YMMV / I Am Mother

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Since Mother is an Unreliable Narrator but there aren't enough humans around to say otherwise, humanity's behavior and Mother's behavior at the onset of the apocalypse is debatable. It's possible that Mother was telling the truth when she says humanity was on the brink of extinction so she just finished it off to start from scratch. On the other hand it's possible that humanity was fine but didn't measure up to Mother's standards so she wiped them out just so she could create a better version of humanity.
• Moral Event Horizon: Assuming genociding the human race is fine with you, the fact that Mother burned one of her own daughters to death as a child will shock you.
• Self-Fanservice: Due to the whole "Mommy" kink being pretty well-liked within the Rule 34 community and its artists. Certain risqué fanarts of Mother tend to pretty much play up her "Motherly" aspects usually turning her into a Ms. Fanservice Sexbot.
• Special Effect Failure: Some of the shots of the outside world are noticeably chroma keyed, or have slight bubbling in shots that change the orientation of the camera.
  • Many of the outside shots are filmed on a set and there's not a lot of noticeable wind.
• Spiritual Adaptation: I Am Mother can be seen as a film version of Portal, with both stories featuring a manipulative female A.I. that watches over a girl taking tests in a facility while trying to dissuade her from escaping to the outside world and euthanizing dissatisfactory test subjects in an incinerator. Not only does Mother's Cyber Cyclops design somewhat resemble GLaDOS, but Daughter's outfit in the climax also resembles Chell's outfit in Portal 2.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Mother is a practical effects costume created by WETA Workshop. Production designer Luke Hawker was originally just the model for the 91-pound suit, but was then cast as Mother as he could be around at all times for test fittings and the month of shooting. As a result of this and the film's tight budget, the Mother suit (of which only one was made, instead of several as is customary on film shoots) was tailored to fit exactly and only him, and he did have to do all of his own stunt work, including holding live infants, having Hilary Swank jump on his back, and running (with tighter camera angles or some light CG cleanup to remove the running shoes from the shot.)

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