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Nothing for nothing's sake, but I have to wonder where David the robot passed all the tests from a usability standpoint.
If oddly creepy were one of the business requirements, then mission accomplished. Otherwise, not a likely success with the product owners, unless they wanted the people interacting with this bot to look over the shoulder all the time.
Very crafty, guys, to leave off the 'other' option. My vote went to Michael Fassbender. My fear is - if he DOESN'T win, the Filmspotting World will be turned upside down, logic will be torn asunder, and time will cease to move forward. But, as for who REALLY plays a robot better, it has to be Vikander's "Anna Karenina" co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He's played an emotionless robot in each and every film in which he's appeared. He's got it down to a science. He's playing a robot even when his director doesn't necessarily want a robot. He's like, "You know what this role needs? Nothing. Absolutely nothing." And he never fails to deliver. So give Aaron the award. Lord knows it might be the only one he ever receives.
In response to Johan's comment, I actually thought it was Michael Fassbender who wasn't acting when he played a robot. Fassbender is a talented and nuanced actor, but I've always been convinced that there's a positronic brain calling the shots behind those cold, cold eyes. Alicia Vikander, on the other hand, is obviously a human that is very skilled at playing a robot. My vote, then, goes to Vikander.
Fassbender is probably the only actor ever (excluding Peter O'Toole, of course) who could pull off the William Potter line. Just for that, I had to go with him.
I feel this is a unfair poll, since Fassy is the only one acting. Vikander is like all other of us swedes a real robot, made by Volvo, programmed to take over the world. And I must say we doing quite good since we now even have crushed the biggest filmspotting star of them all! Thanks for a good show and helping us taking over the world!
Johan "T-1000" Andersson from Gislaved in Sweden.
Over and out
Alicia hands down. Speaking of these two (since they're a couple), how about best creative output by a Hollywood couple? Blunt/Krasinski would be a solid (current) competitor, Taylor/Burton, Newman/Woodward, Pitt/Jolie.....then it starts to fall apart (Smith/Pinkett, Affleck/Garner, Bacon/Sedgwick, Hanks/Wilson, Beatty/Bening, Curtis/Guest for example). I'm sure there are many others (Reynolds/Anderson) to consider.
As one of the (seemingly literal) handful of people on planet earth that thinks Prometheus was a perfectly fine and thematically sound film, it pains me to have to pass up an increasingly rare opportunity to give it any small gesture of support. But this poll is a runaway for good reason. Ex Machina totally hinges on Vikander single-handedly pulling off a few key scenes. Which she does. So that's that.
I am officially submitting my request to have Fassbender placed into the poll Pantheon. As well, please form a poll Pantheon.
Possibly the only time I would ever vote against Fassy.
I didn't find too much in Fassbender's David (sorry Adam) that didn't already come to the surface in the previous Alien films. David is a flawed being with an agenda that comes from a flawed creator. Vikander's Ava is a superior life form from a flawed creator that slowly takes control over her surroundings. She is a superior life form and her interdependence on human beings is more tenuous than David's and this isn't fully understood until she puts her final plan in motion.
Wait... Fassbender is losing a Filmspotting poll?? Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
This one is easy. Fassbender is the third iteration of an existing character type. As good as it may be, it's not an original creation in my opinion. (See Bilbo Baggins, et al.). Vikander is an entirely new fresh presentation.
I have only seen each movie only once, and, thinking back on the two performances, I can safely say that Alicia Vikander gave the best. There is not one moment in the Fass's (what was his character's name??) performance that I remember, but Alicia's Ava has numerous moments to even list here. Without Alicia Vikander's presence, Ex Machina would not have been the best movie of 2015.
The answer is whyyyyyyyyyyy
Tough one. They're both so great. Unlike, say, Rutger Hauer in "Blade Runner," they feel like robots, not people whom we're told are robots. Both performances owe much to Jude Law's Gigolo Joe in "A.I."
I went with Fassbender because his David is even more of a cypher than Vikander's Ava. But that's partly due to the fact that Ava gets a whole story arc while David's is yet to be determined. i fear Ridley Scott will not deal with it gracefully. David also seems more unsure than Ava of what his position vis a vis humans is. He is clearly superior in most ways, yet is forced into subservience.
Isaac Asimov once wrote that there are two kinds of robot stories: "robots as threat" and "robots as pathos." Hater's Roy Batty successfully combines both, but David and Ava just takes the synthesis to a whole new level.