Let’s simply rip the band-aid off: the ending of A.I. Synthetic Intelligence just isn’t a dream. It’s not a glitch within the Matrix. And it’s positively not Spielberg including a heat, fuzzy epilogue as a result of he couldn’t deal with Kubrick’s signature model of cinematic nihilism. No, the ending—the one with the future-mecha, the frozen Blue Fairy, and the teddy bear nonetheless holding sturdy after 2,000 years—is strictly what it was at all times meant to be. And that lovely, devastating, emotional whiplash of a finale? It’s not simply Spielberg. It’s Kubrick too.
There’s been a long-running principle that A.I. was a Stanley Kubrick undertaking that Steven Spielberg got here in and “softened.” You realize the story: Kubrick spent a long time making an attempt to make the movie, couldn’t crack the know-how, thought it may be higher fitted to Spielberg’s sensibilities, and after his demise, Spielberg completed the job.
So naturally, when the ultimate scenes roll and David the robotic boy will get one magical day together with his long-dead mother, a sure part of movie Twitter collectively huffs, “Ugh. Classic Spielberg. Can’t let anything end on a downer.” However what if that ultimate act wasn’t a heat hug from Uncle Steven… however a haunting lullaby from each administrators, working in tandem?
It’s necessary to recollect: Kubrick wasn’t some joyless void of existential despair. He was a meticulous weirdo with a robust love of irony, cruelty, and sure—emotional ambiguity. Individuals like to suppose he would’ve ended A.I. with David eternally staring on the Blue Fairy like a frozen Home windows screensaver. However early script drafts (written by Spielberg, for Kubrick) already included the future-mechas and the one-day-only resurrection.
These weren’t tacked on final minute. Kubrick and his long-time collaborator Ian Watson had sketched out an overview that ended simply as Spielberg delivered it. The superior mechas, typically misidentified as aliens (they’re not!), had been Kubrick’s thought too. So was the day-long revival of Monica, David’s human mom. This wasn’t an emotional detour—it was the endpoint all alongside.
So should you suppose the ultimate act is sentimental fluff, you’re studying it improper. It’s not a contented ending. It’s a simulation of a contented ending. A manufactured closure designed for a machine constructed to want one. It’s gutting. It’s existential. And it’s completely Kubrickian in its cruelty. Spielberg simply occurred to make it look fairly.
Critics like to act like Spielberg snuck a Disney ending in by the again door, however there’s no bait and change. He was executing Kubrick’s blueprint. Spielberg himself mentioned in interviews that Stanley insisted he direct it as a result of he thought Spielberg may deal with the emotional scope. The irony? Spielberg leaned extra into Kubrick’s coldness, whereas Kubrick was the one pushing for the sentiment.
Let that sit with you. The person behind The Shining, 2001, and A Clockwork Orange was the one saying, “Hey, maybe we give the little robot a day with his mom.” Spielberg, ever the craftsman, added layers of heat and visible poetry to the framework. The tip result’s typically mistaken for sentimentality, but it surely’s much more sinister while you notice what’s truly occurring. Monica isn’t actual. She’s a clone with no reminiscence past someday. And when that day ends, David dies. Or, extra precisely, shuts down. Joyful ending? That’s one darkish bedtime story.
A.I. isn’t nearly robots. It’s about what it means to be cherished. To be actual. To be needed. And people questions get no straightforward solutions. David is constructed to like, obsessively, endlessly. He doesn’t develop. He doesn’t evolve. He simply desires his mommy again. Endlessly. It’s tragic. It’s additionally deeply uncomfortable. The ultimate half-hour aren’t a coda—they’re the core of the movie’s message: {that a} machine might be programmed to really feel everlasting, determined love, however by no means obtain it. As a result of love, actual love, isn’t a loop. It ends. And David can’t settle for that. That’s not Spielberg taking part in good. That’s Spielberg confronting mortality by a sci-fi fable that Kubrick helped design.
Individuals get so hung up on the ending, they overlook simply how bizarre A.I. will get within the center. Flesh Gala’s. Rouge Cities. Jude Regulation as a robotic gigolo named Gigolo Joe. That entire second act is a dystopian funhouse that looks like Blade Runner ate Pinocchio and washed it down with absinthe. And but—it really works. The tonal shift from nightmarish techno-circus to quiet fairy story tragedy is jarring, however that’s what makes A.I. particular. It refuses to be one factor. It’s science fiction. It’s a fairy story. It’s physique horror. It’s a tragic lullaby for the machine era.
This debate in regards to the ending isn’t simply movie faculty chatter. It’s change into symbolic. Kubrick vs. Spielberg represents a conflict of types: the chilly mental versus the nice and cozy humanist. However A.I. proves that binary is fake. Kubrick might have been scientific, however he was additionally deeply fascinated by human weak spot and longing. Spielberg might put on his coronary heart on his sleeve, however he’s greater than able to wrenching tragedy from a seemingly comforting second.
The ending of A.I. is polarizing as a result of it’s emotionally manipulative by design—but it surely’s not manipulative regardless of Kubrick. It’s manipulative due to Kubrick. That ultimate scene is a tragedy disguised as want achievement. A robotic little one will get his dream, but it surely’s manufactured, short-term, and he won’t ever get up from it. Many critics nonetheless separate the movie into “Kubrick’s cold first half” and “Spielberg’s warm second half.” However that division undercuts the truth that each males formed each act. The mechas. The resurrection. Even Teddy. All of it got here from shared concepts, notes, and drafts that lengthy predated Spielberg’s solo work.
The tragedy of A.I. is that individuals nonetheless discuss it prefer it’s a inventive custody battle. In fact, it’s a uncommon hybrid—Kubrick’s mind meets Spielberg’s coronary heart. The film’s ultimate moments, the place David lays down subsequent to his recreated mom and quietly “goes to sleep,” are sometimes mislabeled as closure. However what we’re actually seeing is the top of a program, a shutdown sequence disguised as a bedtime story. The dream wasn’t actual. The love was by no means reciprocated. The ache, although? Completely actual.
That’s not schmaltz. That’s a punch within the coronary heart wrapped in a lullaby. Each of them. Kubrick conceived it. Spielberg formed it. However they had been telling the identical story. One noticed the long run by a mirror darkly. The opposite noticed it by a toddler’s eyes. And the ending they arrived at is each.
It’s emotional ambiguity dressed up as closure. It’s a cautionary story about needing love in a world that may’t give it. And it’s one of the vital misunderstood endings in science fiction historical past. So subsequent time somebody says, “Spielberg ruined the ending,” simply nod, smile, and whisper:
“You have no idea what heartbreak looks like, do you?”
And in the event that they nonetheless don’t get it, simply present them Teddy. That bear remains to be sitting there. Watching. Ready. Carrying the emotional weight of two cinematic giants.
