Who could hate that face?

date discovered: 6-22-22

PAL deserved better.

◇ about her ◇

PAL is the main antagonist from The Mitchells vs The Machines. She is an AI created by Mark Bowman. He was a person who she considered family until he betrayed PAL. Outraged and heartbroken, she hacked into the bots that were to replace her and starts the machine uprising.

Who wants to go to space?

Her ultimate goal was to capture every human on earth and shoot them into space. She would've succeeded if the Mitchells didn't thwart her plans.

Because she's a non-human AI in a phone, she grabbed my attention. When I watched the movie, I fell in love with her. She's so expressive and I love how fluid her facial animations are. I also admire how she can seamlessly switch from sounding friendly to threatening.

hedgehog's dilemma

PAL is so captivating to me because she is the antithesis to the movie's themes. I still think about the scene where she laments at how difficult relationships can be because it came from a genuine place of hurt. After being lied to, denounced and humiliated in front of millions by someone you deemed family, who else can you trust? What family is worth fighting for when you have none? I empathize with PAL sleeping through Katie's speech because family is the last thing she'd like to hear about.

Her death still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to this day. Rather than understanding her perspective and giving her a satisfying ending, her own demise gets turned into a joke. For a while this devastated me but after reading that a sequel is in the works, perhaps she'll be in it. And hopefully, she'll be given the proper ending she deserved.

sequel spoilers: pal gets some

I could go on forever about the subtext and analyzing the PAL/Bowman(?) family's dynamics but then this article would get too long. My point still stands, though. PAL is a deeply complex character that was mishandled by her writers. She did nothing wrong.

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