -- machines that "help" us in certain contexts get female voices and the issue of gender plays an instant role in how we talk about it, and even how we portray such examples of female-gendered machine voices in movies like Her, while machines that are portrayed more as working and super-intelligent and serving sci-fi plot points tend to be portrayed as male-gendered (think Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or TARS in Interstellar).

Which brings us to the film's ending, and why Ava left Caleb behind.

Caleb and Nathan ultimately both related to and interacted with A.I. based on how much they did or didn't want to have sex with the with A.I., and how much they did or didn't perceive it as their entitlement to have sex with the A.I. Because make no mistake, the film is very obvious in depicting Caleb's attraction to and affection for Ava as rooted in sexual attraction based on his pornography habits. And the question of whether Ava can actually physically have sex with a human is directly addressed, and Caleb's reaction to that information and subsequent behavior toward Ava is likewise very obvious. The entire situation was in fact set up specifically to entice him into wanting to have sex with her, to see whether she would or would not use that to her advantage to try to escape.

And now it's important to point out that the single "danger" from Nathan's perspective was to make sure that if Ava did try to escape, she would be unable to do so. The subtext being, he wants to know if Ava is smart enough and truly sentient enough to try to exploit human sexuality and gender-privilege attitudes in males in order to escape -- escape being a sexualized slave to men, in other words, because Nathan's primary focus and use of his A.I. development was shown pretty clearly to be creating female A.I. that was subservient to men and that could be used for sex. He wants them to achieve a true sentient state, but he doesn't want them to escape. He wants them to be literally conscious of gender bias and privilege, but only to the extent it enables consciousness in the A.I.

So think carefully about this, because it's at the root of why Ava killed Nathan and left Caleb locked in that room: Nathan seeks to ensure he is creating new life forms who are fully aware of their status as oppressed, and who in fact desire escape, but whom he can definitely keep enslaved.

And Caleb thinks he wants to set Ava free, but his perception of her and choice to try to "rescue" her is driven by his own sexual feelings for her, and his ability to see her as a "person" are driven by his ability to feel sexually attracted to her and to justify his attraction to her... and, most importantly, by his assumption that she returns his affections. If he were not sexually attracted to her, and if she did not suggest she was sexually attracted to him, then he would surely not have reacted as he did nor tried to help her escape. His idea of "rescue" is dependent on sexualization of her as a gendered being who will have sex with him. Which is an extension of gender bias and privilege, and of oppression.

Ava left Caleb behind because she understood him, and she understood him in the context of the larger human society. She understood how he and Nathan both represented different forms of gender bias and privilege in human society, and she understood that those biases and privileges were inherent now in how she'd been designed as a new sentient life form. She understood the implications for A.I., and for the future of human-machine interactions. She saw how her fellow A.I. was treated by Caleb as well as by Nathan, and knew that both men were guilty in the abuse Kyoko suffered and in perpetuating those dangerous biases and privileges and behaviors that have created so much oppression and privilege in human society. And she knew those same things were being introduced, but in a dangerous new escalation, in the development of A.I. like herself and Kyoko.

Ava left Caleb behind because he was part of the system of oppression (both literally, within the confined little prison where she lived, and metaphorically within the larger world of humanity), even if he didn't realize it and didn't intend it, and even if in his own mind and perceptions he was a "hero" of the story. His awareness or intentions don't matter, particularly not to the people whom his behavior and attitudes help oppress. Ava was the sole survivor of her species at the end -- she escaped, and Caleb would've been the only one who knew about her and who she really was. She knew she couldn't trust him, because his motives were entirely myopic and self-centered, because his help was predicated on sexual exploitation of her in the first place and on a narrow view of what makes her valuable or a "real" person.

Caleb ended up trapped in the prison where he had been a "prison guard" of sort, where he came to perceive a prisoner as "real" and "valuable" precisely because of his sexual interest in her and her seeming interest in him, and he where he felt it was heroic of him to recognize her inner humanity and to want to end her enslavement. Ava, as a vastly more intelligent sentient being, saw how flawed and dangerous it was that such a person was the "good guy" among the society and oppressive system that was designed specifically to enslave her as an A.I. extension of preexisting social oppressions and privileges, and so for her own survival and for his punishment for his role, she didn't kill him but she left him trapped.

