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I'd really like to re-watch this sci-fi flick: a young boy is presumed dead because he fell into a river/was in a car that drove off a pier in New York. He freezes but doesn't die, and spends +/- 2,000 years staring at a statue of a girl/angel which sank to the bottom of the river. I think he falls in love with the statue?

While he's down there the human race evolves into very refined, delicate creatures. Eventually they find him, rescue him, and even manage to bring his mother back to life for 24 hours so that he can spend that time with her. I think they make a lot of replicas of him, but I can't remember why.

I thought the movie was called "The Blue Angel", but that doesn't seem to be right. "My" movie has nothing to do with Marlene Dietrich!

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2 Answers 2

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This is the 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

The Blue Fairy (not Angel) is a recurrent theme in the movie.

Here is the part about being trapped underwater, from the linked Wikipedia article.

David tells Joe he saw the Blue Fairy underwater and wants to go down to meet her. Joe is captured by the authorities using an electromagnet. David and Teddy use the amphibicopter to go to the Fairy, which turns out to be a statue at the now-sunken Coney Island. The two become trapped when the Wonder Wheel falls on their vehicle. David asks repeatedly to be turned into a real boy until the ocean freezes and is deactivated once his power source is drained.

Two thousand years later, humans have become extinct, and Manhattan is buried under glacial ice. The Mecha have evolved into an advanced, intelligent, silicon-based form. They find David and Teddy, and discover they are original Mecha that knew living humans, making them special.

David is revived and walks to the frozen Fairy statue, which collapses when he touches it.

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    The Blue Fairy itself is a reference to the character of that name from Pinocchio, another story about an artificial boy who wants to be real.
    – Buzz
    Oct 21, 2018 at 19:29
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    Yes, because Spielberg. Oct 21, 2018 at 20:03
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    What, you mean the fairy wasn't in Kubrik's original treatment? ;)
    – Buzz
    Oct 22, 2018 at 1:38
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    The fairy makes total sense. He "dies" looking at what he thinks he wants, which in fact is just a broken advertising sign. How much more Kubrick can you get? :) It's the final section which is pure Spielberg.
    – Graham
    Oct 22, 2018 at 7:16
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    actually @Graham - Spielberg himself has stated (HBO Spielberg documentary) that all the things that feel most stereotypically Kubrickian are actually from himself [Spielberg], and the stereotypical Spielbergian beats were originally from Stanley (the Pinnochio arc for example) - further reading on the topic: avclub.com/…
    – NKCampbell
    Oct 22, 2018 at 21:05
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This is movie is indeed "A.I. Artificial Intelligence".

The plot is about a robot created in the image of a young boy in order to help a grieving mother cope with the terminal illness of her son who is put in suspended animation. However, a cure is discovered for the son and the mother eventually abandons the robot boy in the woods. After wandering the woods, and escaping capture and destruction, the boy learns of a "Blue Fairy" who can turn him into a real boy and help him win back his mothers love. He eventually gets stuck in a small ship underwater looking at a statue he believes is the "Blue Fairy". He runs out of power while praying to the statue to turn him into a real boy.

The ending is a little bit different than how you remember. By the end of the movie, humans have all died out. The aliens that discover the boy are actually just advanced robots, in other words his "descendants". These "aliens" then give the boy a clones (or hallucination) of his mother for 24 hours before euthanizing him. The movie ends with "And for the first time in his life, he went to that place where dreams are born." which implies he died. Kind of a dark ending if you think about it.

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    I never interpreted the ending in this way (giving the boy a hallucination and then euthanizing him): Can you provide a reference for where you got this interpretation from, or is this just your personal interpretation?
    – onewho
    Oct 22, 2018 at 15:59
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    Re, "created...to help a grieving mother cope..." The human race is dying out in the movie's time, and David is a prototype of an advanced AI doll that will be marketed to pepole who are unable to have real children. That point is underscored in a scene in the movie where David discovers a room full of copies of himself, all waiting in giant retail-ready packages, to be taken home, unwrapped, and switched on. The grieving mother is the wife of a company employee who agreed to take the prototype home and test it. Oct 22, 2018 at 16:50
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    the end of this answer is entirely incorrect. The advanced future robots (see linked comment above) are able to clone David's mother from a locket of hair that Teddy still carries (from earlier in the film). The trouble is, the clone will only survive 24 hours - they have no technology or ability to allow the clone to survive longer than that. They don't euthanize either David or his clone-mother. The mother dies exactly as they say she will at the end of the day. The script is very clear
    – NKCampbell
    Oct 22, 2018 at 20:56
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    @onewho this is not my personal interpretation. I learned it from this video: youtu.be/o5rTHfnWPig
    – Lian Z
    Oct 23, 2018 at 0:38
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    @NKCampbell I see that they had a reason she could only live for a day, I will remove that part. However, it does not preclude the fact that David dies at the end. In fact the last line mentions David "for the first time in his life, going to the place where dreams are born". Which strongly suggests he has died. There are other lines that support this as well.
    – Lian Z
    Oct 23, 2018 at 0:48

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