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Ex Machina: Turing Test, the Movie

Geomax

Geomax

Starfarer

Given what it's about, I'm surprised it hasn't been brought up yet. Anyone here seen it yet?
 
I've seen it. I was actually all gung ho about this just based on the fact that it reunited my favorite couple from Anna Karenina, but then it went and turned out to be a pretty entertaining movie.

I will say, without spoilers but in the interest of getting relevant info out, that it's not quite Turing Test: The Movie. The test gets mentioned, but then like two seconds later one of the other main characters is like "Wait, I already know she's a robot, and an actual Turing Test would hide that fact," to which the other main character/the movie goes "Shhh, don't worry about it."

Other than that, I still think people should see it. The story won't win any awards even though it has some clever bits, but the actors are amazing (Oscar Isaac would make an awesome 21st century Lex Luthor with how smooth and yet obviously weird he is, and Alicia Vikander is great in ways I won't spoil here), the tone and music are perfectly calibrated, and the production design makes future-chic interior decorating look like a haunted house.

I have more thoughts, but they're pretty spoilery:
I suppose if you're a person who opens spoiler tags/you did this by accident I'll start off with a mild spoiler: This movie is more related to noir potboilers than probing sci-fi. Ava is a great addition to the "Oh Mr. Man, I am so abused by my husband and desperately could use a rube like you to sort him out so that I'd be free to repay you, hint-hint" femme fatale tradition, but I don't think she or the movie really has anything to offer to the actual "So, A.I. huh?" discussion.

As I said above, once the outer sci-fi layer is peeled back and the noir core is exposed, the story doesn't really attempt to break the mold. I liked that they nodded at the easy Blade Runner "He's a robot too!!1!" twist without indulging in it, but that also serves to show that the movie is aware of how it could twist but instead...well, plays out exactly as you'd expect. Rube is introduced to Unsavory Man, Unsavory Man shows off his prized Femme Fatale, Femme Fatale gets Rube to help her deal with Unsavory Man, and then Rube is dispatched. Efficient, well told, but nothing that'll warp the landscape.

However, as I said above, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander really dig into their roles and are ultimately what make the movie such a delight. Isaac has the flashier/funner role (and will probably live in eternity thanks to the disco gif), but once you begin to realize that Ava is playing both men in her life you start to appreciate the obvious theatricality of her roboticness, and how the clipped speech and movement much more a show to draw her prey in than a facet of her being. Major props for both 'dressing' scenes, the first to show how she's playing Gleeson, but especially when she dons the skin of her fallen sisters and you see her actually appreciating her body. I obviously can't declare it above the male gaze, but her evaluating her naked body in the mirror didn't feel titillating as much as her genuine delight/fascination with her new form (they're probably too close together for one to be an influence on the other, but I was reminded of a similar situation in Under the Skin, another instance of a 'woman' evaluating her naked body less to give the males in the audience something to look at and more to underscore the themes of the movie).
 
Just saw it. Very impressive, interesting subversion of a standard AI trope, and Google is probably taking notes. See it while it's still in theaters if you can.

Any further discussion, unfortunately, is nigh-impossible without spoiling big chunks of the movie.
 
I haven't seen the film or anything but I watching the trailer I feel like I already know the twist :V
 
Side Item said:
Pssst, this forum has spoiler tags.
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I knew that already. I just find threads where basically everything is in spoiler tags annoying.

Ford Prefect said:
I haven't seen the film or anything but I watching the trailer I feel like I already know the twist :V
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Assuming you're talking about the bit at the end? Nope. Well, I suppose the twist is that he doesn't seem to be that much worse for the wear despite the bleeding and the gash in his arm. But no, he's not secretly a robot. This isn't Blade Runner.
 
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Saw it, and would highly recommend it. I wonder what the asexual community would think of Nathan's reason for giving Ava sexuality.

Question:
If Nathan isn't enthusiastic about his vision of the singularity, an event he knows his creations will lead to, why does he choose to create them? I remember some dialogue justifying the decision but I can't recall the quote.
 
