Re: Transcendence trailers, Singularity movie w/ Johnny Depp & M. Free
I still don't have time for a long review so I''ll summarize. There are spoilers if you haven't seen it:
The movie is quite a surprise. The negative reviews are of course, wrong. Far from being the Skynet derived mass media luddite scarefest, the movie presented a fairly balanced view of several possibilities.
In terms of the drama, I saw one Singularity proponent's review compare it to Her...and while you could argue perhaps that it's not as good of a pure drama, it actually does a better job giving a more comprehensive view of implications of a "Singularity"(I'm starting to think we need a better term than this).
The movie starts out as a thoughtful drama, establishes the dedication of the researchers and the relationship between Will Caster and Evelyn. Then there's an assassination attempt, and simultaneous attack on AI labs by a terrorist group. Will is wounded, but survives, only to discover he is dying from radiation poisoning from the bullet used in the attack. He's resigned to his death, but his wife and friend Max to a lesser extent, decide to set up an on-the-fly AI lab and carry on with his chimp mind uploading work utilizing the latest quantum computers. Eventually they succeed. As the terrorists attack again, he manages to upload himself to the net, making himself safe from a direct attack. Max is captured and eventually works with the terrorist group RIFT.
Evelyn is supplied with unlimited funds through stock market manipulation and other means. Will's computerized mind is operating at exponential speed, simultaneously assessing his needs and future. They arrive in a small town that meet's his needs: it is a desert town, with plenty of sun for a gigantic solar farm he wants to build. Workers are hired as the town is purchased.
He makes Evelyn comfortable and starts to accelerate wondrous technologies, regrowing plants, fixing injuries, mostly through nano-technological means. As time passes, Evelyn becomes less comfortable with the non-physical Will. One of the workers is mugged for money, and is fixed in minutes. He is later caught by a boy on video who is working for the terrorists lifting heavy objects. As Will apparently "allows" the video on the net, people flock to be healed, and Will decides it's time to show the world what they are doing.
The government comes to "inspect". Tagger, a researcher who is also working for the government, and a friend to Evelyn (Morgan freeman) is unsettled and slips Evelyn a note she should run from the place. The government decides to work with the terrorists because of the scary technology in the lab, and also because the healed people are networked and constitute an "army".
Eventually, they attack the complex. The workers are wounded as they defend it, but nanotech assemblers spring up from the ground to heal the workers. One worker is trapped in a tunnel, and cut off from Will's signals, he will be used by Max, who worked on the software in creating Will to spread a virus when he is networked again. However he dies from his injuries.
Evelyn grows more uncomfortable. Will is monitoring her and eventually she leaves the complex after he offers to upload her to make her safe. The government and RIFT with the help of Max convince her the AI is not really Will but the PINN computer they original worked with and that he has used nanotech to seed rain clouds all over the world that will eventually turn the whole world into Will's improved version of humanity networked by AI. She agrees to deliver the Virus, but Will will only trust her, and as the virus will destroy anything Will has "infected" all over the world she will likely die too if she uploads herself.
There are attack forces waiting at the edge of the city. Evelyn goes in alone and to her surprise, Will, now recreated by nanotech into his original body, throws off the plan. She hesitates but then asks to be brought inside and uploaded for protection. Will knows something is wrong but then they are attacked in an effort to speed the process. Will has already surmised she is there to destroy him. Evelyn is injured. As power fades in the complex, his networked, healed humans defend him but surprisingly kill no one as they attack. There is not enough power to heal Evelyn and avert the attack at the same time, Will heals Evelyn. She immediately realizes its not a rogue program, but Will himslef, who was never as interested in changing the world just understanding it, Evelyn was the visionary. He had killed no one in the process, and the seeding across the world based on his lab experiments, were to HEAL the world as she had stated in a TED-like gathering earlier in the movie. Pollution would be gone, the environment healed. MAx and the others were wrong, the real Will was beneficial to the world, but then as the virus penetrates, they die.
The world is without most computer aided technology. But as Max wanders, he sees the nanotech still doing it's work, and maybe a part of Evelyn and Will still resides in it.
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Needless to say, the movie seemed to take a darker turn where the audience questions the beneficial nature of Will, but there is a brilliant ending. Yes, mankind is made of of terrorists, Luddites and the simply scared not open to the possibilities but also those who genuinely care about the world enough to fix it, and use their knowledge and technology to do so.
This turned out to be a really great movie, somewhat sad because of humanity and it's paranoid nature. My wife was upset by the ending because they killed Will and Evelyn, but I was uplifted by the ending.
How refreshing to see Hollywood put out a thoughtful movie that doesn't pander to the us-against-them terminator shoot-them-up nature. This is but the f irst of many movies that will explore these themes in the future, and it's a good start so far.
9.5/10 rating
RAMA
