Films & Fiction Weekly
A trailer has released for the film Mercy, starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Fergusson. It might not be a cinematic marvel, in fact it looks bland and uninspired, the kind of movie you’d expect to find on Netflix. But at least in concept it’s the kind of movie Hollywood should be making about AI.
In the film, rising crime has led authorities to create MERCY, a program which gives an AI the power to try, convict and execute prisoners. Chris Pratt’s character has ninety minutes to prove his innocence or he’ll be executed.
Hollywood theatrics aside, this is something that could actually happen. We will use AI to make our lives easier, and removing the responsibility of acting as judge and juror is one way to do that. We’ll no longer have to hold someone’s life in our hands and make a decision that could condemn them, without ever knowing if we’re right. That would make the argument that less people will suffer from wrongful prosecution, because the AI are so much more intelligent, very compelling.
There are really three kinds of stories normally told about AI: Terminator, The Matrix, and Blade Runner. Either how artificial intelligence will destroy us; how we’ll be subjugated by our robot overlords; or how AI could become sentient, and therefore “human”.
These are great stories, but they all feel like they’ve been done now, and really the real danger is more banal. It’s about how we use AI, how we allow it to enter our lives, give it power, and pass off our responsibility onto it. There are the small, boring, but no less important questions about what it would mean to have AI police, AI doctors, or even AI train drivers. We might make mistakes in all these occupations, but we’re still human. We’re driven by emotion, we can reason and empathize, we make unique decisions and have morality. What if all that power was handed off to the inflexible robot brain?
Rather than ending in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, these are the much more likely outcomes of the rise in artificial intelligence, and like all new technologies, we need to decide how we want to use it, how it can actually enhance our lives, without unreasonable costs. To do that, we need smart stories to examine these dimensions of AI, at the potential effects it could have on humanity, and ask the incisive questions. I’m not sure Mercy will do that, but hopefully it’s a step in the right direction.
Don’t Mess With Ripley
Sigourney Weaver has said that she’s willing to return to the Alien franchise, and has seen a script involving the character of Ripley. Please, don’t do this. The IP is already falling apart, after the dreadful Alien: Earth, I’d be happy to never see anything from this franchise again. If she did return, it’s likely the character would just be used as a nostalgia plant, the same as movies like Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Jurassic World: Dominion.
There’s also the question of exactly which Ripley it would be. The real one died at the end of Alien Cubed, and was cloned in Resurrection, so would those movies be completely retconned and have the original version return? I wouldn’t mind if they were, considering how bad they are, and as we’ve never seen anything in the timeline beyond Resurrection, it’s an open field to play in.
It seems Weaver has a habit for joining franchises at the worst possible time, as she’ll be appearing in The Mandalorian and Grogu next year.
I really hope she doesn’t return. There’s no chance of any new movie matching Alien or Aliens, or doing her justice. Those two films exist and that’s all that matters. Keep Ripley as she is: one of the coolest heroines to ever appear onscreen. That’s all we need.
Even Stranger Things
It’s been revealed that the fifth and final season of Stranger Things will have eight episodes, all with runtimes of at least ninety minutes. If that’s the case, then why not split it into sixteen episodes? Well, obviously it’s because the Duffer Brothers don’t understand TV, but there’s a point at which it becomes a chore to watch. The series is being split up and released in three clumps, but we’re still going to get three or four ninety-minute episodes in one day. That’s a lot to get through.
It’s also been revealed that each episode cost $50M+, which raises the question of just what streaming is supposed to be. It’s not movies, but it’s not television either. It’s essentially a whole new format, and I think we should treat it as such. It’s destroying both film and TV, and I’m not sure I like what it’s replacing them with.
Superman’s Box Office Kryptonite
Superman has failed to break even at the box office. Per Forbes, it finished its theatrical run around $40M short. I won’t get into the details of what this means for the DCU, how WB might be feeling, or what other sources of revenue there are. What I do wonder is where the figure of $125M profit came from? It seems to be so contradictory and far from the truth that I’m convinced it was James Gunn who made it up himself.
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