I love androids. My favorite Computer Science topic is artificial intelligence. To be honest, when I started writing this column, it quickly became a 5-page thesis on quantum computing, software design, and human psychology. It got so far off track that I decided to start over. There’s just so much to talk about when it comes to this subject. The future of computers is almost the future of everything.
I also love seeing android characters in books and films. They speak to that non-human side of me. I have a bookish knowledge of human nature, but I also have difficulty understanding people. I get asked for advice on a regular basis, but people don’t come to me because I’ve had experience (because I haven’t). They come to me because my advice is clinical rather than emotional. I’ve read so many psychology books and spent so much time studying the human mind, and that’s more effective than “following your heart”. People will start to tell me about a friend or lover, and within just a few sentences, I can usually turn it around and explain that person to an exacting degree. To this day, I’ve never had anyone tell me that my advice made things worse. I’m a trustworthy, private, unbiased listener who analyzes human relationships in the brain rather than the heart.
I’m not attempting an ego trip here – it’s just something that I like to study, and sometimes I’m able to help people with it. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why I get attached to android characters in fiction. They present an entirely new spin on our species. They’re trusted and admired, but usually not loved. They’re capable and intelligent, but not as charismatic or sociable as the people around them. Their goal is to help others, but their lack of humanity can make them cold and even cruel sometimes. Android characters are fascinating to study, because they represent something trying to be human. They give us new perspectives on what it means to be human. And this year, I think we’re about to get one of the best android characters ever put to film!
I’ve been excited for Prometheus since they announced it. Ridley Scott – who made the original Alien film – was asked to come back for a sequel. By this point, the series had been tarnished by progressively inferior sequels from other directors, and then raped by the Alien vs. Predator series. Ridley didn’t feel like returning to that world. But he was willing to meet with the writer, Damon Lindelof (one of the creators of Lost). Ridley started telling him about what he really wanted to make – a film that asked the big questions about where we come from as a species. Eventually, they realized that these concepts could work perfectly within the world of Alien. Prometheus is technically a prequel to Alien, but it has almost nothing to do with the original films. Some of the themes will return, and some of the questions will be answered, but this film will be a totally new look at the world.
Every Alien film has had an android crew member. In Prometheus we’ll see the earliest model, in the form of David (played by Michael Fassbender). This film has had a fantastic marketing campaign, and the latest video is this “commercial” for David:
This video has me more excited for the film than any trailer so far. As someone who loves to study artificial intelligence, this is exactly how I picture the first androids to operate. Whenever he’s asked a question, he always gives a slight pause before responding. Sometimes this seems to be a deliberate programming function to make him seem more human, while other times it’s a delay to allow his CPU to sort through his mind and come up with the appropriate response. You can almost sense the computer running in his head in those moments (watch him right after he's asked "What do you think about?"). Michael’s performance here is beautiful. He really looks like an android, but not the way most people expect. It’s not jerky or mechanical. It’s smooth and calculated –it looks not like human movement, but instead a carefully crafted imitation of it.
My biggest concern is that they’ll do what almost every film does, and make David malfunction and turn on the crew. It’s an interesting concept, but almost every film with an android goes this route. So far, David appears to be the most accurate vision of the future we’ve seen, and I hope they focus on that rather than a “robots gone bad” subplot.
Last month, I also stumbled across an unadvertised online sale. Last year, 20th Century Fox released an amazing Blu Ray set for the Alien series, giving it a beautiful film restoration, the biggest set of bonus features ever put on disc, and a fantastic replica of a Xenomorph egg to store it all in. It cost $250 and sold out quickly, and I couldn’t justify the price. But the studio kept 200 as a backup, in case there were defective copies that needed an exchange. Last month, they cleared out that remaining stock for $50 apiece. They sold out in 2 hours on eBay, and I got the very last one!
Now that I’m done with school, I finally have time to catch up on all of my books and films. I think I’ll start with a return to this series, in preparation for Prometheus. It’s going to be a good month!