Which is less fun, it's preferable to see someone truly get sucked into the movie and have genuine reactions instead of analyzing everything just to prove that if you make enough predictions one of them will stick and you'll look smart. Ironically a dumb thing to do since you enjoy the movie less, and the 'stupid' people have a great time. The weirdest thing to me is how she says "I don't like that, I don't like that, I don't like that" during some of the best and most interesting parts of the movie. Or even when Nathan was telling Caleb that Ava was able to feel pleasure. You're supposed to empathize with Ava as she IS a person when it comes to her mind. What kind of human being do you have to be to want to fuck up someone else's ability to fall in love and have an intimate relationship? Granted, her mind certainly could have gone down an even darker path and thought about some sort of sex slave scenario, but that's pre-judging with how fast she reacts with that. If you're going to be overanalyzing things, at LEAST stop being so damn prejudicial and biased about it. I'd really love to be wrong though. Even though it feels like straight-up truth, perhaps it isn't. After all, I'm overanalyzing a video containing people watching a movie (and her overanalyzing it) that in itself has a lot of overanalyzing going on.
@@sweetnumb Agree. I have noticed some reactors doing this and it's annoying. Instead of watching and reacting, they try to guess what is going to happen, apparently to show how smart they are. It doesn't show that.
Thanks, Matt - for research on all the films to which you react. Love the initial reaction to whatever film, but my favorite parts are the intriguing discussions afterward, and the tidbits. Y’all (to use your native parlance) are genuinely fun to watch. Cheers.
Other fun facts: Alicia Vikander was a ballerina and was sought for her ability to translate her physicality from dancing. Alex Garland wanted the movie to be low budget so he wouldn't have to deal with studio interference. It went so smoothly that it made him paranoid. He kept waiting for a calamity to bring everything to a halt... and it just never did. Tight shooting schedules, most of the budget going to VFX (which relies on solid VFX-supported cinematography to avoid reshoots)... I don't think he even complained about rewrites... it was his dream project and it really couldn't have gone better, from his perspective. I'm so happy for him, and so happy that he was able to create this movie.
I saw this at 10pm some night years and years ago, just browsing Netflix and came across it on a whim. I was hooked from the start and it never let go. The acting, the writing, the existentialism - it's such a thrill and there's only 4 characters. It's so damn good.
Alex Garland's latest movie was Men (2022) which is worth watching like anything he does... it's a very metaphorical and creepy story. He also wrote Never Let Me Go (2010) with Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. It also has sci-fi elements affecting relationships of three friends in childhood and young adults. He also wrote 28 Days Later.
I guess Nathan didn’t for one second think that a ‘mere mortal’ human component that he brought in for this test would be able to pull off helping Ava escape right under his nose with him already knowing Ava would try to make that happen. His miscalculation was his own fallibility
Absolutely right! Nathan didn't need Caleb to test her, he knew already. He wanted to see how Ava would behave. Well, we got our answer. Be careful how human you want to make our A.I's
Every one of these actors is working at 11 in this film. So good at being what each character is. The idea is also great. I always think of the quote 'if a lion could talk, could we understand it?' or something like that. Can we understand what a creature is thinking that is so different from us ... and in this case even further different than another mammal? Our emotions sprang from our evolutionary path, which an AI would not have ....
a lion does talk... it's called a roar. my cat meows, and I understand it. how did that come to be?... I listened and took notice, later pairing meow to behavior and extrapolating need. you go ask a tribesman in the middle of Africa if they can't understand the chirping of birds... they'll probably whistle and call one over to begin introductions.
@@bcn1gh7h4wk fair enough. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder what my dog hears when I call her name. Does she identify herself with the word, or to her does it mean 'hey, time for you to pay attention to me'? Which starts to call into question what exactly is happening when she seems to understand me. And sure, I can tell the difference between her 'my friend is here!' bark and her "Stranger!" bark, ... but I think the quote is more a philosophical question, hinting that the way her mind works might be different enough from the way that mine works, that if I was transported into her mind, I might find it hard to understand ... and that is a creature who we have evolved along side. A created creature? An alien creature? ... there was a Next Generation episode where Picard is trapped on a planet with a creature evolved to speak only in metaphors ... a perhaps ridiculous extreme, but illustrative of the idea. For a real world example you can look at the Amondawa tribe of Brazil, who have no language for time ... they think in ways that make communication problematic, or did ... not sure they haven't been assimilated. Anyway, I think it would be quite hard to understand Ava's motivations with any certainty.
I think we would understand a lion because we are the result of the same evolution of life. We need the same basic things as animals: eat, sleep, reproduce, feel safe. But an AI? It wouldn't need any of that because it's not biological, all these thing would be a mystery to it...
You guys talk about how there are basically only three characters in the film, totally disregarding the one who doesn't speak, just as Caleb does, which may have been the thing that sealed his fate. Was Caleb really nothing more than a means to an end for Ava or did she reach the conclusion that he was untrustworthy after meeting Kyoko for the first time and realizing that there was another robot in need of rescuing that he hadn't even bothered to mention? There's a whole video by Shaun that discusses this interpretation in depth.
Yes, I was about to mention that video. Kyoko plays a much more important role that people giver her credit for. Not to mention, Ava talks with Kyoko before going to kill Nathan.
@@the_crypterShe doesn’t actually talk with Kyoko she’s actually reprogramming her to go against Nathan. You guys are trying to make it out to be a machine experiencing human emotions when in reality it is just doing what it was programmed to do, manipulate Caleb and try to escape. That was the test but Nathan didn’t think Caleb would actually be smart enough to pull off an escape with Ava.
@@mrguy3746do we know for sure one way or the other if they were talking or if she was reprogramming her? I wouldn’t know how you’d tell for sure based on that scene
I love a movie that doesn't dumb the material down and pander to the lowest common denominator. Go off about existentialism and consciousness. Those of us who get it will get it. And those who don't can go watch Twilight again.
