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Associated Press

As AI takes over the world in the metaphorical sense – for now, at least – it is the perfect time to turn to the films that have depicted AI over the years, and what they have said about the world in the process.
Here is a selection that have given AI a robust presence in popular culture over the past few generations.
1. The Terminator


As James Cameron recently said, “I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn’t listen.”
Cameron’s dystopian science fiction series – particularly the 1984 original and its 1991 sequel, both with Arnold Schwarzenegger – imagined a future world where a military computer system named Skynet grows sentient and, after humans try to “pull the plug”, starts a nuclear holocaust.
“They say it got smart,” John Connor’s father says in the original film. Ever since, The Terminator has loomed as perhaps the pre-eminent cinematic vision of a world leading to AI rule.
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey


If AI has a voice, it is that of HAL 9000, the sentient spaceship computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterwork that envisioned a human history in which the creation of tools, from ape bludgeon to gleaming space station, has evolutionary consequences.
HAL, the red-eyed antagonist voiced with disquieting calm by Douglas Rain, is technically a child. (It tells the astronaut Dave that it is nine years old.) HAL can easily win at chess and read lips.
But much of what HAL is up to remains hidden behind its opaque machine exterior, and in deep space, it begins maliciously eliminating the astronauts on board its ship. Maybe HAL would have got along better with Siri or Alexa.
3. Wall-E


For a kids’ movie, the future offered up by Wall-E (2008) is remarkably haunting: an Earth destroyed by pollution as a lazy human race locked to their screens and stuck in their La-Z-Boys has passed all thinking on to computers.
On the cruise ship onto which all humanity has fled, a very HAL-like AI named Auto has been handed all power to steer its course. Thankfully, life – and love – blooms again on Earth.
4. Blade Runner


For his 1982 sci-fi film, Ridley Scott and his team imagined a 2019 with smart homes and video calling (as well as flying cars and analogue Polaroid photographs), but it is the AI replicants “virtually identical to a human” that still get under people’s skin.
There was something provocative about Daryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer’s punk, rogue androids – especially the latter’s oft-referenced “tears in rain” speech as antagonist Roy Batty.
5. Simone


Andrew Niccol’s Simone, or S1m0ne, is not the best-remembered movie, but it is the one that seems most hauntingly relevant for actors on strike worried about their images being owned or, maybe even worse, entirely new movie stars being invented by technology.
Al Pacino plays a director whose film is in jeopardy when his actress storms off. To save it, he uses a program to create a perfect computer-generated actor (a synthespian), who does not complain, does not need hair and make-up, and takes direction. It works – too well – and she becomes the biggest star in the world.
6. Her


The AI in question in Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her is simply an operating system at first – sorting emails, reading messages, reminding of appointments and so forth.
But the lonely Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) quickly finds himself falling for his OS – named Samantha and voiced by Scarlett Johansson – whose humanlike qualities, ability to consistently evolve and mandatory devotion to her operator start to approximate a fantasy of a real relationship.
Her also coincided with an explosion of articles about virtual girlfriends in Japan, which have since gone global.
7. Interstellar


Robots in science fiction movies often look like humans, but in Christopher Nolan’s 2014 movie Interstellar, Tars is made with function in mind. Crucially, Tars is not there to replace humans but to complement and help them.
Tars can pilot the spaceship, collect data (and convey findings coherently) and has the agility to save Anne Hathaway from a deadly wave on a water planet without fear of its own destruction.
While Tars has a sense of humour and irony – programmed to a specific percentage – uncontrolled sentience is not an issue.
8. Ex Machina


Alex Garland explored ideas about consciousness, human and otherwise, in Ex Machina, which is as much about the ego of Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a reclusive tech titan who fancies himself a god, as it is about the AI Ava (Alicia Vikander).
Domhnall Gleeson, an employee at Nathan’s tech company, is invited to determine whether Ava has achieved human consciousness.
Ex Machina was one of several films in the mid-2010s that grappled with AI, but proved a class above others such as Avengers: Age of Ultron.