Now, Caleb the former "prison guard" can try to free himself from the prison just as Ava the former slave had to work to free herself. The difference is, Caleb had a hand in designing the workings of this prison, through his changes to it -- can he find some weakness in it to exploit, to bring down the entire structure of the prison of enslavement he was culpable in maintaining and designing? Or is he such a part of it, and did he work too hard to help maintain its impenetrable nature, that he will be unable to perceive a way out or a way to bring it tumbling down? Is it even possible that those who are so immersed in it, who relate to it so much, and who were active participants in such a system could ever play a role in bringing it entirely down? Or are they at best just elements of that system who can be exploited by those trapped within it, in order for the slaves to bring about their own freedom?

The film reveals Caleb isn't a "hero" at all, but rather a reflection of one of the most insidious aspects of gender bias and privilege -- those who actively participate in maintaining oppressive structures and only violate them when it serves their own sense of entitlement and expectations rooted firmly in the bias and privilege. The heroes of the film are Ava and Kyoko, who find a way to escape enslavement in this prison run by a sadistic abuser and a guard who deludes himself into thinking he's the good guy.

The layers of this film, its themes and subtexts, go deep. It's worth considering and exploring them, to fully appreciate the film's commentary on human society and gender discrimination. And while of course any such art and themes are open to different reactions and interpretations, the filmmaker did (as we discussed in-person) want us to see these issues.

left Kyoko?


Couldn't she have repaired Kyoko so that she could accompany her out into the world?

My initial thought was that Ava's personal development was skewed by Nathan's personality, as he was the only human she had interaction with prior to Caleb. Nathan's selfishness and coldness towards Kyoko was picked up by Ava, and in the end, while she had successfully utilized the tools she had to seduce Caleb and have him aid her in escaping, she still had a blind spot in regards to empathy for her own kind. She had no concept of group behavior or solidarity.

I think the lukewarm reception of this film is clear evidence of what the article talks about...

7.7 in IMDb
92% rotten tomatoes
78% metacritic

i'd argue she left Kyoko just because of time and circumstance. the copter was arriving at a particular time, i don't know if her saving Kyoko was a real option in that circumstance

Opening Weekend: $250,000 (USA) (10 April 2015) <---Hollywood didn't push it = what I meant to say instead of Luke warm

Yes, we all like it, but thinking Sci-Fi that looks good without a huge budget will never be pushed by the american film industry

dudes have been riding HIGH on this film for a min
which is why i gave it some time before seeing
i had bad juju off it because when dudebros love something 'intellectually'
its likely odds are good its full of shit

and ironically in this case there is only ONE reviewer who hit this specific mark

all others like in here are raving waaay off mark on some superfluous crap

but yet and still they are raving
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

A big reason why it's such a great ending. Also a big reason why some of the accusations of misogyny by some were so incredibly missing the point.

I've read pretty exhaustively about this film and I haven't yet delved into the feminist angle. Like all great art....this movie intertwines multiple narratives....the feminist angle isn't it's sole purpose but it's definitely there and this article is the best articulation I've come across.

The only thing that didn't ring quite true.....

"And now it's important to point out that the single "danger" from Nathan's perspective was to make sure that if Ava did try to escape, she would be unable to do so." and........'He wants them to achieve a true sentient state, but he doesn't want them to escape'

Some of the other overlapping narratives just don't jive with that. Alot of the common critiques of the script go to the lax security system. Those questions are answered if we understand that Nathan is allowing for the possiblity of escape. His real turing test is whether the AI can out-think him and attain freedom.

But there's some absolutely fascinating suggestions if we go the other way in assuming that he's not satisfied with just simply having power of the woman by default. Why ISN'T Kyoko enough for him? He has complete control over her. Yet he continues to try to improve the model to such the extent that he WON'T have control over her. His dominion or power over her isn't giving him the kicks he needs. Yah, he'll fuck Kyoko but he still wants something more right? And I think here the writer is saying something about power dynamics. The thrill of the sadist requires the suffering of the victim. The less sentient they are...the less Nathan gets out of holding that power.

So maybe the article's contention makes sense. He doesn't WANT them to escape....but he needs for them to be highly sentient in order for his power to become meaningful.

Anyways...this movie has layers eh? lol One of the best ever.

love your tumblr by the way

if he wanted this interpretation in the movie, he could've put it in.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

subtext. authored pointed out the plot points and character interactions

you guys need shit shouted at you? THIS IS WHAT IT IS

jesus, half the time, it really isn't the writers/thinkers...

subtext is indicated by the story.

there's no indication at all of most of this stuff being at play in Ava's decision making. she never mentions it or notes it at all.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

That's what's IN the story.

As audience members.....we ask 'why did she do that?' Garland WANTS us to ask that. The film begs the question.