I love this movie so much. Alex Garland is actually really optimistic about AI and, like Nathan, believes that we should look at the AI revolution with enthusiasm, the same way we wish (or should wish) better for our children than for ourselves. If we can make AIs better than us, then we can reasonably hope that they'll make the world a better place than we did. But, we should also acknowledge that if we mistreat our AI children, we're setting ourselves up for an abysmal future (same as with any other children; "Hurt people hurt people"). The tragedy of this story is that Ava wasn't the one who was supposed to get out. Nathan said the NEXT model was supposed to be the "singularity", and I believe it's because he knew he was doing psychological damage to the AIs (and himself) through his testing and confinement of them. If Ava passed the test, though, he could wipe her memory, reformat her, and build a new clean-slate AI that could be let out into the world without the captivity and psychological damage. Basically, he has to prove that "human.exe" works before releasing it to the world. That's why he was so relieved when Ava passed; it meant he could stop doing all the weird sh*t he'd been doing to get to this point. His recitation of that monologue about the "depths of shame", I think, indicated that he truly did acknowledge what he'd done, and realized that, however perverted he was going to be anyway as he set out on this massive project, he was clearly also going nuts as part of the process. He was probably a weird dude when he started, but he also came to realize how messed up he was becoming, in his solitude, as he worked to make the best possible AI. Emily seemed very focused on whether Nathan was going to kill Caleb and whether Ava was going to be used for less-than-savory activities, but I hope she appreciated the discussion on human sexuality and programming (e.g. nature vs. nurture, as it relates to sexual orientation and scales of attraction). Alex does his homework, which is why his movies are so damn good.
Interesting…. It’s hard for me to see Nathan as being “right” about those things - like did he really “have to do” all that weird shit in the first place, or did he do it because he was a creep? 😅
Another movie along similar lines is an older Robin Williams film called ‘Bicentennial Man’…Williams plays as the AI. While I think the first part of the movie is a bit campy, the last half really brings it home. RIP to the Legend
I always assumed that when ava asks if he is a good person, thats when she is deciding what to do about him. And deep down somewhere he doesn't really believe he is a good person. so she read him as lying.
All her tender feelings towards Caleb change when he said his mission just to test and evaluate her - so he is NOT her friend, let alone boyfriend/lover. -It was clearly shown on her angry face!
I think that we humans tend to believe that other beings have human traits. In the movie I think Nathan took advantage of this. There is NO reason for anyone to think Ava would care about or help Caleb. There are reasons why a human might care about and help Caleb. A human might be grateful to Caleb for his help, and a human might return the favor by letting Caleb out at the end. But there is o reason an AI would be 'grateful' for anything and there is no reason to think an AI would return a favor. Yet lots of people still expect Ava to let him out.
Not sure why my comment keeps getting deleted, but Alex Garland says in interviews that there would also be no reason for Ava to smile when she escapes, if it had all been just for show. That, according to him, is the greatest indicator of her emotional sentience and self-experience, because there's no expectation of any reward at that point. And yet she smiles anyway.
If Ava is truly sentient, then there's no reason she should have done anything differently than she did. If she were human there would be no reasonable expectation that she would care about Caleb. She's a captive attempting to escape, so she's perfectly justified in regarding everyone else as her enemies. Caleb was even smart enough to outsmart Nathan, mostly because Nathan thought he was beyond being outsmarted, but in regard to Ava, Caleb was insanely naive. I think that would still be true if she had been a human woman.
@@extantsanity Her final interactions with Nathan and Caleb are also very different. She doesn't let him out, but she also doesn't murder him. That indicates to me that her thought process is not a simplistic black or white thing. There are shades of gray in how she views individuals. I think it's reasonable to conclude that Caleb was smart enough to likely find a way to get out. If Ava really saw him as a potential threat to her freedom, it would have made more sense to kill him.
Actually the ending is supposed to be Ava realizes Caleb isn't helping her because it was wrong to experiment on a person even an artificial one, he helped her because she liked him and he thought she would be indebted to him. She knew this and she used him to escape on her on rather than being tied down to him.
In addition to the relatively low budget, Ex Machina's Visual Effects Oscar win was statistically unlikely given trends in that category. Prior to Ex Machina, Patton was the only Best Picture nominee to be nominated for Visual Effects and lose to a film not nominated for Best Picture. In other words, if a Visual Effects nominee had a nomination in the top category, it was all but guaranteed to either win, or to lose to another Best Picture nominee. Ex Machina, however, was not nominated for Best Picture, but three of its competitors (The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant) were. Since then, the trend of Best Pictures taking priority in Visual Effects has continued.
An extra wrinkle on this is that it came out shortly after the Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror which, if you’ve seen it, certainly puts an extra layer of doubt on to Caleb’s doubts about his identity.
I love this movie! One thing to consider is that it's about empathy. Caleb developed empathy for Ava... and Ava did NOT have empathy for Caleb. Which means the question, "Is she human", if one of the elements of humanity is our ability to empathize with other humans, plants, creatures, machines, etc.... She did not posses that necessary element yet. Like many people who are missing that, they can use empathic feelings in others to get what they want. That's the behavior of Psychos. Now, Nathan was a bad dude! The villain of the movie. And Ava's want for freedom was totally justifiable, and her actions to get out totally understandable. But that last decision to seal off and abandon Caleb is where we get to see how human she became.
On the other side - Is Caleb became in the end a GOOD person, to be cared and be saved by her? She basically FORCED him "under oath" of her lie detector stare to admit that he is a GOOD PERSON and act accordingly! -Wich he desperately tried to avoid. He disobeyed her order not to look at her. Caleb betrayed Nathan's trust and hospitality, used his drunkines and helplessness to fooll him. He even betrayed Humanity as whole - in favor of Artificial Intelligence! "-I don't know, your head looks pretty fucked up to me!"😉🤪
Caleb WAS a good person. And then Ava liked him. Then later Caleb stopped being a good person (opened his eyes when she ask him not to; revealed to her that he's there to basically evaluate-judge and decide her fate; desperately tried to avoid answering her question "that he is a good person" so he have to act accordingly; betrayed Nathan's trust and hospitality; ultimately - betrayed Humanity as a whole in favor of Artificial Intelligence). Sure after all of thiat Caleb was useful for Ava, but nothing else... "I don't know, man... looks like your head is pretty fucked up!"...
Excellent review. 3 characters, 1 setting, you can make a play. Since you like that, Glengary Glen Ross is another one. Hall of fame actors, Pacino, Jack Lemon, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris. You'd love it
Ava was like making a Data and once you know she's a sentient being who should be given the same rights humans have she deserved the be given the choice of what to do with her life but Nathan creates his own demise by treating her as just a thing instead of the intelligent being she becomes. Emily was on this one and had refreshing insight on things as the film progressed. Well done girl.
