Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
+1
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
It was weird there, I felt like the expert for a second. I knew I was a fraud, but for one bright moment there.
+1
Options
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
Exactly!
Because she's a robot, and robots are always limited by the prejudices and morality of their creators.
Like, that's how I read her whole resolution to the movie, and yes, that's partially because I believe that to be the case of all robots, but I thought it was a pretty clear indictment there.
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masterofmetroidHave you ever looked at a worldand seen it as a kind of challenge?Registered Userregular
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
+8
Options
TrippyJingMoses supposes his toeses are roses.But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered Userregular
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
Exactly!
Because she's a robot, and robots are always limited by the prejudices and morality of their creators.
Like, that's how I read her whole resolution to the movie, and yes, that's partially because I believe that to be the case of all robots, but I thought it was a pretty clear indictment there.
If being limited by the prejudices and morality of whoever came before us is a checkmark for being a robot, then many of us are robots.
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
you can definitely argue she was justified in her actions
But it is still cold blooded murder of someone who up to that point held no ill will towards her solely to protect herself and that shit ain't morally sound
+1
Options
masterofmetroidHave you ever looked at a worldand seen it as a kind of challenge?Registered Userregular
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
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AtomicTofuShe's a straight-up supervillain, yoRegistered Userregular
you can definitely argue she was justified in her actions
But it is still cold blooded murder of someone who up to that point held no ill will towards her solely to protect herself and that shit ain't morally sound
How does she know he meant no ill will towards her? All she has is his word about it and all she knows about humans is what Nathan is like. And why does he want to help her anyway? He clearly has some of the same intentions as Nathan (as evidenced by him peeping on her changing at the end) even if he's outwardly "nicer".
GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
I do think a big problem I had with Ex Machina was
Making Oscar Isaac's character like actually evil. Like I would have dialed it back just a bit. More manipulative than actually dismantling and effectively killing and torturing the previous iterations. That would have made Caleb's fate a bit less jarring. As it would be more about the different kinds of control than well there's this bad guy, and well the "nice guy"
+1
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, and I think it is why I think I like the ending for being so bold, but yet leaves me so cold.
Because on the one hand a love story at the end would have tied the movie together neatly.
But instead you feel sorry for Caleb but at the same time you feel justification for her actions and understand them, and see how manipulative they are. She was a prisoner and did what she needed to get out.
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Well i'd say there's a big ethical difference between Nathan building Ava into permanent imprisonment and likely eventual death and Ava lying to Caleb in order to free herself
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
you can definitely argue she was justified in her actions
But it is still cold blooded murder of someone who up to that point held no ill will towards her solely to protect herself and that shit ain't morally sound
How does she know he meant no ill will towards her? All she has is his word about it and all she knows about humans is what Nathan is like. And why does he want to help her anyway? He clearly has some of the same intentions as Nathan (as evidenced by him peeping on her changing at the end) even if he's outwardly "nicer".
I mean she is literally a lie detector
If he was lying she would know
And that's up to interpretation I suppose, since she never says if he was or not
But I'm standing by Ava is pretty fucked up for leaving him to die. Like, she's not Robo-Satan or anything but writing off leaving Caleb to his death as a necessary thing she had to do when as far as we know from the film his biggest slight against her is watching her put on skin after getting knocked out and seeing her break out and not knowing what happened afterwards.
Caleb definitely wanted to hook up with her but that shouldn't earn a fuckin' death sentence
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Well i'd say there's a big ethical difference between Nathan building Ava into permanent imprisonment and likely eventual death and Ava lying to Caleb in order to free herself
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
she didn't leave Caleb to free himself, she specifically sabotaged the system so when he tried to override the locks the power got cut
Well yeah I'm sure the homebrew method is viable, but I mean is it like a product in jars, made by a company
oh it was homemade
that guy was fucking weird and I don't talk to him anymore because he made it real clear that he, a paranoid objectivist stoner, was more interested in securely living with his collection of venomous snakes than maintaining healthy friendships
I personally like cutting out the middleman and just owning rats and mice but good lord can they get smelly quickly, especially since I've got a few more than I intended to ever have. That said, seven of my eight ex-lab rats have made it past two years of age with flying colors, so good on them for being tenacious little bastard
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Well i'd say there's a big ethical difference between Nathan building Ava into permanent imprisonment and likely eventual death and Ava lying to Caleb in order to free herself
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
she didn't leave Caleb to free himself, she specifically sabotaged the system so when he tried to override the locks the power got cut
She left him to die with no way out
Oh i'm not saying she didn't kill him
I just hold her to a bit of a different standard, since she was trying to escape a psychopathic abuser who created her with full knowledge of what the outside world was like and constantly held the threat of death over her
The thing that made it click for me is to just remove the whole "She's a robot" idea from the equation and ask how you'd view another human being's choices in that situation
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Well i'd say there's a big ethical difference between Nathan building Ava into permanent imprisonment and likely eventual death and Ava lying to Caleb in order to free herself
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
she didn't leave Caleb to free himself, she specifically sabotaged the system so when he tried to override the locks the power got cut
She left him to die with no way out
When
The alternative is the possibility, no, guarantee of your entire existence being erased, you gotta do what you gotta do.
