Whenever anybody makes a sci-fi movie these days (especially a sci-fi movie that clearly takes its inspiration from the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey), there's an incentive to include some kind of artificial intelligence system. The problem, of course, is that we've had "bad" A.I. characters, and we've also had "seemingly bad but turn out to be good" A.I. characters. Aside from just "good," then, where else is there to go in order to keep it fresh? Fortunately, Christopher Nolan and his co-writer, brother Jonathan Nolan, successfully managed a new take on what could have been a tired trope in their own A.I. creation: by offering us TARS, an A.I built with a certain degree of self- awareness (mostly implemented by his "humour" setting), Interstellar offers up one of the most memorable robot characters in recent years; sure, he's mostly just good, but he also feels unique in the grand scheme of things.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
