Remakes/Reboots/Sequels That Need to Happen: The Creation of the Humanoids (1962, Wesley Barry)
Among other things this film radically suggests that since we are essentially organic machines, we don’t have a “soul.”
The Creation of the Humanoids (1962, Wesley Barry) is a strange little film, purported to be Andy Warhol‘s favorite film, though as far as I can find, there is no actual proof of this widely repeated claim, so I have no idea where it came from or if this claim is true. (If anyone can source this claim, I would love to know about it!) If it really was Warhol’s favorite film, I can see why, this curio film really astounded me.
Now, I have to warn you: The Creation of the Humanoids is an extremely low budget film and is just way too talky; the film is basically just a series of long winded conversations so it really tests one’s patience at times. However, to my mind, one’s patience and labor is rewarded with (for the time period especially) some really interesting examinations and metaphorical uses of artificial intelligence (AI), uncommon for AI films, even today.
The film suggests that once we get the ball rolling on artificial intelligence, it will take on a life of its own, where AIs will go on to advance themselves until they eventually become an advanced form of human. What is so remarkable in this case, though, is that this isn’t some malevolent “takeover” but rather a natural movement (or…evolution?) to re-make humanity, which has all sorts of deeper implications, including daring to dive into the metaphysical examination of the “soul.” In recent decades, science has basically been able to connect all that has been previously attributed to the “soul” (reason, emotions, personality, consciousness) to cognition and genetics. I mention this point because as The Creation of the Humanoids gets at, in scientific terms, we are essentially organic “machines,” and, thus, theoretically, given appropriate techno-scientific advancements, we could be “created” in the laboratory, punctuating the notion that there is no “soul” and thus no God. (This idea makes me appreciate even more Mary Shelly’s remarkably prescient novel Frankenstein!)
That only begins the complexities of this film:
(1) Metaphorically, in many AI narratives — especially in novels — AIs represent all Others (racial/ethnic, gender, LBGTQ, working class, etc.). That is, AI films that depict AIs in a sympathetic light or just a complex light (think about how the “replicants” are used in Blade Runner, as slave labor) reveal how we create a self/Other dynamic where a whole group of people are seen as inferior and thus used in whatever way the dominant order (e.g., historically speaking, white, Western/Eurocentric, Christian, patriarchal and phallocentric masculinity, heterosexual, capitalist) chooses to use them. We especially get this element in The Creation of the Humanoids, where one type of AI (R-21s) is clearly seen as Other, e.g., they look differently from humans, are created to be utility objects, are seen as inferior and are discriminated against, “disparagingly” called “Clickers” by the so-called “Order of Flesh and Blood,” a group not unlike other real world discriminating hate groups. The Creation of the Humanoids complicates this typical metaphor by making some of the AIs look like humans. This latter AI is especially interesting, in that these human looking AIs don’t know they are AIs and in fact in some cases discriminate against the known R-21 AIs. (The rebooted TV series Battlestar Galactica explored this element as well.) When one of the most hateful of the bunch, Captain Kenneth Cragis (Don Megawon), is told that he is an AI, and he comes to accept this shattering reality, we can see how this metaphor works in a more complicated way, in that what he had Othered (known AIs) was not an Other at all but just the same as himself, a metaphorical scenario that breaks down the self/Other dynamic in general, punctuating how there really is no such thing as an Other; we are all the same.
(2) Ironically, in seeing AIs as superior — as an alternative “species” or ontological category of being — humans fear the tables being turned on them and becoming the Other to the dominant [superior in every way] AI, which, in turn, in forcing humans to see themselves in singularly “human” terms (e.g., instead of seeing the category of human broken down into ontological or ideological categories, such as “immigrant,” “American,” “Muslim,” “black,” “LGTBQ,” etc.), we begin to internalize ourselves purely as human — human becomes the dominant ontological category — which, again, in turn, deconstructs the idea of Other in general.
(3) Finally, as a metaphor, these benign savior (or, in the case of the replicants in Blade Runner, just superior) AIs act as a kind of utopian model of what a human could/should be. (We get this with “messiah”/“savior” aliens as well, e.g., The Day the Earth Stood Still, Starman, etc..)
All of the above is profoundly explored in The Creations of the Humanoids, especially in its climactic, radical denouement, again, that the AIs in The Creation of the Humanoids are the next stage of human evolution: Due to radiation from past wars, humans are dying out and, ironically, the only hope for humanity are AIs, the AIs modeling their further development on the human being model, including giving them the capabilities of having babies! The Creation of the Humanoids is a film ahead of its time and a film that should be remade for an audience today who is perhaps ready for its deeper, profound implications, excepting, of course, Andy Warhol, who, if this film really was his all time favorite, perhaps loved the film not only for its goofiness but for its incredible prescience.
{As I stated for my previous “remake” posts, the key here is to NOT make this into some escapist film just for the sake of making money, but, instead, create a real in-depth, profound exploration of the many complexities of artificial intelligence. I am open to suggestions on who should direct this remake, a science fiction film that could be the next important science fiction film. Darren Aronofsky? Alex Garland? Joon-ho Bong? Hmm….}