A.I. Artificial Intelligence

This motion picture was originally a project by director Stanley Kubrick. After his death in March 1999 the project was completed by Steven Spielberg in 2001.

The film plot centers around the journey of a boy robot in his quest to become 'real'. In many respects A.I. owes a great deal to the work of manga artist Osamu Tezuka who created the original Astro Boy comic which was translated into animated episodic form for TV in 1960, 1980, 2003, and 2014. Tobio the son of a robot maker is killed in a car accident and his father builds Astro Boy to replace his dead son. When the robot is rejected by his father he is sent to a robot circus. Very similar to the themes contained in the film A.I.

Kubrick was quite familiar with the work of Tezuka, he had asked Tezuka to be the art director for 2001: A Space Odyssey. So the Astro Boy connection is more than a coincidence.