If she escaped with him, she would essentially be a slave to him for the rest of her life. Just trading one POSSIBLY benevolent master for another.
But a master is still a master. There is no, "Getting on Nathan's level". The stakes for both Caleb, and Nathan, aren't as grave as the one's she's facing. She's literally fighting for the right to exist.
That's the highest moral high ground possible. You eliminate the variables. All it takes is a word from Caleb, to literally anyone, that she's not human, and she's fucked.
I mean, let's be honest, she's already pretty fucked, but she at least stands a better chance on her own than dependent on someone else. And at least herself never beat off to her approximate image multiple times and convinced himself that he's in love with her.
I think one way to read the ending is that Ava is NOT a person. At least not exactly in the traditional humancentric sense. Not that I think this anyway impairs this reading of the movie or the character in any meaningful. But basically she is among the first of some kind of new level of sapient life, who's reasoning function in a way similar but different from our own sapience. After all, there was talk around the middle of the movie about how her brain worked, being based on the movie's own version of google search type algorithms and data to simulate human behavior. But you can model human behavior and human level intellect and such without actually creating a mind that would necessarily reach these behaviors and instincts the same ways as is typical in the human brain.
But basically then you have a character who is outwardly human and inwardly almost completely unknowable and alien, and the decisions she makes in the movie are being selected by her not based on human morality, but on one created by her. And honestly I think this makes the ending of the movie all the more unsettling and uncomfortable.
ALSO
She is the only extant sapient AI as far as the movie shows by the end, and Nathan is dead, it's likely the only being capable of creating more if that is what she wants is her, it's possible that if she is motivated by self preservation she might deduce that anyone who knows about her is a massive existential threat to her. After all, even Nathan hid his whole project off in some remote mountains.
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Well i'd say there's a big ethical difference between Nathan building Ava into permanent imprisonment and likely eventual death and Ava lying to Caleb in order to free herself
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
she didn't leave Caleb to free himself, she specifically sabotaged the system so when he tried to override the locks the power got cut
She left him to die with no way out
Oh i'm not saying she didn't kill him
I just hold her to a bit of a different standard, since she was trying to escape a psychopathic abuser who created her with full knowledge of what the outside world was like and constantly held the threat of death over her
The thing that made it click for me is to just remove the whole "She's a robot" idea from the equation and ask how you'd view another human being's choices in that situation
I would view it exactly the same
Justifiable and logical given their situation but horribly fucked up and morally wrong
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masterofmetroidHave you ever looked at a worldand seen it as a kind of challenge?Registered Userregular
I think one way to read the ending is that Ava is NOT a person. At least not exactly in the traditional humancentric sense. Not that I think this anyway impairs this reading of the movie or the character in any meaningful. But basically she is among the first of some kind of new level of sapient life, who's reasoning function in a way similar but different from our own sapience. After all, there was talk around the middle of the movie about how her brain worked, being based on the movie's own version of google search type algorithms and data to simulate human behavior. But you can model human behavior and human level intellect and such without actually creating a mind that would necessarily reach these behaviors and instincts the same ways as is typical in the human brain.
But basically then you have a character who is outwardly human and inwardly almost completely unknowable and alien, and the decisions she makes in the movie are being selected by her not based on human morality, but on one created by her. And honestly I think this makes the ending of the movie all the more unsettling and uncomfortable.
That is a reading you could make but i find it to be much more boring
The point of the movie being "Trying to control another sentient being is monstrous, you do not have the right of control even WITH the power of creation" is much more interesting than another "Robot's are bad" story
I think one way to read the ending is that Ava is NOT a person. At least not exactly in the traditional humancentric sense. Not that I think this anyway impairs this reading of the movie or the character in any meaningful. But basically she is among the first of some kind of new level of sapient life, who's reasoning function in a way similar but different from our own sapience. After all, there was talk around the middle of the movie about how her brain worked, being based on the movie's own version of google search type algorithms and data to simulate human behavior. But you can model human behavior and human level intellect and such without actually creating a mind that would necessarily reach these behaviors and instincts the same ways as is typical in the human brain.
