THOSE WHO EXCEL IN WAR FIRST CULTIVATE THEIR OWN HUMANITY AND JUSTICE AND MAINTAIN THEIR LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS. BY THESE MEANS THEY MAKE THEIR GOVERNMENTS INVINCIBLE. THE 'PATH' IS THE WAY OF HUMANITY AND JUSTICE; 'LAWS' ARE REGULATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS. -- Sun Tzu, The Art Of War
What Sun Tzu, the great strategist of ancient China, is saying here pertains directly to the present day and to the present time in these United States: 'laws' are, in any society, both the written words and the methods chosen by those in authority for the execution, application, or enforcement of those words and phrases. Government without laws is a non sequitur.
The free union of these republican States, wherein advances in electrical technology and the invention of sound recording, motion pictures, and the color process -- have created the means to develop an entertainment industry -- has been under assault for decades by the Moguls and Gun Molls of Tinseltown. Using a program perfected by Marxist agitators in the destruction of Czechoslovakia, the Hollywood aristocracy has successfully corrupted one necessary element of a republic -- democratic process -- by promoting what appears to be pure Democracy, but what is, in fact, democratic centralism. The essence of this Soviet-era governing strategy is to make the Party into The State by usurping both humanity and God. Then the State becomes God.
All of these factors are clearly at work in the new Steven Spielberg film, "Artificial Intelligence," or A.I. There can be no doubt that this expensive, glittering cinematic field-trip is wholly the work of Steven Spielberg, but the first and most difficult question to be asked is why the creator of "Jaws" felt it necessary to recycle work previously done by Stanley Kubrick. The original story was written by Brian Aldiss. The first adaptation was completed by Ian Watson. The direction this story takes -- to the extent that Kubrick gave the project so much of his energy over time -- reveals the mental chaos of a deeply disturbed mind. Perhaps Spielberg attempted to siphon off the genius of Kubrick while hoping to leave the evil as residue.
Only a complete idiot, ora child under the age of 13, could fail to see that A.I. -- as a movie -- is all about Steven Spielberg's infatuation with William Jefferson Clinton. Every movie ever made is about two things -- its actual story, and the times in which it was crafted. The protagonist in A.I. is a lovingly crafted robot child named David, which naturally brings to mind King David of Israel. The mother who first decides to adopt him as a replacement for her own son, who lingers in cryogenic sleep while awaiting a cure for some unknown disease, is named Monica.
Not only does Monica betray the Boy King David, she is lovingly photographed as being lithsome, sensual, warm -- graced with lovely black hair -- and she is a stay-at-home wife. All of the action in A.I. takes place in Politically Correct territory.
Because Spielberg believes that the modern movie-going audience is too stupid to understand the dozens of visual cues given in the progress of this ponderous fiction, he employs a narrator to bludgeon home the first point of his P.C. thesis. Global warming is a reality. The seas will rise in the next 100 years and they will wipe out Amsterdam, Venice, and yes! -- even New York City.
Then the true delight of the New World Order is declaimed, by the invisible narrator, as the loss of arable lands causes hundreds of millions to starve, and the governments which survive must implement a strict licensing procedure to control the birth of new children. Robots become both necessary and desirable, as they "only consume resources" when they are originally manufactured. No one ever explains how these robots are powered, or why the technology which makes them so durable cannot be adapted to provide more food or more room to live.
So -- a little more than 100 years into the future, this country still exists but it looks exactly like a post-modern National Socialist autocracy, where giant corporations hold the real power -- i.e., they enforce the 'laws' of society -- and robots provide every comfort and even sexual pleasures. Spielberg's film ought to have provided a desperately-needed star turn for William Hurt, who was once the darling of Hollywood. How times change.
As the scientist-entrepreneur who introduces the concept of developing a robot boy who can "love," Hurt should have been the fulcrum of an incredibly dynamic movie fiction. Instead he walks through A.I. with all the charisma of a man recently subjected to electro-shock therapy (and that's not an exaggeration). Perhaps there were other scenes where his character fulminated on science and love and other heavy-duty subjects, but if there were, they were cut out. A.I. operates, at one level, as if it was designed to be a very glossy "Mad Scientist" movie. It might have worked.
