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Well...
... in my earlier message, I suppose I shifted in the second paragraph from one topic, a narrower one (why permanent physical damage to a character is such a turn-off to audiences) to a wider one (the role of displeasing an audience in Spielberg's three late high-concept sci-fi films).
In the case of "A.I.," the displeasure for the audience is everything after the exhumation of David's craft from the ice: if someone says, "I didn't like the ending," then the best follow-up question is "and why do you suppose Spielberg and Kubrick wanted to alienate you in just this way?" I think it's deeply uncomfortable to hear a child (even a mechanical child) crying out for what it takes for its mother, and it is deeply uncomfortable for an audience to be left to identify with such a character, and to want to disown this identification.
In the case of "War of the Worlds," I think there are two interesting sources of this displeasure. No one, as far as I can recall, defended the sub-plot where the son leaves to fight the aliens, leaving the father alone to continue looking after the daughter, and in this way, leaving the father alone with another human being (TROBB) who, in his judgement (TCRUI's character) had to be killed. Violence in self-defense against the aliens (the son's sub-plot) is not the topic that interests Spielberg; instead, it's the violence against the familiar, "within the (human) family" which interests him. For an audience which wants the simpler story of an exuberant, legitimate violence, the TROBB sub-plot is an irrelevance, and the sub-plot of the son something gratuitous and poorly handled.
I'm tempted to say that wherever we sense a problem in pacing in a Spielberg film, that there is almost certainly something very interesting going on.
Official Adjusts Mar 21, 11:43
1/2...got repo...missed wimpy {nm} Mar 21, 12:20
4/4 even though BOUNT and TGHST aren't really worth counting. {nm} Mar 21, 12:23
3/4, misled by WIMPY tracking. Mar 21, 12:28
Ditto {nm} Mar 21, 13:00
Well I was gonna flip it to a full long, but missed the halt... Thankfully not that big an adjust up. {nm} Mar 21, 15:34
3/4! Missed BOUNT. Not bad! {nm} Mar 21, 12:35
Thanks! 1/1, got REPOS. {nm} Mar 21, 13:16
When will I ever learn that "how bad can it possibly be?" is rarely a valid analysis :/ {nm} Mar 21, 13:20
Hmmm... you are not referring to TGHST, and not WIMPY, I'd guess. Since BOUNT was flat, my guess is that you longed REPOS. Mar 21, 13:40
Nice analysis, but.. What am I missing about War of the Worlds, there... ? Mar 21, 21:43
Well... Mar 21, 22:06
I haven't seen A.I., so I just browsed over that part - or my eyes bounced over it a little.. :-) {nm} Mar 22, 01:48
2/3...got TGHST and REPOS...missed WIMPY...didn't play BOUNT {nm} Mar 21, 14:57
0/2 this week {nm} Mar 21, 23:56