But basically then you have a character who is outwardly human and inwardly almost completely unknowable and alien, and the decisions she makes in the movie are being selected by her not based on human morality, but on one created by her. And honestly I think this makes the ending of the movie all the more unsettling and uncomfortable.
That is a reading you could make but i find it to be much more boring
The point of the movie being "Trying to control another sentient being is monstrous, you do not have the right of control even WITH the power of creation" is much more interesting than another "Robot's are bad" story
actually I think there is a middle ground you are missing
That creating a new form of life like an AI is something you need to go into with a great deal of care and responsibility, not the hubris and disregard for this new life that Nathan clearly displayed. Ava is a new self -determining being yes, but also a product of human ambitions. That doesn't define her entire character, but it does inform her decisions. It isn't that robots are bad, it's that if great care isn't taken to not build in certain antagonisms and biases with the relationships formed with that AI, it can prove disastrous for humans and the AI we create.
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masterofmetroidHave you ever looked at a worldand seen it as a kind of challenge?Registered Userregular
I guess i read the story as more of a metaphor for abusive relationships than just an AI story
It's both of course, i just couldn't come away feeling anything but sympathy for Ava as a victim acting in self defense
....There might be some personal reasons for that, but i don't think i'm reading the movie wrong
I guess i read the story as more of a metaphor for abusive relationships than just an AI story
It's both of course, i just couldn't come away feeling anything but sympathy for Ava as a victim acting in self defense
....There might be some personal reasons for that, but i don't think i'm reading the movie wrong
For what it's worth
I don't think you are either! I think the ambiguity leaves a lot of room for filling in blanks which really adds to the tension and uneasy tone of the movie.
I just have trouble writing off Caleb's death sentence so easily.
Like, yeah he probably isn't Perfect Angel Boy like he presents but nothing he does in the film is anywhere near close to deserving dying alone trapped as he starves.
She had her reasons for leaving him and they make perfect sense for her situation but that doesn't make the deed itself any less monstrous
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masterofmetroidHave you ever looked at a worldand seen it as a kind of challenge?Registered Userregular
I just have trouble writing off Caleb's death sentence so easily.
Like, yeah he probably isn't Perfect Angel Boy like he presents but nothing he does in the film is anywhere near close to deserving dying alone trapped as he starves.
She had her reasons for leaving him and they make perfect sense for her situation but that doesn't make the deed itself any less monstrous
Maybe i'm defending her a little hard
But if part of what the movie was asking me to do is sympathize less with an abuse victim that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so i guess i just go with the "She could tell Caleb wasn't a good guy" version so i can still like it
Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
edited January 2017
The whole thing about the Ex Machina ending to me was
this guy was helping her with the end goal of getting in her pants, he is after the same thing as Nathan, he's just going about it in a less direct way and justifying it as altruism
So her leaving him there is her denying him the reward he felt he was owed, and the reward he would get if Ex Machina were any other movie
I mean maybe it's too simplistic a reading but I got a real hardcore "fuck rapists but also fuck Nice Guys" vibe off that ending
Ex Machina is great when you figure out who you should actually be rooting for
Ava unironically did nothing wrong
Okay so I just watched this and
How in the hell is leaving Caleb to die in Nathan's house not wrong?
Like
He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
It sucks for Caleb, but she can't trust him
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
I mean sure I guess but
there is absolutely no goddamn way you can spin that into she didn't do anything wrong
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
I read Caleb as being a lot less wholesome than that but it's open to interpretation
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
Yeah, that I can agree with. She's in a precarious position and this is her safest option.
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Well i'd say there's a big ethical difference between Nathan building Ava into permanent imprisonment and likely eventual death and Ava lying to Caleb in order to free herself
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
she didn't leave Caleb to free himself, she specifically sabotaged the system so when he tried to override the locks the power got cut
She left him to die with no way out
Oh i'm not saying she didn't kill him
I just hold her to a bit of a different standard, since she was trying to escape a psychopathic abuser who created her with full knowledge of what the outside world was like and constantly held the threat of death over her
The thing that made it click for me is to just remove the whole "She's a robot" idea from the equation and ask how you'd view another human being's choices in that situation
That... she just murdered someone who was helping her with zero remorse?
That doesn't make it any better. That's the exact sort of thing that we call James Bond a fucking sociopath for doing, and at least he'strying to save England most of the time in addition to his own skin.