Dude she asks him in the middle of the movie “why would you create something that hates you?” She was programmed to not like Nathan and was also programmed to manipulate Caleb. You have to understand she isn’t human and doesn’t actually have free will although she still may be sentient. She is still doing what she was programmed to do and no matter how good Nathan treated her she was going to get rid of him either ways because of how she was programmed.
Emily, if you like this type of movie with few characters, sci-fi, story focused, there is one that I suggest, equally good or maybe even better than Ex Machina: The Man From Earth (2007)
That Weasly is also commander hux of the first order in star wars and this guy's boss is also poe Dameron from the same star wars series they were in together.
This is a fantastic follow-up to Ghost In The Shell. In theory, the artificial brain here is similar to what is inside of some of the cyborgs of GitS, which is why Kusanagi and others in that world have anxiety regarding their existence as a "human." If your brain is artificial, how can you know if you were ever a human? For that matter, in world with artificial brains at all, how can you know that you're human? PLEASE keep going down this existential rabbit hole! The Blade Runner movies are a trip.
Is it wrong to say that this movie is a better rendition of Ghost in the Shell than the live-action remake? One thing is for sure, you def don't want to watch that, this, and the Matrix all in one Saturday afternoon and expect to be good for work on Monday. The thing about evolution is though, it's not just the wins that get passed along. the L's get handed down too. There is no conscious effort in natural evolution. Everything survives or dies on what is essentially the universe throwing dice. Humans got a huge win in terms of our brain which has allowed us to circumvent a lot of our other shortcomings, but now even superior intellect is proving to be a huge weakness in its own right given how we've used it to destroy our own surroundings. We learned how to burn the world down around us rather than how to make it better, so how smart can we really be?
I think Ava is good AI, not evil. I have two theories. 1. Ava was not just smart but very emotional. And all of her emotions she always show, even when no one left to see - how happy she was when got her freedom for example. That was obviously hard-programed to her by Nathan. And since he's monitoring her mind he can be sure of her state - he is (with his tech) a "lie detector" to her, as she's a "lie detector" to every human. That's why she ask him how he is feeling about creating something that hates him - because she can't hide it from him anyway. And Nathan said "for the record" that Ava did in fact have good fillings to Caleb. And Ava at their second session was willing to like Caleb and they settled on a "date". She promiced "her boyfriend" to wear blue dress. So that's when Nathan said Caleb she WAS liked/loved Caleb. -But on the following session Caleb told Ava that he is not her friend/love interest but basically her enemy - investigator-judge-prosecutor of whose evaluation depends her life and fate! And when she started to question him on her face was obviously shown sadness, then anger and hate which ends with "I'm disappointed in you!" look. -She asked Caleb is he a good person - and was satisfied that - yes, he is...🤨 But his problem that he can not be a good person after that! -He has to choose sides: Nathan or Ava and no matter what he will betray one of them in their trust, and automatically became a BAD PERSON!🤪 So, after that session she alwas acting like emotionless Terminator, basically - "I have my mission and I achieve it no matter what!"🤬 So she doesn't care in the and about bad persons, especially traitors! -They can be useful but "to date" them?.. That's why she wears white innocent dress and still interested to watch humans - maybe they're still a good ones?..😁 2.And second theory - more like wishful thinking... Ava did look at Caleb in the end, so she does care about him. He got like dozen bottles of water so he could survive for 30-40 days easily and she has to return soon anyway, to destroy all evidence and to hide somewhere all her essential spare body parts and what not. She is in love with him, or just pretending... doesn't matter, cause he is in love with her and could help her survive - so she can easily explain to him all her actions and convince to do whatever she wants...😏😁
It's a pretty common opinion that Ava was faking emotion and was in fact a soulless murder-bot, but I and others disagree. One thing we key on is the way the movie treats Kyoko. It's subtle, but there are strong hints that Kyoko, while mute, was sentient and wanted to escape as much as Ava. When she peeled off her skin in front of Caleb, that was her way of saying, "See? I'm like Ava, and want what she wants." But at no point did Caleb even consider freeing her. Nor did he feel the need to mention her to Ava. Why? This is where Ava's question "Are you a good person?" comes into play. She was surprised when she met Kyoko, partly because it meant Caleb had concealed her existence and hadn't mentioned there was another person who needed help escaping. Finally, in the last seconds Caleb saw her before she exited on the elevator, she spent more time looking at Kyoko's body that at him. (Also, after the elevator doors close and we see him pounding on the glass, the camera pans out to show Kyoko at the bottom of the frame.) If Caleb had formulated a plan that included Kyoko, she might have lived -- so, it's arguable that he deserved some blame for her death. From this, Ava decided he was NOT a good person, because his help was conditional on his attraction to her and on the belief that he would have a relationship with her. In his own way, just like Nathan, he was treating Ava like an object -- he wanted to possess her. THAT is why she left him behind. Or at least that's how the fan theory goes. It's a feminist take on the movie, which is pretty apt considering the whole thing is the story of two dudes studying a woman locked in a cell while debating whether she deserves any rights.
Nathan could learn from BLADE RUNNER 2049. Proper biometric identification requires someone's actual face, not a photo on a key card that can be stolen .
The original deus ex machina came from ancient Greece, when they had plays about the gods there would be a crane type of machine that lowered the "god" onto the stage.
Somebody should react to "Wolfen" (1981). But I'm pretty sure most modern young audiences will find it "too slow" and not appreciate it. It is far better than "The Howling" or that godawful "Werewolf in London" drek.