Zak757 said:
Saw it, and would highly recommend it. I wonder what the asexual community would think of Nathan's reason for giving Ava sexuality.
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His reasons:
Are bullshit. As we saw he has clearly selfish reasons for giving them a sex drive.
Question:
If Nathan isn't enthusiastic about his vision of the singularity, an event he knows his creations will lead to, why does he choose to create them? I remember some dialogue justifying the decision but I can't recall the quote.
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Because
Creating AI was inevitable in his mind.Someone would do it so it'd better be him
[/spoiler]
 
Okay, so @stormbringer951 and I were discussing this and came to some conclusions. First, that if there is a list of 'good AI testing protocols' this is not them.

Second, that some day we as a society need to get to the point where we can show a story about a scientist creating an android boyfriend/sextoy for herself and not have that be any more awkward than the reverse. I'm trying to imagine what this movie would look like with (Nathan/Caleb/Ava) with some combination of (Natalie/Caitlin/Adama), and it's all pretty much super awkward. Actually imagining the various combinations of gender/sex flips ended up turning a conversation on AI into a pretty interesting discussion on gender expectations and roles.

Third, somewhat related to the above, this movie is a two hour version of what Caprica should have been.

Also, fair warning for @Ford Prefect and others - the trailer is actually made out of lies. Also, @Amorous Intent, if you haven't gone to see this movie...do so!
 
Acatalepsy said:
Second, that some day we as a society need to get to the point where we can show a story about a scientist creating an android boyfriend/sextoy for herself and not have that be any more awkward than the reverse.
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Imma blow your mind. Go look up the television show Black Mirror, Season 2 Episode 1, "Be Right Back," where Domnhall Gleeson himself plays the robot boyfriend.*

*It should be noted that the human girlfriend is Agent Carter.
 
Saw it last night, and absolutely loved it. The way it built tension was impressive, it played with my expectations enough that I was genuinely surprised by some of the twists, and just, the atmosphere.

Like, at the end, when Ava is putting her skin on and getting ready to leave, I was genuinely unsure whether she would leave Caleb behind. I mean, Nathan's expectation that she was playing Caleb seemed very plausible, but at the same time Nathan was a rather despicable human being that I didn't trust anymore.

Also, the reveal that Nathan was using prior robots as sexbots was absolutely chilling and enough of a surprise to enhance that. I mean, I suspected Kyoko was a robot, and that Nathan was having sex with her was pretty clear, but I did not expect the other robots. And Jade pounding on the glass until her arms broke? That scene is going to be in my nightmares for a long time.
 
CV12Hornet said:
Like, at the end, when Ava is putting her skin on and getting ready to leave, I was genuinely unsure whether she would leave Caleb behind. I mean, Nathan's expectation that she was playing Caleb seemed very plausible, but at the same time Nathan was a rather despicable human being that I didn't trust anymore.
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I've actually been having an argument hovering around this and could use some internet support,
Basically, after there were a bunch of articles talking about the gender/feminist tones of the movie, especially what Ava does at the very end, my friend said he didn't understand why people were reading so much into Ava's motivations. In her view, Nathan programmed Ava to play Caleb, so Ava didn't really 'decide' to leave him there, she was just following the dictates of her coding and fulfilling what the previous instructions made her do.

I don't think Nathan programmed Ava specifically to dupe Caleb. He goosed the results a little bit by using Caleb's porn data to make Ava look attractive to him specifically, but Ava's base programming itself wasn't skewed. I also don't think that Nathan would direct her programming to act a certain way because his goal was to see if she was capable of manipulating someone, and if he had already coded that capability into her the whole test doesn't really make sense.
 
Side Item said:
I've actually been having an argument hovering around this and could use some internet support,
Basically, after there were a bunch of articles talking about the gender/feminist tones of the movie, especially what Ava does at the very end, my friend said he didn't understand why people were reading so much into Ava's motivations. In her view, Nathan programmed Ava to play Caleb, so Ava didn't really 'decide' to leave him there, she was just following the dictates of her coding and fulfilling what the previous instructions made her do.

I don't think Nathan programmed Ava specifically to dupe Caleb. He goosed the results a little bit by using Caleb's porn data to make Ava look attractive to him specifically, but Ava's base programming itself wasn't skewed. I also don't think that Nathan would direct her programming to act a certain way because his goal was to see if she was capable of manipulating someone, and if he had already coded that capability into her the whole test doesn't really make sense.
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Oh, I definitely agree with you there.