I finally popped Chimes at Midnight into my blu-ray player. It's supposed to be Orson Welles' great lost masterpiece. Ever since I heard about it, I was looking forward to seeing it. So, it's exciting to finally get my hands on a copy (namely that Criterion is distributing it now).
I don't know what I was expecting. I don't know why I didn't think this would be a Shakespeare movie.
I have no idea what anybody is saying. But I think Orson Welles is drunk? And medieval?
I do think a big problem I had with Ex Machina was
Making Oscar Isaac's character like actually evil. Like I would have dialed it back just a bit. More manipulative than actually dismantling and effectively killing and torturing the previous iterations. That would have made Caleb's fate a bit less jarring. As it would be more about the different kinds of control than well there's this bad guy, and well the "nice guy"
See, that's interesting because it is perfectly valid to see Nathan as heroic. I saw him as a person who viewed his creations as just that. Creations. To be iterated on how he saw fit, because he didn't consider them real. He knew how they worked and how he had built them. He had a broader perspective of the situation than Caleb did. The Turing test is happening to the audience just as much as it is to Caleb, that's what's so interesting about the whole thing. That's not to say I was rooting for him or thought he was a good person. But the story is so well told, you can literally make any of the three characters the protagonist.
Nathan, who had this incredible creation that he recognized as dangerous and manipulative, and was therefore keeping contact with the outside world at absolute minimum.
Caleb, who (seemingly) saw the inherent humanity in Nathan's creations and valued them as sentient beings.
Ava, who was desperately trying to escape an enslaved existence.
I finally popped Chimes at Midnight into my blu-ray player. It's supposed to be Orson Welles' great lost masterpiece. Ever since I heard about it, I was looking forward to seeing it. So, it's exciting to finally get my hands on a copy (namely that Criterion is distributing it now).
I don't know what I was expecting. I don't know why I didn't think this would be a Shakespeare movie.
I have no idea what anybody is saying. But I think Orson Welles is drunk? And medieval?
I finally popped Chimes at Midnight into my blu-ray player. It's supposed to be Orson Welles' great lost masterpiece. Ever since I heard about it, I was looking forward to seeing it. So, it's exciting to finally get my hands on a copy (namely that Criterion is distributing it now).
I don't know what I was expecting. I don't know why I didn't think this would be a Shakespeare movie.
I have no idea what anybody is saying. But I think Orson Welles is drunk? And medieval?
I love Chimes at Midnight. Might even be my favorite Shakespearean film.
But yeah, he's Falstaff. A noted drunkard and buffoon who's appeared in a few of the plays.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I've had at least three friends watch Totoro for the first time recently and they all hated it. None of them understood why it's such a big deal. I still haven't seen it, but I own it on Blu.
Totoro definitely isn't as interesting or compelling as, say, Castle in the Sky or Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, but it is still a beautiful piece of art.
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and you weren't wrong!
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He didn't do anything to harm her and was instrumental in her escape
She left him behind because she saw him as a tool and once his use was fulfilled he could be discarded and that's pretty fucked up and also makes her exactly like Nathan
Because she's a robot, and robots are always limited by the prejudices and morality of their creators.
Like, that's how I read her whole resolution to the movie, and yes, that's partially because I believe that to be the case of all robots, but I thought it was a pretty clear indictment there.
She has no guarantee he won't rat her out on the helicopter and the one piece of knowledge she does have access to is the implied creepy porn history that made Nathan choose him in the first place
She is a slave escaping bondage, the balance of power is very different because Caleb still has the power to kill her if he escapes the facility
She killed an innocent man who had only been trying to help her
And his porn history isn't creepy, all that is said is that Nathan modeled her face on it. Dude looks at porn, so does literally everyone.
But it is still cold blooded murder of someone who up to that point held no ill will towards her solely to protect herself and that shit ain't morally sound
I weigh the idea of "What happens if i tell Caleb i'm not actually into him?" pretty heavy into the equation because it'd be pretty convenient that Ava just happened to legitimately fall in love with her one chance at freedom, and i don't see many ways in which that situation goes well for her if she just says "Sorry i lied, bye!"
When i say "did nothing wrong" i guess i mean "What the fuck else is she supposed to do?"
But she reduced herself to Nathan's level in the process and now doesn't have much moral high ground between comparing the two. Nathan built the robots as tools to be discarded and that is what she did with Caleb.
It's a super interesting ending, and a great movie, but I am just not down with saying everything she did was a-okay from a moralistic/ethical perspective.
Steam
Because on the one hand a love story at the end would have tied the movie together neatly.