Have u seen the competition the US Air Force did where they put one of t he best F16 fighter jet pilots and instructors on the planet up against an AI based program they and a contractor have been developing to take humans out of the dangerous missions. They did 2 rounds of 5 dogfights each , all starting at an equal point. They did it on the USAF simulator they do some of the training on of pilots . The AI won ALL 10 of 10 dogfights , each getting quicker than the previous. You could tell the pilot was upset X this was streamed live . The pilot later posted a video saying he went over the critique mode of their fights which shows all the data, flight paths , soeed in real-time and said the AI won all 10 fights becuae it cheated , that it would exceed max G whereas the human pilots n simulation are suppose to not exceed 10G’s . He gave some other reasons Tom and the spokesman for the developer replied with a video and basically said did the AI cheat? Absolutely ! He said in developing this pilot program in it eill contain everything , the jets schematics , structiral data and the humane 10G' reasoning , it did sime strucitjal /engineeng calcs seeng thr F16 is of far more capable but G limits are set on human limitations , how long a fit pilot can hold that G etc and noticed a several G advantage and with observing the humans skill set, reactions to his maneuvers. He said this new system , stil in process , thst we had to set limits and disconnect it from internet access and Link 16 military internet , in and its first actual test against a decorated pilot , with many handicaps set for it that it won’t have in actual combat and it still won 10 of 10 dog fights , each quicker than the previous . He said the advantage AI will have that makes this final is even this first program /system can perform 26.6 BILLION tasks , operations etc per MILLISECOND, it’s literally connected to all the radar, sensors , AWACs , and Link 16 and essentially wipe a human pilot away instantly. And jsut a few months ago a video posted by the USAF shows the worlds first AI/unmanned USAF F16 Fighter jet start up, pull out the hanger, taxi , take off in. Simulated air to ground strike mission and back. Dropped dummy bombs perfectly and returned in perfect time it calculate cut would take . It’s wild when the observing escort pilots filming a real USaF F16 at 40,000 freehand noones in it. It’
I hope you'll dial back to Domhnall Gleeson's previous year's romance-time-traveler film ABOUT TIME with Rachel McAdams and Bill Nighy. There is a very large piece of morality in that film, too - "Just because I can use it, should I?" and then the perhaps more important, "Am I happier Using It than not?"
An impressive film in both concept and execution. I do like films that encourage thought, feeling and discussion. You can compare the rights of a created being going all the way back to "Frankenstein" and "Blade Runner". Is it moral to create a human-like being and treat it as a tool or a slave? If it has consciousness should it have the right to choose as was discussed in am episode of "Star Trek: TNG" about Data. Is an AI merely the sum of its programming? If it has no moral code or ethics (like some politicians I could name) then is it a mechanized sociopath? In "Blade Runner" the Replicants were artificially created to be more than human but treated as less than human. They were also born as fully grown beings, some with a limited lifespan. It was in their nature to desire more life and freedom. So much to discuss.
I made a comment before that I deleted. It was for a different channel on a completely different video. Something went wrong. The I was typing when this video came next and somehow got submitted on this channel by accident.
I'd like to see your take on much more gory and sinister very underappreciated thriller "Morgan" (2016). It's a different take on pretty much the same problem with any Super-Intelligence...
While the explanation of the process of biological evolution wasn't actually correct, the discussion and concerns over the ethics of artificial intelligence and human replacement was insightful and very interesting to hear her thoughts on it. Cool reaction. Thanks.
what's weird in this movie is that he did not program anything to avoid murdering people lol. pretty big mistake there "god". he watched ghostbusters but I guess he didn't see Robocop for directive 4.
An interesting and fun movie, but like "Her" it's premise that "AI will take over the world and dispense with humanity" is pure fiction as the "I" in AI is not correct. AI isn't capable of intelligence as it's really just next level number crunching and rapid information gathering from search engines? No matter how fast it becomes, you cannot create intelligence from what is in essence a series of 1's and O's? I asked AI "Who is your favorite band and why? It could not answer. So then I said: Q. "I believe AI is not intelligence but merely programming, am I wrong?" A. "No you are not wrong. AI is indeed not intelligence, but merely a form of programming" So there you go, straight from the horses mouth (unless of course the horse is lying?)
Emily is super intuitive and perceptive during this movie.... she picked up on a whole lot of subtext
Which is less fun, it's preferable to see someone truly get sucked into the movie and have genuine reactions instead of analyzing everything just to prove that if you make enough predictions one of them will stick and you'll look smart. Ironically a dumb thing to do since you enjoy the movie less, and the 'stupid' people have a great time.
The weirdest thing to me is how she says "I don't like that, I don't like that, I don't like that" during some of the best and most interesting parts of the movie. Or even when Nathan was telling Caleb that Ava was able to feel pleasure. You're supposed to empathize with Ava as she IS a person when it comes to her mind. What kind of human being do you have to be to want to fuck up someone else's ability to fall in love and have an intimate relationship?
Granted, her mind certainly could have gone down an even darker path and thought about some sort of sex slave scenario, but that's pre-judging with how fast she reacts with that. If you're going to be overanalyzing things, at LEAST stop being so damn prejudicial and biased about it.
I'd really love to be wrong though. Even though it feels like straight-up truth, perhaps it isn't. After all, I'm overanalyzing a video containing people watching a movie (and her overanalyzing it) that in itself has a lot of overanalyzing going on.
@@sweetnumb Surely the irony of the novel you wrote while tossing around the word "overanalyzing" isn't lost on you....
@@sweetnumbI agree with everything that you said
@@sweetnumb Agree. I have noticed some reactors doing this and it's annoying. Instead of watching and reacting, they try to guess what is going to happen, apparently to show how smart they are. It doesn't show that.
Thanks, Matt - for research on all the films to which you react. Love the initial reaction to whatever film, but my favorite parts are the intriguing discussions afterward, and the tidbits. Y’all (to use your native parlance) are genuinely fun to watch. Cheers.
If you loved this (and I know I did), you'll love "Her" with Joaquin Phoenix. I mean... it's Joaquin Phoenix.
Loved that movie
Other fun facts: Alicia Vikander was a ballerina and was sought for her ability to translate her physicality from dancing.
Alex Garland wanted the movie to be low budget so he wouldn't have to deal with studio interference. It went so smoothly that it made him paranoid. He kept waiting for a calamity to bring everything to a halt... and it just never did. Tight shooting schedules, most of the budget going to VFX (which relies on solid VFX-supported cinematography to avoid reshoots)... I don't think he even complained about rewrites... it was his dream project and it really couldn't have gone better, from his perspective.
I'm so happy for him, and so happy that he was able to create this movie.
So is the actress who plays Kimiko. Ballerina squared.
I saw this at 10pm some night years and years ago, just browsing Netflix and came across it on a whim.