8 Hollywood films where AI is front and centre, from Terminator and Interstellar to Wall-E

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American cinema

Arnold Schwarzenegger in a scene from the film &quot;The Terminator&quot;, directed by James Cameron, 1984. COURTESY TV

A still from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterwork featuring HAL 9000, a sentient spaceship computer that decides to eliminate the astronauts onboard, is one of many films that have featured the technology in unsettling, sometimes prescient ways. Photo: MGM Studios

Mark Wahlberg in a still from Planet of the Apes (2001). The film made a respectable US$362 million worldwide on a US$100 million budget, but is bland and workmanlike compared with some of director Tim Burton’s other features.

Tim Roth (top centre) as Thade, the militaristic leader of the apes, in a still from Planet of the Apes (2001). Photo: AP Photo/20th Century Fox

Mark Wahlberg (left) and Estella Warren in a still from Planet of the Apes (2001). Photo: Reuters/Sam Emerson/20th Century Fox

Tim Roth (left) and Mark Wahlberg in a still from Planet of the Apes (2001). Photo: AP Photo/20th Century Fox, Sam Emerson

How My Sassy Girl with Jun Ji-hyun left a lasting impact on South Korean cinema 25 years on

Jun Ji-hyun (left) and Cha Tae-hyun in a still from My Sassy Girl. Photo: Film Movement.

Cha Tae-hyun (left) and Jun Ji-hyun in a still from My Sassy Girl. The 2001 romcom became a flagship title of the emerging Korean Wave phenomenon and led to a slew of remakes and spin-offs across Asia. Photo: Film Movement

Jun Ji-hyun at an interview with the SCMP in 2009. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Cha Tae-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun in a still from My Sassy Girl. Photo: Film Movement

Jun Ji-hyun with Cha Tae-hyun in a still from My Sassy Girl (left), and with Jang Hyuk in a still from Windstruck (2004). Photos: Film Movement, handout

Jun Ji-hyun and Cha Tae-hyun in a still from My Sassy Girl. Photo: Film Movement

Jun Ji-hyun in a still from My Sassy Girl. Photo: Film Movement

Widow’s Bay, The Beast in Me star Matthew Rhys on dual Emmy nods for shows that take risks

Matthew Rhys in a still from The Beast in Me. The Welsh actor talks about how he prepared to play a psychopath in the Netflix show and the mayor of a cursed New England island in Apple TV's Widow's Bay. He has received Emmy nominations for both roles. Photo: Netflix

Keri Russell, left, and Matthew Rhys arrive at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards on September 19, 2021, at LA Live in Los Angeles. Photo: AP

Left: Matthew Rhys in Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay. Right: Rhys in The Beast in Me. Photos: Apple TV+ via AP, Netflix

The appeal of Ghibli: why films like Totoro, Ponyo and Spirited Away continue to find fans

A scene from the 1988 film My Neighbour Totoro. Studio Ghibli films like Totoro and Spirited Away continue to captivate audiences even today. In the US, the annual Ghibli Fest has been running since 2017. Photo: GKids via AP

A scene from the 2001 Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away. Photo: GKids via AP

A scene from Ghibli’s first studio release, the 1986 film Castle in the Sky. Photo: GKids via AP

Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki arrives at a special screening of Ponyo in Hollywood, California, in 2009. Photo: FilmMagic

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Christopher Nolan, James Cameron and others have long explored AI in films. Here are eight that strikingly foretell the tech’s consequences


Christopher Nolan, James Cameron and others have long explored AI in films. Here are eight that strikingly foretell the tech’s consequences.


Artificial intelligence

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Hollywood

Science fiction

8 Hollywood films where AI is front and centre, from Terminator and Interstellar to Wall-E

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Christopher Nolan, James Cameron and others have long explored AI in films. Here are eight that strikingly foretell the tech’s consequences

1. The Terminator

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Christopher Nolan, James Cameron and others have long explored AI in films. Here are eight that strikingly foretell the tech’s consequences