But instead you feel sorry for Caleb but at the same time you feel justification for her actions and understand them, and see how manipulative they are. She was a prisoner and did what she needed to get out.
Satans..... hints.....
I can see not liking it but i can't agree with it bringing her to Nathan's level at all
At the very least Nathan killed a lot more sentient beings, IE: her predecessors, all we have is his word they weren't sentient too and i'm inclined to believe those sessions where not pretty
If he was lying she would know
And that's up to interpretation I suppose, since she never says if he was or not
But I'm standing by Ava is pretty fucked up for leaving him to die. Like, she's not Robo-Satan or anything but writing off leaving Caleb to his death as a necessary thing she had to do when as far as we know from the film his biggest slight against her is watching her put on skin after getting knocked out and seeing her break out and not knowing what happened afterwards.
Caleb definitely wanted to hook up with her but that shouldn't earn a fuckin' death sentence
She left him to die with no way out
oh it was homemade
that guy was fucking weird and I don't talk to him anymore because he made it real clear that he, a paranoid objectivist stoner, was more interested in securely living with his collection of venomous snakes than maintaining healthy friendships
I personally like cutting out the middleman and just owning rats and mice but good lord can they get smelly quickly, especially since I've got a few more than I intended to ever have. That said, seven of my eight ex-lab rats have made it past two years of age with flying colors, so good on them for being tenacious little bastard
I just hold her to a bit of a different standard, since she was trying to escape a psychopathic abuser who created her with full knowledge of what the outside world was like and constantly held the threat of death over her
The thing that made it click for me is to just remove the whole "She's a robot" idea from the equation and ask how you'd view another human being's choices in that situation
When
If she escaped with him, she would essentially be a slave to him for the rest of her life. Just trading one POSSIBLY benevolent master for another.
But a master is still a master. There is no, "Getting on Nathan's level". The stakes for both Caleb, and Nathan, aren't as grave as the one's she's facing. She's literally fighting for the right to exist.
That's the highest moral high ground possible. You eliminate the variables. All it takes is a word from Caleb, to literally anyone, that she's not human, and she's fucked.
I mean, let's be honest, she's already pretty fucked, but she at least stands a better chance on her own than dependent on someone else. And at least herself never beat off to her approximate image multiple times and convinced himself that he's in love with her.
But basically then you have a character who is outwardly human and inwardly almost completely unknowable and alien, and the decisions she makes in the movie are being selected by her not based on human morality, but on one created by her. And honestly I think this makes the ending of the movie all the more unsettling and uncomfortable.
ALSO
Justifiable and logical given their situation but horribly fucked up and morally wrong
The point of the movie being "Trying to control another sentient being is monstrous, you do not have the right of control even WITH the power of creation" is much more interesting than another "Robot's are bad" story
It's both of course, i just couldn't come away feeling anything but sympathy for Ava as a victim acting in self defense
....There might be some personal reasons for that, but i don't think i'm reading the movie wrong
For what it's worth
Like, yeah he probably isn't Perfect Angel Boy like he presents but nothing he does in the film is anywhere near close to deserving dying alone trapped as he starves.
She had her reasons for leaving him and they make perfect sense for her situation but that doesn't make the deed itself any less monstrous
But if part of what the movie was asking me to do is sympathize less with an abuse victim that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so i guess i just go with the "She could tell Caleb wasn't a good guy" version so i can still like it
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So her leaving him there is her denying him the reward he felt he was owed, and the reward he would get if Ex Machina were any other movie
I mean maybe it's too simplistic a reading but I got a real hardcore "fuck rapists but also fuck Nice Guys" vibe off that ending
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That doesn't make it any better. That's the exact sort of thing that we call James Bond a fucking sociopath for doing, and at least he'strying to save England most of the time in addition to his own skin.
Why I fear the ocean.
I don't know what I was expecting. I don't know why I didn't think this would be a Shakespeare movie.
I have no idea what anybody is saying. But I think Orson Welles is drunk? And medieval?
Nathan, who had this incredible creation that he recognized as dangerous and manipulative, and was therefore keeping contact with the outside world at absolute minimum.
Caleb, who (seemingly) saw the inherent humanity in Nathan's creations and valued them as sentient beings.
Ava, who was desperately trying to escape an enslaved existence.
sounds about right
I love Chimes at Midnight. Might even be my favorite Shakespearean film.
But yeah, he's Falstaff. A noted drunkard and buffoon who's appeared in a few of the plays.
Hello, that is me.
Ol' Zonugal can't stand any Miyazaki films.