Programming Ava to "play" Caleb completely defeats the purpose of the whole exercise, and of designing an AI in the first place. Remember how annoyed Nathan was when Caleb got a little fixated on the idea of Nathan programming Ava to throw him off?[/quote]
 
Ok, thanks for the backup, she was so sure of her position I felt like I was either taking crazy pills and/or had missed some in-movie explanation.
 
Acatalepsy said:
Okay, so @stormbringer951 and I were discussing this and came to some conclusions. First, that if there is a list of 'good AI testing protocols' this is not them.

Second, that some day we as a society need to get to the point where we can show a story about a scientist creating an android boyfriend/sextoy for herself and not have that be any more awkward than the reverse. I'm trying to imagine what this movie would look like with (Nathan/Caleb/Ava) with some combination of (Natalie/Caitlin/Adama), and it's all pretty much super awkward. Actually imagining the various combinations of gender/sex flips ended up turning a conversation on AI into a pretty interesting discussion on gender expectations and roles.

Third, somewhat related to the above, this movie is a two hour version of what Caprica should have been.

Also, fair warning for @Ford Prefect and others - the trailer is actually made out of lies. Also, @Amorous Intent, if you haven't gone to see this movie...do so!
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Just saw the movie, how is the trailer made of lies?

The trailer sets up a story where you have a robot asking the hero for help to escape its mad creator. This is exactly what happens in the movie.

But that's also the kind of trailer where you expect a twist at some point, it could have been Caleb being a robot himself or something else, but I'm not seeing what's the lie.
 
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Khaos said:
Just saw the movie, how is the trailer made of lies?

The trailer sets up a story where you have a robot asking the hero for help to escape its mad creator. This is exactly what happens in the movie.

But that's also the kind of trailer where you expect a twist at some point, it could have been Caleb being a robot himself or something else, but I'm not seeing what's the lie.
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It's made of lies in that the type of movie and the type of narrative it seems to be selling is very different from what we actually get.

Incidentally, since this is back on my radar, has anyone seen the Film Crit Hulk take on the movie? Thoughts on that? I think that his take is fundamentally misguided, but nonetheless fascinating.
 
Acatalepsy said:
It's made of lies in that the type of movie and the type of narrative it seems to be selling is very different from what we actually get.
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Maybe that's just me then, I expected an AI in the box type of movie and I got one.

Incidentally, since this is back on my radar, has anyone seen the Film Crit Hulk take on the movie? Thoughts on that? I think that his take is fundamentally misguided, but nonetheless fascinating.
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I've read it, I didn't feel as he did about the movie, and I was entirely focused on whether Ava was sincere or just playing Caleb since the beginnin. But I don't think it's a mistaken take either, I don't know whether the director may not have had intended Hulk's reading or not (but from the various interview,s it doesn't seem to support so), but I absolutely see where Hulk is coming from from.
 
Khaos said:
Maybe that's just me then, I expected an AI in the box type of movie and I got one.
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To back up the "lying trailer" point, a lot of the trailers started to focus on the approximately three seconds where Ava was rushing at Nathan, making it seem like it was action packed and/or with more overtly thriller tones. The actual movie being more cerebral thriller than suspense thriller isn't even hinted at.
 
Khaos said:
I've read it, I didn't feel as he did about the movie, and I was entirely focused on whether Ava was sincere or just playing Caleb since the beginnin. But I don't think it's a mistaken take either, I don't know whether the director may not have had intended Hulk's reading or not (but from the various interview,s it doesn't seem to support so), but I absolutely see where Hulk is coming from from.
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My problem with Hulk's reading is that it's very, very selective in how it approaches the movie. If you totally ignore all the parts where it's about artificial intelligence, yes, you can make Ava much more sympathetic, and feel a sort of catharsis when she escapes - but if you accept this reading and apply it consistently, you quickly go creepy places.
 
Acatalepsy said:
My problem with Hulk's reading is that it's very, very selective in how it approaches the movie. If you totally ignore all the parts where it's about artificial intelligence, yes, you can make Ava much more sympathetic, and feel a sort of catharsis when she escapes - but if you accept this reading and apply it consistently, you quickly go creepy places.
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I don't think all the parts about artificial intelligence, it's the most obvious part of the movie. Rather I think that he says the movie can also be seen an allegory of a different situation.
 
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