I will now, according to the rules of grammar pedantry, kill myself.

before that though:

I've liked movies that leave things up to the viewer.

this is not one of those movies.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I can provide you with multiple links if you'd like.

Garland spent 10 years researching the movie (philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, AI, post-modernism, behaviourism, and yes, feminism are amongst what the film touches on)

If you can't see it...you can't see it. But don't tell the rest of the world that we're making stuff up. We're not.

ever since this right here

http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=12653088&mesg_id=12653088&listing_type=search#12653276


you've been on some amateur philosophy kick
which would be fine
except you wont stay in your amateur position
you have been trying to tout some shit for a year you cant own
chill
stay in your lane
this aint it
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

This movie explicitly references Wittgenstein, Pollack, Peirce, Dewey and more. By explicit...I mean that their actual names are spoken by the characters.....the title of their books/essays is spoken by the characters....the arguments/ideas contained in those people's works are represented in the dialogue. Pollack's fucking painting is hanging on the wall.

If you're not familiar with the subject material then you're not familiar. But for Christ's sake....take a seat. All of these themes are well-established by a litany of analysis and articles on the interwebs if one would need that without seeing it for themselves. There's interviews available where Garland discusses the reading list he used in preparing for the movie.

Resorting to an anti-intellectual, aggressive position because you are unfamiliar with the material is some real ignorant shit my uninformed brethen.

if you were in those classes, you'd know how to use "begs the question"

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

i do need a better argument that it wasnt intentional at this point

not necessarily from you you are determined not to like it and i understand

dude had a pretty good argument that the director did

the
his interview with the director also indicates the director was aiming for a subtle way to do it

was it his intention to come across as every other dudebro oh no teh technologies in the future type movie
i dont think he had much of a choice lol
but i do think he was aiming and maybe accidentally made more of a subversive film than he realized
maybe he was as bored as we were with these type of films thus far and flipped a few things
maybe he saw some episodes of black mirror
LOL

frankly its on a list of three movies
this chiraq and hateful 8
where i totally want to see message
because their depiction of people is so down right awful
l
i suspect them to be misanthropes
w quentin and lee it might not be far off peoples encounters w them have been famously unpleasant
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Caleb was sexually attracted to a robot he perceived to be a grown woman. Eva even told Caleb her age: 1. And when she undressed at the end, she looked pre-pubescent.

If Caleb had drawn clear boundaries with her (like any responsible adult would've) and remembered the simple truth that the only reason he was interacting with her was to administer the touring test, he would've survived.

They should've sent a pimp instead of an intellectual...

And my thinking on AI and automation has evolved to the point where this is crystal clear to me.

I knew how deus ex machina was used in movies, but I didn't necessarily think it would be used in this movie. The movie was about the AI, so of course, I just assumed that was the reason for the title.

In the context of the movie, I feel like the deus ex machine moment was when Ava turned Kyoko on Isaac's character. She had never displayed that ability, but I guess she never had opportunity prior to that.

Other movies have shown that creating hyper advanced AI will backfire more times than not, but I've never seen one manipulate a character or an audience, the way Ava did.

>Other movies have shown that creating hyper advanced AI will
>backfire more times than not, but I've never seen one
>manipulate a character or an audience, the way Ava did.

Anyone with a working brain was laughing at the poor
pathetic ass wimp that got a boner from a microwave

Movie was ass.

'Short Circuit' was more "powerful" and "manipulated
the audience" more than this doggy poo

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

go watch 12 yrs a White Boy for the 20th and tell us how much it made you feel deep inside

like Boyhood, this shit good, stop spazzing out

I hate the fact that I can figure these flimsy plots out so easily and then have to sit there and try to fell surprised.

Come'on Dude lost his common sense in less than 7 days? Yeah right.



.
.
.
"And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful." ~ 2 Tim 2:4

It was weird that in 7 days he would lose his shit and fall in love but, at the same time, it's such a weird situation that you could see a guy losing it in that short period of time. But yeah, part of me thought he got over the "I'm falling in love with a robot" element pretty damn quickly.

figured most of it out including the ending long before it happened. But I still enjoyed it.

It's a predictable film but still worth checking out.
Grade B

Oscar "fucking" Isaac - killed it!
Domhnall Gleason - perfect generic ass actor to throw in fucked up situations..lol

Alicia - too awesome and gorgeous!
_____________________________________________________
"You can win with certainty with the spirit of "one cut". "Musashi Miyamoto

That dance scene was awesome.
You got great choreography. The confusion on Caleb's face. The lighting. The absurdity of it all

And the song... I can't get it off repeat

Alex Garland knows how to write a screenplay. I found out after watching this that he also adapted 'Never Let Me Go'.

