Surgery and Robots

[davetheanalyzer]

I had surgery on my gums Wednesday. My new dentists were concerned by the bumps on my gums, so I was referred to a periodontist. After a checkup meeting, I was going to have the surgery next Wednesday but due to scheduling conflicts, the surgery happened two days later. I wasn’t put under but had parts of my mouth numbed out. I barely noticed the removal of the gum bumps and was more discomforted by the constant scrapping of a few of my right teeth, probably from the mess made by removing the bumps. At any rate, I have a dressing covering the bottom right of my gums and teeth. It feels strange but not uncomfortable, like having extra skin or chewing gum. The specialist told me the bumps weren’t cancer but might have negatively affected my teeth down the line. He also recommended I see an orthodontist about the arrangement of a couple of my teeth but indicated that it isn’t a super immediate concern. For now, I’ll be focusing on healing from the surgery and making do with eating out of the left side of my mouth. 

I saw Mitchells vs. the Machines. Of course it got delayed by covid and eventually went to Netflix. I’m glad the film was able to revert back to its original title instead of sticking with the kind of generic one-word title “Connected.” Fortunately it has more of a nuanced view on computers and the Internet than indicated from its ads. It’s more about how a quirky family could overcome conflict among themselves. The eldest daughter Katie Mitchell is imaginative and likes weird humor, always having had trouble making friends but shows the benefits of the Internet by being able to connect with those who appreciate her work. She has a strained relationship with her father Rick Mitchell, who struggles to understand her interests and alienates her by implying that she’d might fail at her passion and accidentally breaks her laptop.

Rick is desperate to reconnect with her, so cancels her plane ticket to college in favor of a family road trip. Linda the mother tries to keep the peace, thinks this is a great opportunity to heal wounds, and tells Katie to meet Rick halfway. Linda wants to form the normal memories she sees her online friends have, envying the Posers who seem to have their act together. Aaron is happy to spend more time with his sister since the pair are close and he struggles socially, once calling people in the phonebook who he could talk about his dinosaur obsession with. When Abby shows interest in him, his crush makes him run away and say he doesn’t like her. With his behavior sometimes not matching the situation, I wonder if he’s autistic. Katie and Rick also can read as autistic to me, since the three have obsessions and sometimes miss social cues. The trip goes well until Rick tries to make Katie drop her recording obsession during the trip, which she sees as an essential part of herself.

It’s just then that another relationship disaster causes a machine apocalypse. Dr. Mark Bowman is a tech CEO that parodies a lot wrong with Silicon Valley, being greedy and having little care about respecting customer and rival company privacy. He doesn’t consider the consequences of kicking his advanced A.I. PAL to the curve, that she might feel angry about it. PAL herself only had Bowman to go for with direct human connection and with that betrayal combined with seeing humanity’s flaws, it’s understandable why she decided all were bad and to replace everyone with robots. In such a crises, it’s a sick or swim test for many people and the Mitchells barely keep their heads above water. It accentuates Katie and Rick’s conflict, with Rick glad to have an excuse to destroy his family’s cell phones because everyone can be tracked and Katie resenting being cut off from how she engages creatively. Only when two robots malfunction, become more benign, and give away useful intel do Katie and Rick pull together again at Aaron and Linda’s urging.

Though Katie wasn’t totally honest initially, seeing it mostly as a necessity to survive, still feeling her passions weren’t respected. I don’t know if this influenced her comedy-centric short films, since when PAL later analyzes the family, it notes Katie is afraid she’d fail if she tried really hard to make something good. The robots that help the family along call themselves Ed and Deborah5000, innocent goofs who are reluctant to help but manage to be sweet-talked into it. When Linda goes back to save one of them, this inspires loyalty in the pair that pays off in the end. Rick and Katie get more warm feelings about one another when many of their tricks or strategies to survive and outwit PAL seem to actually work. When Katie next uses a camera and ask Rick to repeat a line, it says something about him that he doesn’t poke her about hiding behind a camera again. When PAL replays Katie saying she’s only pretending to respect her father, Rick is horrified and Katie tries to say she no longer believes that. PAL takes advantage of the strife and only Katie, Arron and their dog Monchi escape uncaptured.

I do like when Rick meets Bowman while imprisoned. With the whole of humanity about to be ejected into space, Bowman’s understandably horrified and weighed with guilt for his actions. Once this was over, he’ll probably have a lot to say and maybe push for better practices with privacy and technology. And through the stress relief he gets through Katie’s videos, Rick is able to see Katie wants to be able to try out her passion even if she might fail and to be supported, which makes him rethink what he had been doing with his daughter. Meanwhile, Katie and Aaron are reeling, Aaron crushed to be ripped from his parents and upset with Katie for her past words. The siblings sees from old footage camera footage that Rick had a passion for nature and building a cabin but had to give it up for the family. This invigorates Katie to do another charge at the base while Rick breaks himself free with Bowman’s help, the father and daughter doing things they learned from each other. To protect Aaron, Linda has enough and starts destroying enemy robots left and right. Rick attempting to use a computer for the first time inspired Ed and Deborah5000 to also “reprogram” themselves and rejoin the Mitchells.

Katie tries to reason with PAL that humans can overcome their flaws, offering PAL a chance to peacefully stand down but PAL is too far gone. There are ethical questions about PAL and most of the other robots’ deactivations but the film’s focus isn’t really on that. I surmise the Mitchells’ heroics gave them permission to allow Ed and Deborah5000 to stay with the family, since otherwise I can see objections to them keeping two robots of a group that almost sent humanity to space. Basically, the family learns to accept their differences while accommodating each other, as seen with Rick sending a friend request to Katie…through snail mail. Hey, baby steps. Overall, I did enjoy the movie and its zany and distinct art style that allowed all the characters to show their personality.

That’s all for now. I’m still writing fanfic, but it might still be a while before the next chapters come up. Also I’m still struggling with my sleep schedule, so will go to bed in a hour or two after posting this. Until August’s end, see you!