Atlas Movie Review: AI Scriptwriting or Not?
And Will AI One Day Have Human Emotions?
I’m going to go ahead and say it… Atlas is still one of the best movies written by AI in 2023 and 2024. I see many negative reviews for this movie, but I have fewer complaints compared to other recent films, which were likely also written by AI.
And no, I’m not a Jennifer Lopez (J.Lo) fan. What I mean is I won’t scream, be tongue-tied, or faint if I see her. You know, those weird things fan-atics do when they see a celebrity. But I respect her.
Despite the horrible comments sent her way over the years, she is determined to pursue her acting career. And I’m with Casey Allen on this one, when he said in his ‘Atlas’ movie review:
After the film’s ending, I’m thinking, “Won’t it be great when Jennifer Lopez finds a film written well enough to highlight her talents? It must be out there somewhere!”
As we Nigerians would say, Jennifer Lopez carried the movie on her head. She’s the reason the movie wasn’t as bad as… I don’t want to say the name. So I’ll say that sci-fi flick with the lunar uprising, or this may help… The ‘Star Wars’ wannabe with a rebellious spirit.
Does it ring a bell? That mostly describes the movie's name, not the plot. I had high hopes for that one, but despite being star-studded, it was a serious letdown.
AI Scriptwriting For Movies
One thing the movie has in common with Atlas, other than the space travel theme, is the need for a smoother approach to AI collaboration in scriptwriting.
It’s not enough to simply type in a Gen AI: “Kindly write a movie script about AI, humans, and space travel.” We must find a way to infuse human creativity, content, depth, and data-driven research into these AI-generated scripts.
Remember recently, when everyone on the internet pointed out how generic, flowery, and Sesquipedalian (irony intended with the last adjective) most of the written contents now read because of the increased use of Gen AI?
I also discussed this at length in The AI-Writing Paradox. Well, we need to start that conversation about movie scripts. The dialogue in movies now is so generic, stiff, dry, and predictable.
It gets worse when they try to crack jokes. Eye roll!
Why do I think this script might have been written by AI? Well, the dialogue! The plot! It’s a mixture of every space, sci-fi, and AI movie we already know. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Gintaras Radauskas, Senior journalist at Cybernews, calls Atlas an unconvincing plot and titles the article; ‘Atlas review: AI might have written this one, but Netflix knows what people need’. I’ll say yes to the latter part because I watched it, and it wasn’t entirely a waste of time, but it could be better.
Here’s another comment from a writer at the Nerdist, Michael Walsh. He starts his article by saying,
“…it would be easy to say it feels like an AI wrote the script. It would also be accurate. When it ended, I genuinely checked to see if the film lists real human writers in its credits. It does, but that does not make me feel better about mankind. Atlas is a trite and tonally confusing mess and rampant with cliché ideas.”
I remember the part where Colonel Elias Banks, portrayed by the award-winning actor Sterling K. Brown, tries to make a joke about looking good despite being badly injured. This happens towards the end when Atlas Shepherd (played by J.Lo) is also captured by the AI rebel, Harlan Shepherd (yeah, same surname cos he’s like her AI brother. They were raised together. Talk about childhood trauma).
Anyway, that joke… just wasn’t right. No, everything was wrong about it. It was not the right joke, not the right actor, and not the right place. It was cringe! They made a great actor mead just because of that nonsense joke.
Will AI One Day Have Human Emotions?
Let’s not even get started on the conversations between AI Smith and Atlas Shepherd (J.Lo). Some parts were good, but many people, including myself, wondered why AI Smith was talking about feelings before syncing with Atlas Shepherd.
The movie seems to be trying to spark a conversation about whether AI will eventually be capable of experiencing emotions similar to humans. If you’ve ever wondered about this question, based on my personal research, I don’t think so for now. But I’ll share what the industry professionals have said, as I’m still an aspiring AI Subject Matter Expert.
Alessandro Beltramin, Information Engineer at MorphCast:
“While AI can be programmed to detect and even mimic human emotions, it does not possess the biological and psychological mechanisms necessary to experience these emotions. Additionally, the development of AI that feels emotions would require not just replicating the human brain but also its sensory experiences, a task that is currently beyond our technological capabilities. Emotion AI, as it stands, is more about interpretation and response, rather than genuine emotional experience.”
Dan Sodergren, Can AI Truly Grasp Human Emotions? Insights with Paul Spiers on Leadership Podcast:
“With vast amounts of data, AI can predict certain human behaviours with surprising accuracy. Predictive analytics, for example, can foresee personal milestones or preferences by analyzing behavioural patterns. This suggests that while human decisions might seem illogical or spontaneous to us, they might still be predictable to an extent for AI equipped with sufficient data.
However, equating predictability with genuine emotional understanding is misleading. Though AI can predict actions based on probabilities and data patterns, understanding the emotional motivations behind those actions is a different challenge altogether. AI might know that we are likely to do it. But it doesn’t mean it knows WHY…”
According to GlobalData, we’re basically just scratching the surface of the AI journey. Right now, AI is mainly in the “reactive” stage, which includes things like ChatGPT, recommendation engines, facial recognition, and basic memory AI for things like robots and self-driving cars.
They did a survey among AI experts, and it turns out there’s a 50% chance of us getting AI on par with humans by 2060 and a 75% chance by 2120. So, basically, we’re looking at least another 40 years before AI starts feeling feelings, if it works out at all.
So, GlobalData suggests that it’ll take a long time for machines to become sentient. To put it simply, “sentience” in AI lingo means having self-awareness and consciousness, which are necessary for real emotions and feelings. But heck, before we try giving AI a consciousness, we’ve got to figure out how our own consciousness works!
Last Thoughts On Atlas
Going back to my review of the movie Atlas, did anyone else notice that when Atlas Shepherd (J.Lo) crash-landed into the GR39 plant while attempting to capture the AI Rebel Harlan, her makeup and hair were still impeccable?
Oh, my days! Okay, here’s the explanation I came up with while watching the movie with a friend. In the future, you could have permanent makeup, like getting plastic surgery, so you’d always look great no matter what. It’s like Beyonce was predicting the future when she said, “I woke up like this.” Haha!
I would have liked to include more online reviews because they echo the same opinions I had while watching the movie and after it ended. But here are the things most people agreed on. Jennifer Lopez’s performance was great, but the script could have been better.
Also, future sci-fi movie plots should incorporate more thorough research on the technological aspects being portrayed. Make it NEW and DIFFERENT because we now live in the future described in those 80s and 90s movies. Give us something authentic to look forward to.
Lastly, who can guess the other movie I compared to Atlas without mentioning its precise name? See you in the comment section.