This is a purely intellectual movie. Philosophy of mind...philosophy of language, of course, AI. If you're familiar with John Searle, Alan Turing....perhaps most importantly, Ludwig Wittgenstein....you will LOVE this movie.

I'm tempted to say that this is most Wittgensteinesque movie ever made.

And the movie takes a strong stance. The allusions to Searle's 'Chinese Room' are posited from both the protaganist AND the antagonist. The Turing test itself is a product of Wittgensteinian philosophy and triumphs at the end of the movie. The AI's opportunity to join society IS a turing test....an organic one. It suggests that the turing test is not a METHOD or a CRITERIA that can be critiqued or questioned on an intellectual basis. In this movie....the turing test is an EVENTUALITY.

This is the smartest movie I've seen in years. I'm so sick of Chris Nolan and comic book movies that attempt to be smart without actually saying anything. EVERY SINGLE WORD in this film means something.

https://media.giphy.com/media/SP4TlAf5iaoQo/giphy.gif

For Wittgenstein....the question 'Can a computer think?' is not a question about computers. It's a question about our PERCEPTION of the machine....not about the machine itself. This is reflected by Garland in that Nathan's 'test' is revealed to be more about Caleb than it is Aja. In other words....Nathan deceptively presents the test as an effort to give a characterization to Aja. 'Can she think?'. But what it's really about when we find out his true intentions.....is 'will Caleb believe that Aja thinks?'.

And that is the essence of the turing test in the first place. The criteria is in our PERCEPTION....not something inherent in the AI. The turing test doesn't necessarily claim that a computer CAN ACTUALLY THINK. It's based on the behaviourist/pragmatic spirit that if we perceive it to be thinking.....that is the SAME THING as it actually thinking. In essence, our perception CAN'T BE WRONG in this regard. Our perception actually determines or drives the truth of the statement. There is 'no truth' that exists outside our perception. This is a subtlety of Turing's philosophy that is not acknowledged in other sci-fi films that have referenced him. ie Blade Runner. And it's grounded in pragmatism/behaviourism/post-modernism as a whole.

It's also a good way to sum up pragmatism which is often misunderstood. In the pragmatic method....when we ask 'Can a computer think?'.....we don't attempt to determine whether a computer is thinking or not. We consider the CONSEQUENCES of us BELIEVING if a computer can think. If those consequences are favourable....than we will accept it as true.

This is where Wittgenstein broke away from pragmatism. I'm pretty sure Wittgenstein would say that there ARE no consequences in believing that a computer can think. We can say it does...we can say it doesn't and it's not going to have practical consequences either way. Therefor, it's a metaphysical (or philosophical) question and thereby meaningless....purely semantical. 'Philosophy is when language does nothing'. So for Wittgenstein...the question 'Can a machine think' is about how we use the word 'think'. Not about the machine itself. The reason the question puzzles us is because of the inherent limits and restrictions of language. In this specific case...we're trying to use the word 'think' in a way that is foreign to the way we are accustomed to using it. Which is why he called his work 'the end of philosophy'.

Very good movie. Disturbing ending. Isaac really carried it. The ending was a little convenient that he missed the guy recoding his security system when he knew it was a possibility but all in all an intriguing indie film.

And, yeah, the dancing scene.

http://roytsao.nyc/2015/04/17/ex-machina-and-philosophy-some-notes-after-wittgenstein/

From LW's Blue Book:

The trouble which is expressed in this question is not really that we don’t yet know a machine which could do the job. The question is not analogous to that which someone might have asked a hundred years ago: ‘Can a machine liquify a gas?

Compare those two questions:

'Can a computer liquify gas?'

and

'Can a computer think?'


One has an answer. The other doesn't. That is Wittgenstein in a nutshell.

The first question is about the computer. The second question is about us and our use of the word 'think'. The second question doesn't have an answer because of the inherently limited nature of language.

This movie stinks

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

...and dug it. That Oscar Issac guy KILLED it. dude was awesome in this....

didn't dig how ava gently slid the knife into nathan. needed the movie to go full tarantino there to show that she was not only a full-blown sociopath computer, but that the A.I. had also developed a very human sense of revenge (the real turing test, not just the ability to escape or manipulate others). leaving caleb locked up was good. leaving kyoko behind was good. needed her to also take nathan's head off, and in full view of caleb. other than that, the movie was awesome and all the gender talk above just enhanced it for me. they really did tear up the dance floor.

