I rewatched that last night. I haven't watched it in about 20 years, because when I was a kid, it was just... Too sad. I couldn't handle the grief in it, I guess, and it genuinely sat with me for years afterwards (though I couldn't remember which movie it was, lol). It's easy to mix up with AI: Artificial Intelligence, which came out at the same time, though I don't think I've seen that one. But if you have, apparently there's a lot of crossover...
Anyway, without throwing too many spoilers out, I mostly quite liked it, this time around. Critics at the time didn't, and it didn't do very well at the box office, partly due to bad marketing (marketed as a family comedy, when it really... Wasn't), and partly tonal inconsistencies...
It's definitely flawed, and I wish it had spent less time trying to force Asimov's ideas and screwball physical comedy into the same film. There's some serious plot holes, and some things which are just... Uncomfortable, but it's not a bad film by any means.
Still incredibly sad, though. However the things about it that make me sad are different to those that greatly affected me when I was around 8, lol.
Robin Williams does a pretty good job, though I personally think Embeth Davidtz (what a name, lol) and Oliver Platt did a better job with the material they were given.
But yeah, I certainly still like this movie a lot more than Reddit does, for example, lol.
It asks some questions that I doubt Hollywood would even have the balls to think about, these days. Which is something.
Good points. Especially about the "not fully understanding despite wanting to be one" bit.
It's funny I guess, because I've always felt like such an outsider, in most environments that I find myself in, that I sort of think of myself as a bit "alien", or like an android or something... I'm obviously not alone in that, but even other people who seem to feel that way... seem to fit in "better" than I do.
Despite that, I don't think I'm autistic, and I don't have many of the other symptoms (more ADHD like, perhaps), but I've just always... Been a bit weird. Which I think comes from having an extremely shitty, isolated, lonely childhood, where I wasn't allowed to "be normal"...
Anyway, as the result of all that, I really identify with the "muddling through" of characters like this, where they just want to be normal, and to be perceived and treated as "normal", and to have that connection.
Which is a point of dialogue in the film from the creator/inventor guy, so I guess the movie is entirely aware of this aspect of the human condition, too...
We all want that connection, and to feel that sense of belonging (in addition to the sense of being free which the film also explores), but even though we're all human, a lot of us don't get/have that, anymore.
Sorry for the rant. I've just been rather starved of meaningful IRL human connection the last month or so, so maybe I've taken these movie narratives on board a little too much, lol...
That actually reminds me of why I think I liked Robin Williams's character in that movie. Seeing the android awkwardly try to act like a human reminds me a lot of a human who hasn't quite adapted themselves to their surrounding culture. His social ineptitude turns people off, but the fact that he's so sincere and innocent helps make up for it.
On a related note, I've never really liked the tendency for people to immediately associate the label of autism with being nerdy and socially awkward. To my knowledge, autism is not something that can be objectively measured or tested for – a doctor can't run a blood test and say, "yep, you've got the autism".