A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
A highly advanced robotic boy named David is created to love and is adopted by a human family, but his existence becomes complicated as he struggles to win his mother’s affection and find where he truly belongs. Set in a futuristic world shaped by climate change and advanced robotics, he embarks on a journey through human and machine society in search of acceptance.
Narrative Score
Full Plot & Ending Explained
Intro
In a futuristic, climate-changed world, Cybertronics creates David, a child-sized mecha programmed to feel unconditional love, and he is placed with Henry and Monica Swinton as a temporary substitute for their son Martin, who is in suspended animation with a rare illness.
Turning Point 1
At first Monica fears David, but after reading and activating his imprinting protocol, she becomes his “mommy,” and David fixes all of his love onto her while Teddy, Martin’s robotic teddy bear, becomes his companion.
Turning Point 2
When Martin is cured and brought home, he grows jealous of David and manipulates him into dangerous situations; at a pool party, David’s protective programming kicks in, he grabs Martin, both boys fall into the pool, and Henry and Monica conclude that David is too dangerous to keep.
Turning Point 3
Monica cannot bring herself to let David be destroyed, so she abandons him in a forest of discarded machines and obsolete mechas, telling him to find his own kind; David then remembers Pinocchio and decides that if he can find the Blue Fairy, she can make him a real boy and restore Monica’s love.
Turning Point 4
David and Teddy reach Rouge City and meet Gigolo Joe, a pleasure mecha on the run after being accused of murder; together they flee the city, are chased through the dangerous Flesh Fair where mechas are destroyed for human entertainment, and David is eventually rescued from further capture by Joe’s help.
Turning Point 5
David, Joe, and Teddy travel to Dr. Know, whose information leads them toward Manhattan and Professor Hobby, David’s creator; in the flooded ruins of New York, David discovers many identical David models, realizes he is not unique, and becomes devastated at the fact that he can never be a real human child.
Turning Point 6
Unable to bear the truth, David throws himself toward the ocean depths and seems to reach the Blue Fairy statue he has worshipped, but Joe is captured while helping him, and David becomes trapped underwater near Coney Island, where he keeps pleading for the Fairy to make him real until his power runs down.
Ending
Two thousand years later, highly advanced future mecha recover David, Teddy, and the Coney Island remains from under the ice, recreate Monica from David’s preserved hair, and allow David to spend one perfect day with her before she dies again that night; the film ends with David finally experiencing the love and closure he has sought his entire life.
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