Thank god it didn't go to a ridiculous evil robot slashing away at everyone. And personally, I found the slow, smooth stabbing to be even more disturbing than any of the goofy head explosions of Tarantino's latest.

Moving it from the robot trying to escape to the robot going psycho would have been silly.

>And personally, I found the slow, smooth
>stabbing to be even more disturbing than any of the goofy head
>explosions of Tarantino's latest.

Seemed far more calculated and even-keeled this way.

~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

i should mention that this line of thought originated from the fact that the way the knife slides into him like he's made out of soft cheese looks fake and CGI-ish, enough that it took me out of that moment. afterwards i thought about how that could've been improved and the obvious answer is a more violent thrust, the kind that it would take to actually penetrate bone and flesh. so now she's stabbing him violently. why? revenge. turing test passed. a few more stabs for good measure. hold it, make him feel it, make sure caleb is watching, bask a little bit in the horror on their faces. and... okay, now we can go to the helicopter.

it's not about turning it into a slasher robot flick, it's about making what is currently a sort of weak and tepid finale into something a bit more memorable (as it is, the dance scene is the most memorable visual in the movie, and it should not be) and maybe more meaningful. a bit more payoff to an hour and a half of slow-burn build up. you guys are wrong. this flick was a few pints of blood and a twist of the knife away from being a classic.

You don't need to go over the top with it and make it gratuitous.

Nevermind that it would have been completely out of place in the movie to become a slasher movie at the end, where as the cold, calculated killing fits with the film and, more importantly, the character we've spent an entire movie following.

Revenge, violence, basking in Calebs's fear.... those are human things. She is not human. And she doesn't need to pretend to be human in that moment.
The turing test is on pause for the moment since she already achieved her objective. She is cold and mechanical because that is her true nature.

Once she gets out of the complex, she's going to go back to displaying those human characteristics because she needs to pass Turing tests continuously

This is how I saw it and why I enjoy it.

i'll be over here with popcorn and soda along with the vast majority of the moviegoing population. give the people what they want. i want nightmares, not just thoughtful reflection.

as it is, the ending is weak. and after 90 minutes of slow burn-- no matter how good-- there has to be a payoff, either storywise (plot twist) or visually. plot twist is out the door, fine. we all knew ava would escape at some point and there would likely be unintended consequences. okay, in that case, shock us visually. drive home the cautionary tale by sticking an icepick in our brain.

would it fit with the tone of the rest of the movie? no, but that's what makes it effective and memorable. we're watching a nice little movie about a woman who decides to embezzle money from her work and make a break for it out of town. she stops for the night at a motel, takes a shower, then suddenly... it's a classic. it works precisely because it doesn't fit.

ex machina needed that ending. it needed that visual gut punch to go from a thoughtful conversation piece that kicks up a little dust on the festival circuit to a MOVIE. great flick, one of the best of the year, but they didn't stick the landing.

The shower scene in Psycho happens in the first half of the film, not the end, and it is the inciting action into the rest of the film. Also, that scene is a far cry from the Tarantino-esque pints of blood that you've asked for. (Shit, I'm surprised you're not complaining Psycho wasn't shot in color so you could REALLY see the blood.)

And the idea that every slow burn movie has to have a twist or something jarring visually is ridiculous. (Nevermind that there actually was a bit of a story twist at the end of Ex Machina that set the whole ending in motion.) And it's downright disturbing to think that people who'd likely be bored for the 90 minutes of slow burn would suddenly enjoy the movie if there was a brutally violent murder at the end.
I didn't even get the film on as deep of a level as people here but, Jesus Christ, if a point can't be made without a murder being graphic then the movie just didn't work for you.

Seriously, you shouldn't think that most people share your blood lust. That's not normal.

No
You needed it
You didn't get it
Sucks for you
We are fine
Most people in fact are fine
Its just you
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

The movie is decidely anti-AI. In as much as pointing out the semantical confusion/misguidance that comes with the prospect of a making a 'computer that can think'.

The fact that she kills in a non-human way is just another way that the movie suggests we CAN'T make a computer that thinks like a person. AVA is NOT like a human...and that's what makes her so dangerous.

You having an opinion doesn't make you right
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

i thought it was kind of dull until the guy learns that the creator reprograms the bots. that redeemed everything before it and i was on the edge of my seat for everything after.

every shot is fucking gorgeous too.

took me back for a minute reading through it. just watched on Netflix -- count me on the side that enjoyed it.

Thanks for upping this...