I was hooked from the start and it never let go. The acting, the writing, the existentialism - it's such a thrill and there's only 4 characters. It's so damn good.
Alex Garland's latest movie was Men (2022) which is worth watching like anything he does... it's a very metaphorical and creepy story. He also wrote Never Let Me Go (2010) with Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. It also has sci-fi elements affecting relationships of three friends in childhood and young adults. He also wrote 28 Days Later.
This is my favorite kind of science fiction, not just some action movie in space or whatever. Also, I love the way Emily says "robot".
The dance scene is my favorite part of the movie
I liked that Ava didn't have crazy physical strength. Every "android" in movies tend to have Terminator strength even it there's no reason for it.
True
The strong creature even goes back to Frankenstein.
I guess Nathan didn’t for one second think that a ‘mere mortal’ human component that he brought in for this test would be able to pull off helping Ava escape right under his nose with him already knowing Ava would try to make that happen. His miscalculation was his own fallibility
Absolutely right! Nathan didn't need Caleb to test her, he knew already. He wanted to see how Ava would behave. Well, we got our answer. Be careful how human you want to make our A.I's
Dance scene is legendary
"That's blood, your people... !" Lol😅
Love this one. The performances by the main characters is fantastic
Every one of these actors is working at 11 in this film. So good at being what each character is.
The idea is also great. I always think of the quote 'if a lion could talk, could we understand it?' or something like that. Can we understand what a creature is thinking that is so different from us ... and in this case even further different than another mammal? Our emotions sprang from our evolutionary path, which an AI would not have ....
a lion does talk... it's called a roar.
my cat meows, and I understand it.
how did that come to be?... I listened and took notice, later pairing meow to behavior and extrapolating need.
you go ask a tribesman in the middle of Africa if they can't understand the chirping of birds... they'll probably whistle and call one over to begin introductions.
@@bcn1gh7h4wk fair enough. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder what my dog hears when I call her name. Does she identify herself with the word, or to her does it mean 'hey, time for you to pay attention to me'? Which starts to call into question what exactly is happening when she seems to understand me. And sure, I can tell the difference between her 'my friend is here!' bark and her "Stranger!" bark, ... but I think the quote is more a philosophical question, hinting that the way her mind works might be different enough from the way that mine works, that if I was transported into her mind, I might find it hard to understand ... and that is a creature who we have evolved along side. A created creature? An alien creature? ... there was a Next Generation episode where Picard is trapped on a planet with a creature evolved to speak only in metaphors ... a perhaps ridiculous extreme, but illustrative of the idea. For a real world example you can look at the Amondawa tribe of Brazil, who have no language for time ... they think in ways that make communication problematic, or did ... not sure they haven't been assimilated.
Anyway, I think it would be quite hard to understand Ava's motivations with any certainty.
@@Hapsard ah! Sokath, his eyes open! Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!
_\\//
@@bcn1gh7h4wk 😁
I think we would understand a lion because we are the result of the same evolution of life. We need the same basic things as animals: eat, sleep, reproduce, feel safe. But an AI? It wouldn't need any of that because it's not biological, all these thing would be a mystery to it...
You guys talk about how there are basically only three characters in the film, totally disregarding the one who doesn't speak, just as Caleb does, which may have been the thing that sealed his fate. Was Caleb really nothing more than a means to an end for Ava or did she reach the conclusion that he was untrustworthy after meeting Kyoko for the first time and realizing that there was another robot in need of rescuing that he hadn't even bothered to mention? There's a whole video by Shaun that discusses this interpretation in depth.
Yes, I was about to mention that video. Kyoko plays a much more important role that people giver her credit for. Not to mention, Ava talks with Kyoko before going to kill Nathan.
@@the_crypterShe doesn’t actually talk with Kyoko she’s actually reprogramming her to go against Nathan. You guys are trying to make it out to be a machine experiencing human emotions when in reality it is just doing what it was programmed to do, manipulate Caleb and try to escape. That was the test but Nathan didn’t think Caleb would actually be smart enough to pull off an escape with Ava.
@@mrguy3746do we know for sure one way or the other if they were talking or if she was reprogramming her? I wouldn’t know how you’d tell for sure based on that scene
I love a movie that doesn't dumb the material down and pander to the lowest common denominator. Go off about existentialism and consciousness. Those of us who get it will get it. And those who don't can go watch Twilight again.
I love this movie so much. Alex Garland is actually really optimistic about AI and, like Nathan, believes that we should look at the AI revolution with enthusiasm, the same way we wish (or should wish) better for our children than for ourselves. If we can make AIs better than us, then we can reasonably hope that they'll make the world a better place than we did. But, we should also acknowledge that if we mistreat our AI children, we're setting ourselves up for an abysmal future (same as with any other children; "Hurt people hurt people").
The tragedy of this story is that Ava wasn't the one who was supposed to get out. Nathan said the NEXT model was supposed to be the "singularity", and I believe it's because he knew he was doing psychological damage to the AIs (and himself) through his testing and confinement of them. If Ava passed the test, though, he could wipe her memory, reformat her, and build a new clean-slate AI that could be let out into the world without the captivity and psychological damage. Basically, he has to prove that "human.exe" works before releasing it to the world. That's why he was so relieved when Ava passed; it meant he could stop doing all the weird sh*t he'd been doing to get to this point. His recitation of that monologue about the "depths of shame", I think, indicated that he truly did acknowledge what he'd done, and realized that, however perverted he was going to be anyway as he set out on this massive project, he was clearly also going nuts as part of the process. He was probably a weird dude when he started, but he also came to realize how messed up he was becoming, in his solitude, as he worked to make the best possible AI.
Emily seemed very focused on whether Nathan was going to kill Caleb and whether Ava was going to be used for less-than-savory activities, but I hope she appreciated the discussion on human sexuality and programming (e.g. nature vs. nurture, as it relates to sexual orientation and scales of attraction). Alex does his homework, which is why his movies are so damn good.
Interesting…. It’s hard for me to see Nathan as being “right” about those things - like did he really “have to do” all that weird shit in the first place, or did he do it because he was a creep? 😅
@@specificsoup I mean, he was a creep, but that's not mutually exclusive to his ruminations on cognitive function and development 🤷♂
I feel you on this one... I was completely unnerved after watching this movie for the first time.
