D.A.R.Y.L. (Data-Analyzing Robot Life Form) is by all accounts a young boy--an extremely gifted and odd young boy, but still a young boy. The military has developed him as a weapon but the scientists working on him see him as more than that. Unlike most A.I. movies or movies about machine consciousness, Daryl (Barret Oliver) is made of organic tissue. Even a doctor cannot tell he's a lab creation without a brain scan.

The movie never goes into how he was created. Was he a test tube baby infused with a computer chip? In other words, was he 100% human with the benefit of some technological advancements? Or was he 100% artificial but of such a quality so as to develop just like a normal little boy and fool even doctors? I'm not sure but I tend to believe the former.

I think the answer to what kind of creation he was helps to answer the main question of the movie: was Daryl human?

D.A.R.Y.L. was really about the computer-age old question of what is human? I think D.A.R.Y.L. challenged that question even more than other movies about conscious machines because he was an organic carbon-based life form. To dispose of him wasn't like disposing of a David (A.I.), or a Vicky (Small Wonder), or a T-800 (Terminator 2) who were all human looking but pure machine underneath the human exterior. Even destroying one of them would be difficult for the human psyche just because of their appearance, so what about a boy who has a beating heart and bleeds like we bleed?

In general, we have a problem destroying/killing anything that has life. It gets harder if that thing has intelligence. It gets exponentially harder if it has consciousness (meaning it knows it's alive and experiences human emotions). And it becomes virtually impossible when a thing has all of the aforementioned and looks human. Daryl had life, intelligence, consciousness, and the anatomy and biology of a human. So, did that one microprocessor in his brain prevent him from being considered human? That was an issue wrestled with between scientists in the movie, but I'm willing to bet that every viewer was saying: "He's a little boy! You can't kill him!"

Did we have the same sentiment for David (Haley Joel Osment) in A.I.? I know I did. Going even further away from humanness, did we have the same sentiment for Chappie (Chappie) or Johnny 5 (Short Circuit)? I know I did. It's something about a thing that experiences love, hate, fear, and other emotions--as well as being innocent--that draws us to preserving it. I mean shoot, how many of us feared the toys would die near the end of Toy Story 3? Anything given human emotions we have a soft spot for. Unless they're trying to kill us.

I love the robot consciousness movies even if I don't consider D.A.R.Y.L. amongst them. Daryl was special and I would simply consider him upgraded but no doubt human.

'D.A.R.Y.L.' is an adorable little sci-fi children's film from the Eighties and will certainly conjure feelings of nostalgia in those who watched it as children. The film revolves around ten-year-old Daryl, who is found wandering alone in the wilderness and is fostered by childless couple Joyce and Andy Richardson. He quickly befriends their neighbours' son Turtle and goes from strength-to-strength in his new home. However, it soon becomes apparent that Daryl isn't quite normal. His intellect is vast, he has excellent sporting reflexes and acts in an oddly adult manner. Then, when two military scientists turn up at the Richardsons' home to retrieve him, it turns out Daryl is not a human child but a Data Analysing Robot Youth Lifeform, created in a science lab to serve the military. When the military orders that Daryl be destroyed, the fight to save him and return him to the family home where he was loved is on...

Barret Oliver plays the title character of Daryl, gives an effective performance and nicely depicts his character gradually changing from being odd and awkward to acting like a typical boy of ten. Mary Beth Hurt and Michael McKean, as Joyce and Andy, also give good depictions of foster parents desperate for a child, uncertain about the strange nature of Daryl yet coming to love him as if he were their own. Josef Sommer plays the scientist who begins to question the boundaries of what is considered human once he starts to know Daryl, the robot he created, properly. And Ron Frazier, as General Graycliffe who is intent on seeing Daryl destroyed, depicts his character in a suitably loathsome light!

Besides the nostalgia factor for those in their twenties and early thirties, this film will not only be enjoyable for children of today but, as we live in the computer age, brings up very relevant issues that they can consider such as what being a human means and why blood relations doesn't always matter when it comes to family. Daryl, for younger viewers, is the equivalent of Data from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' so perhaps making this film a good choice for parents wishing to introduce their young kids to the sci-fi genre.

This is definitely an Eighties kids' classic but also one for all the family.

I really loved this film as a kid. There was a good baseball bit and some other funny bit but I can't remember