A.I. constantly references the beloved children's tale, "Pinocchio," but it isn't a movie that any parent should take a young child to see. A.I. contains a sub-plot on the peril of smart robots being rejected by the "yahoo element" of American society -- and in this section of the movie Spielberg's version of Kubrick's vision glamorizes crude, shocking, carnival-style violence. Robots are fired out of cannons and dismembered by chain-saw wielding motorcyclists. One especially lovable "Nanny robot" is bathed in acid as the Yahoo Americans cheer away.
It is a telling set of images. It is a clear statement of the truth: it provides a factual review of what the Hollywood aristocracy, these Steppin Fetchits for the New World Order, really believe. They see fundamentalist Americans as being so much less than worthy, so much less than they are, as people and as citizens, that all they deserve is contempt.
The good people in A.I. all work for robot manufacturers, and live in tidy, eco-friendly apartments: they drive nice, quiet cars. The male lead -- played by Sam Robards -- is a non-entity who is crushed by his overpowering love for Monica. But it is she who abandons the Robot Boy after her organic son recovers from the mystery illness which had him in frozen sleep. His character is a whining momma's boy who tries to trick the robot child into violating its protocols.
A.I. is not fun to watch, although the film is well-made in most regards. It is a bore. Fortunately, it grows tedious in the late innings, and there will no doubt be many people who walk out before the ending. That happened in the showing I attended.
A.I. is cruel, violent without purpose, and so excruciatingly P.C. that it makes the hackles rise and the teeth go to grinding. It is as degenerate a propaganda vehicle as ever was foisted upon the people of this free republican union. Except for a truly remarkable and comedic performance by Jude Law, as the robot named Gigolo Joe, it is an incredible waste of time and of celluloid.
What makes the free republican State -- a model of organization -- so different from other forms of government is that the sovereign power resides in the people, who give their consent to be governed, and who must therefore jealously guard all their institutions of law from both foreign attack, and internal corruption or complacency. A.I. represents a society where the most brilliant people are complacent, amoral, and where the simpler folk have been corrupted by degenerate entertainments.
It is a difficult job of work, safeguarding liberty, but the republic gives the most freedom and safeguards the largest number of rights, provided it is not suborned by spies and by agents-provocateur, or eroded by an excess of democracy. The new film from Hollywood's number one Mogul, Steven Spielberg, encapsulates everything that Tinseltown has become, during the era of the Two Clintons.
Perhaps Spielberg wanted to make a new version of "Pinocchio." That would have been interesting. Perhaps Spielberg wanted to make a gritty science-fiction film on the perils of building smart robots. That would have been exciting. Perhaps Spielberg wanted to make a "paean" to his dear friend William The Big Creep and couldn't figure out how to do it any other way. He failed.
If the purpose of making A.I. was to raise concerns about global warming, it is a failure: if the purpose was to make people want to obtain smart robots instead of having children, it failed; if the purpose was to glorify the We-are-better-than-you crowd in Hollywood -- it failed at that too. There is neither humanity nor a sense of justice in this horribly flawed flim. It is full of bad jokes. It drags. It is a bust, an expensive flop and all the more disgraceful because Spielberg is a talented man who commands many resources. Except for Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment (the child actor who plays David), everyone involved in this movie deserves to be flogged for squandering good money.
A.I. proves to me that the Era of the Two Clintons will be known, in the future, as the time when the gloss came off the lips of the Butt-Kissers in Hollywood. Their association with Clinton has not established them as being either savvy or wise -- it merely reminds us all how churlish and vain the Moguls of Tinseltown really are, and how a-moral. In viewing A.I., however, I did not detect any hidden messages or any efforts to impose mind control. What I got was bored, not distractions.
A.I. proves that the Clintons betrayed even them, when they issued pardons to money-launderers and drug-smugglers and double-dealing soundrels like Marc Rich. The Hollywood crowd still considers Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton to be their "best friends," partners in politics. Clinton should have saved a blanket pardon for those who create "Hollywood Blockbusters." They are 0 for 3 this summer and that is really a federal crime.