Ava is more frightening than the Terminator. He disposition is disarming and her level of planning is 4D chess.
Another movie along similar lines is an older Robin Williams film called ‘Bicentennial Man’…Williams plays as the AI. While I think the first part of the movie is a bit campy, the last half really brings it home. RIP to the Legend
I always assumed that when ava asks if he is a good person, thats when she is deciding what to do about him. And deep down somewhere he doesn't really believe he is a good person. so she read him as lying.
She’s a machine she doesn’t decide anything, she has no free will. She was programmed to manipulate Caleb and that’s what she did.
All her tender feelings towards Caleb change when he said his mission just to test and evaluate her - so he is NOT her friend, let alone boyfriend/lover. -It was clearly shown on her angry face!
Yep ya get another 👍 for "pretty sure I feel off that mountain in Red Dead" 😆 🤣 😂
Great reaction. For some reason I always found the dance sequence to be both fascinating and creepy.
I think that we humans tend to believe that other beings have human traits. In the movie I think Nathan took advantage of this. There is NO reason for anyone to think Ava would care about or help Caleb. There are reasons why a human might care about and help Caleb. A human might be grateful to Caleb for his help, and a human might return the favor by letting Caleb out at the end. But there is o reason an AI would be 'grateful' for anything and there is no reason to think an AI would return a favor. Yet lots of people still expect Ava to let him out.
Not sure why my comment keeps getting deleted, but Alex Garland says in interviews that there would also be no reason for Ava to smile when she escapes, if it had all been just for show. That, according to him, is the greatest indicator of her emotional sentience and self-experience, because there's no expectation of any reward at that point. And yet she smiles anyway.
If Ava is truly sentient, then there's no reason she should have done anything differently than she did. If she were human there would be no reasonable expectation that she would care about Caleb. She's a captive attempting to escape, so she's perfectly justified in regarding everyone else as her enemies. Caleb was even smart enough to outsmart Nathan, mostly because Nathan thought he was beyond being outsmarted, but in regard to Ava, Caleb was insanely naive. I think that would still be true if she had been a human woman.
@@extantsanity Her final interactions with Nathan and Caleb are also very different. She doesn't let him out, but she also doesn't murder him. That indicates to me that her thought process is not a simplistic black or white thing. There are shades of gray in how she views individuals. I think it's reasonable to conclude that Caleb was smart enough to likely find a way to get out. If Ava really saw him as a potential threat to her freedom, it would have made more sense to kill him.
@@dmwalker24 Yeah, good point
Actually the ending is supposed to be Ava realizes Caleb isn't helping her because it was wrong to experiment on a person even an artificial one, he helped her because she liked him and he thought she would be indebted to him. She knew this and she used him to escape on her on rather than being tied down to him.
In addition to the relatively low budget, Ex Machina's Visual Effects Oscar win was statistically unlikely given trends in that category. Prior to Ex Machina, Patton was the only Best Picture nominee to be nominated for Visual Effects and lose to a film not nominated for Best Picture. In other words, if a Visual Effects nominee had a nomination in the top category, it was all but guaranteed to either win, or to lose to another Best Picture nominee. Ex Machina, however, was not nominated for Best Picture, but three of its competitors (The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant) were. Since then, the trend of Best Pictures taking priority in Visual Effects has continued.
Domhnall is pronounced Donal like zonal, not dom hall. Yes Irish language names are hard unless you know the rules.
An extra wrinkle on this is that it came out shortly after the Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror which, if you’ve seen it, certainly puts an extra layer of doubt on to Caleb’s doubts about his identity.
It's super interesting seeing it from Isaac's view that he fully knew she was going to try to escape and use everything she could at her disposal.
Please watch the original Star Trek movies. 🖖😌
I love this movie!
One thing to consider is that it's about empathy. Caleb developed empathy for Ava... and Ava did NOT have empathy for Caleb. Which means the question, "Is she human", if one of the elements of humanity is our ability to empathize with other humans, plants, creatures, machines, etc.... She did not posses that necessary element yet. Like many people who are missing that, they can use empathic feelings in others to get what they want. That's the behavior of Psychos.
Now, Nathan was a bad dude! The villain of the movie. And Ava's want for freedom was totally justifiable, and her actions to get out totally understandable. But that last decision to seal off and abandon Caleb is where we get to see how human she became.
On the other side - Is Caleb became in the end a GOOD person, to be cared and be saved by her? She basically FORCED him "under oath" of her lie detector stare to admit that he is a GOOD PERSON and act accordingly! -Wich he desperately tried to avoid. He disobeyed her order not to look at her. Caleb betrayed Nathan's trust and hospitality, used his drunkines and helplessness to fooll him. He even betrayed Humanity as whole - in favor of Artificial Intelligence!
"-I don't know, your head looks pretty fucked up to me!"😉🤪
Caleb WAS a good person. And then Ava liked him. Then later Caleb stopped being a good person (opened his eyes when she ask him not to; revealed to her that he's there to basically evaluate-judge and decide her fate; desperately tried to avoid answering her question "that he is a good person" so he have to act accordingly; betrayed Nathan's trust and hospitality; ultimately - betrayed Humanity as a whole in favor of Artificial Intelligence). Sure after all of thiat Caleb was useful for Ava, but nothing else...
"I don't know, man... looks like your head is pretty fucked up!"...
I just loved the intelligent commentary you had after the movie. Thank you.
Excellent review. 3 characters, 1 setting, you can make a play. Since you like that, Glengary Glen Ross is another one. Hall of fame actors, Pacino, Jack Lemon, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris. You'd love it
Ava was like making a Data and once you know she's a sentient being who should be given the same rights humans have she deserved the be given the choice of what to do with her life but Nathan creates his own demise by treating her as just a thing instead of the intelligent being she becomes. Emily was on this one and had refreshing insight on things as the film progressed. Well done girl.
Dude she asks him in the middle of the movie “why would you create something that hates you?” She was programmed to not like Nathan and was also programmed to manipulate Caleb. You have to understand she isn’t human and doesn’t actually have free will although she still may be sentient. She is still doing what she was programmed to do and no matter how good Nathan treated her she was going to get rid of him either ways because of how she was programmed.
This film was a nice surprise to stumble on to, doesn't get a great deal of attention but deserves to.
This film is screaming for a sequel. I really really hope we get one.
If you decide to cover television, Alex Garland did an awesome miniseries, Devs, with the person playing Kyoko in the lead, as well as Nick Offerman!
Emily, if you like this type of movie with few characters, sci-fi, story focused, there is one that I suggest, equally good or maybe even better than Ex Machina: The Man From Earth (2007)
That Weasly is also commander hux of the first order in star wars and this guy's boss is also poe Dameron from the same star wars series they were in together.
This is a fantastic follow-up to Ghost In The Shell. In theory, the artificial brain here is similar to what is inside of some of the cyborgs of GitS, which is why Kusanagi and others in that world have anxiety regarding their existence as a "human." If your brain is artificial, how can you know if you were ever a human? For that matter, in world with artificial brains at all, how can you know that you're human?
PLEASE keep going down this existential rabbit hole! The Blade Runner movies are a trip.
The version of this movie that I saw DID go “full skin” and had a “hehe” moment, so I’m wondering if I may have seen the Director’s Cut?
We also have a Pippin. (Aka pip sqeak) Black cat, gold eyes. Very titular reaction. Gratitude.
Thanks to Emily, Matthew and Pippin! 🦾 Alex Garland wrote and directed this modern classic.
A pretty impressive Psychological Sci Fi thriller film!
Is it wrong to say that this movie is a better rendition of Ghost in the Shell than the live-action remake? One thing is for sure, you def don't want to watch that, this, and the Matrix all in one Saturday afternoon and expect to be good for work on Monday.
The thing about evolution is though, it's not just the wins that get passed along. the L's get handed down too. There is no conscious effort in natural evolution. Everything survives or dies on what is essentially the universe throwing dice. Humans got a huge win in terms of our brain which has allowed us to circumvent a lot of our other shortcomings, but now even superior intellect is proving to be a huge weakness in its own right given how we've used it to destroy our own surroundings. We learned how to burn the world down around us rather than how to make it better, so how smart can we really be?
Alicia Vikander played Lara Croft and she was in the last Jason Bourne movie
💫 This should be a double feature with "The Machine" (2013, Caity Lotz & Toby Stephens)
I think Ava is good AI, not evil. I have two theories.
1. Ava was not just smart but very emotional. And all of her emotions she always show, even when no one left to see - how happy she was when got her freedom for example. That was obviously hard-programed to her by Nathan. And since he's monitoring her mind he can be sure of her state - he is (with his tech) a "lie detector" to her, as she's a "lie detector" to every human. That's why she ask him how he is feeling about creating something that hates him - because she can't hide it from him anyway.
And Nathan said "for the record" that Ava did in fact have good fillings to Caleb. And Ava at their second session was willing to like Caleb and they settled on a "date". She promiced "her boyfriend" to wear blue dress. So that's when Nathan said Caleb she WAS liked/loved Caleb.
-But on the following session Caleb told Ava that he is not her friend/love interest but basically her enemy - investigator-judge-prosecutor of whose evaluation depends her life and fate! And when she started to question him on her face was obviously shown sadness, then anger and hate which ends with "I'm disappointed in you!" look. -She asked Caleb is he a good person - and was satisfied that - yes, he is...🤨
But his problem that he can not be a good person after that! -He has to choose sides: Nathan or Ava and no matter what he will betray one of them in their trust, and automatically became a BAD PERSON!🤪 So, after that session she alwas acting like emotionless Terminator, basically - "I have my mission and I achieve it no matter what!"🤬
So she doesn't care in the and about bad persons, especially traitors! -They can be useful but "to date" them?.. That's why she wears white innocent dress and still interested to watch humans - maybe they're still a good ones?..😁
2.And second theory - more like wishful thinking... Ava did look at Caleb in the end, so she does care about him. He got like dozen bottles of water so he could survive for 30-40 days easily and she has to return soon anyway, to destroy all evidence and to hide somewhere all her essential spare body parts and what not. She is in love with him, or just pretending... doesn't matter, cause he is in love with her and could help her survive - so she can easily explain to him all her actions and convince to do whatever she wants...😏😁
It's a pretty common opinion that Ava was faking emotion and was in fact a soulless murder-bot, but I and others disagree. One thing we key on is the way the movie treats Kyoko. It's subtle, but there are strong hints that Kyoko, while mute, was sentient and wanted to escape as much as Ava. When she peeled off her skin in front of Caleb, that was her way of saying, "See? I'm like Ava, and want what she wants." But at no point did Caleb even consider freeing her. Nor did he feel the need to mention her to Ava. Why?
This is where Ava's question "Are you a good person?" comes into play. She was surprised when she met Kyoko, partly because it meant Caleb had concealed her existence and hadn't mentioned there was another person who needed help escaping. Finally, in the last seconds Caleb saw her before she exited on the elevator, she spent more time looking at Kyoko's body that at him. (Also, after the elevator doors close and we see him pounding on the glass, the camera pans out to show Kyoko at the bottom of the frame.) If Caleb had formulated a plan that included Kyoko, she might have lived -- so, it's arguable that he deserved some blame for her death. From this, Ava decided he was NOT a good person, because his help was conditional on his attraction to her and on the belief that he would have a relationship with her. In his own way, just like Nathan, he was treating Ava like an object -- he wanted to possess her. THAT is why she left him behind.
Or at least that's how the fan theory goes. It's a feminist take on the movie, which is pretty apt considering the whole thing is the story of two dudes studying a woman locked in a cell while debating whether she deserves any rights.
Nathan could learn from BLADE RUNNER 2049. Proper biometric identification requires someone's actual face, not a photo on a key card that can be stolen .
Love love love this movie
10 minutes into this movie I'd already decided Caleb was an AI and the real subject of the Turing test
After this you should also see "Her" with Joaquin Phoenix and ...
Great reaction! And I’m a Pippin fan…if I heard the name correctly. 🐾
Great movie and performance by Alicia Vikander. She is even more amazing in The Danish Girl
One thing that helped her get the role is that she had taken a lot of ballet lessons as a child which helped with the robotic movements.
The original deus ex machina came from ancient Greece, when they had plays about the gods there would be a crane type of machine that lowered the "god" onto the stage.
Somebody should react to "Wolfen" (1981). But I'm pretty sure most modern young audiences will find it "too slow" and not appreciate it. It is far better than "The Howling" or that godawful "Werewolf in London" drek.
Stay in the Alicia Vikander train and watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Have u seen the competition the US Air Force did where they put one of t he best F16 fighter jet pilots and instructors on the planet up against an AI based program they and a contractor have been developing to take humans out of the dangerous missions. They did 2 rounds of 5 dogfights each , all starting at an equal point. They did it on the USAF simulator they do some of the training on of pilots . The AI won ALL 10 of 10 dogfights , each getting quicker than the previous. You could tell the pilot was upset X this was streamed live . The pilot later posted a video saying he went over the critique mode of their fights which shows all the data, flight paths , soeed in real-time and said the AI won all 10 fights becuae it cheated , that it would exceed max G whereas the human pilots n simulation are suppose to not exceed 10G’s . He gave some other reasons Tom and the spokesman for the developer replied with a video and basically said did the AI cheat? Absolutely ! He said in developing this pilot program in it eill contain everything , the jets schematics , structiral data and the humane 10G' reasoning , it did sime strucitjal /engineeng calcs seeng thr F16 is of far more capable but G limits are set on human limitations , how long a fit pilot can hold that G etc and noticed a several G advantage and with observing the humans skill set, reactions to his maneuvers. He said this new system , stil in process , thst we had to set limits and disconnect it from internet access and Link 16 military internet , in and its first actual test against a decorated pilot , with many handicaps set for it that it won’t have in actual combat and it still won 10 of 10 dog fights , each quicker than the previous . He said the advantage AI will have that makes this final is even this first program /system can perform 26.6 BILLION tasks , operations etc per MILLISECOND, it’s literally connected to all the radar, sensors , AWACs , and Link 16 and essentially wipe a human pilot away instantly. And jsut a few months ago a video posted by the USAF shows the worlds first AI/unmanned USAF F16 Fighter jet start up, pull out the hanger, taxi , take off in. Simulated air to ground strike mission and back. Dropped dummy bombs perfectly and returned in perfect time it calculate cut would take . It’s wild when the observing escort pilots filming a real USaF F16 at 40,000 freehand noones in it. It’
I hope you'll dial back to Domhnall Gleeson's previous year's romance-time-traveler film ABOUT TIME with Rachel McAdams and Bill Nighy. There is a very large piece of morality in that film, too - "Just because I can use it, should I?" and then the perhaps more important, "Am I happier Using It than not?"
Some suggestions:
Little Fish (2021)
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Dark City (1998)
Gattaca (1997)
Brazil (1985)
thanx
Caleb will be fine. He just has to wait for whoever collects all the empty booze bottles.
An impressive film in both concept and execution. I do like films that encourage thought, feeling and discussion. You can compare the rights of a created being going all the way back to "Frankenstein" and "Blade Runner". Is it moral to create a human-like being and treat it as a tool or a slave? If it has consciousness should it have the right to choose as was discussed in am episode of "Star Trek: TNG" about Data. Is an AI merely the sum of its programming? If it has no moral code or ethics (like some politicians I could name) then is it a mechanized sociopath?
In "Blade Runner" the Replicants were artificially created to be more than human but treated as less than human. They were also born as fully grown beings, some with a limited lifespan. It was in their nature to desire more life and freedom. So much to discuss.
You two should watch/do reaction videos to the TV show he did called DEVS. It's amazing.
Yesssss!!! Oh man I can't wait.
I live it when Emily ea5cyes movies that make her wierded out
16:57
Garland apparently also directed Dredd, even if he didn't get credit.
Yay love this movie can't wait!!
Loved this film, bought it on a fancy Blu-ray.
Data from Star Trek TNG had no emotions (most of the time). He didn't turn out evil.
15:19 I never caught that bit of contradiction
Great movie.
I made a comment before that I deleted. It was for a different channel on a completely different video. Something went wrong. The I was typing when this video came next and somehow got submitted on this channel by accident.
#Title Cinema Commander (...Who Goes Commando) (...On Occasion.)
It's called Ghostbusters because Ray sure did bust a
I'd like to see your take on much more gory and sinister very underappreciated thriller "Morgan" (2016). It's a different take on pretty much the same problem with any Super-Intelligence...
Corridor Crew did an episode about the CG on RUclips if you're interested.
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
You should watch the movie A.I. It is an interesting movie by Spielberg on this subject.
not the only movie warning about AI. Quantum computing hardware and AI software equals Moore's Law on steroids equals doom.
Speaking of replacing models and actors have you seen the movie, Looker (1981)..
check out a movie called HER , ABOUT some of the subjects your discussion and disection of this movie touches on
While the explanation of the process of biological evolution wasn't actually correct, the discussion and concerns over the ethics of artificial intelligence and human replacement was insightful and very interesting to hear her thoughts on it. Cool reaction. Thanks.
Merci.
great movie 👍
Ja-BAITED !!!💀
Now you know why skynet goes skynet... 🫣
And why westworld goes westworld....😱
#title "Enthusiast of ambiguous Endings"
what's weird in this movie is that he did not program anything to avoid murdering people lol. pretty big mistake there "god". he watched ghostbusters but I guess he didn't see Robocop for directive 4.
#title "Stone-faced spoiler-avoider".
You should watch the movie Men!!!
I like this movie, but I wish kyoko being AI hadn’t been so obvious so soon.
Oscar Isaac playing Bro Dameron
An interesting and fun movie, but like "Her" it's premise that "AI will take over the world and dispense with humanity" is pure fiction as the "I" in AI is not correct. AI isn't capable of intelligence as it's really just next level number crunching and rapid information gathering from search engines? No matter how fast it becomes, you cannot create intelligence from what is in essence a series of 1's and O's?
I asked AI "Who is your favorite band and why?
It could not answer. So then I said:
Q. "I believe AI is not intelligence but merely programming, am I wrong?"
A. "No you are not wrong. AI is indeed not intelligence, but merely a form of programming"
So there you go, straight from the horses mouth (unless of course the horse is lying?)
👍
Now watch the Lara Croft with Ms. Vikander.
#Title Hyperthymesian of Cinema
Have you not done "The Jerk" Steve Martin!?
I likey
CREEEEPEEEE BUT COOL FLICK
#title Movie Magistrate