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Analysis of Transcendence

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Transcendence – a visual take on Science Fiction
Dr. Will Caster is a famous researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence. He is working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn and best friend Max Waters, both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can but if they should. They realize their worst fears when Will´s thirst for knowledge evolves into a seemingly omnipresent quest for power, to what end is unknown.
Dr. Will Caster is a famous researcher in AI. He has spent most of his life in the lab working to create a robot with all human functions. Will lives with his Wife, and together they have created a garden. His purpose to create a garden is that they could be together. During one of Will´s presentation, a member of the anti-technology terrorist group shoots him. His condition gets so bad, that he gets no more than a month to live.
Will´s wife, Evelyn Caster is also a scientist and helps him with his projects. When Will dies, Evelyn comes in desperation and upload Will´s consciousness into the quantum computer that the project has developed. A project Will and Evelyn have been working on to create a sentient computer. Will did everything in his life because he loves Evelyn. When Will is uploaded to the computer, he wants Evelyn´s dream to develop. He explains Evelyn that he did it for her, as she pursued science to repair the damage humans has done to the ecosystems.
Wills and Evelyn´s fellow researcher Max Waters supports her when Will died. However, that did not last long, because Max believes that Evelyn is fighting for the wrong thing. Her mindset is wrong, she do not think rational according to Max. He think that she only do this because she loves Will and want his dream to be fulfill.
The most important theme in the movie is Artificial Intelligence. AI has some pros and cons, which the movie introduce. The pros of AI, is that the earth would be a perfect place to live on. The forest that the humans has removed can now grow back again. The water in ocean, sea etc. will be so pure that you can drink from it. Humans will get the power of immortality. The robot humans Will creates is just an example of robots that is used to be utilized to do necessary jobs more efficiently. Robot machines do not need to take breaks in the way that humans do. They do not require sleep, eat, or have to use the restroom. They can continuously perform the same task without getting bored or tired. The machines can work twenty-four hours a day, all year around. We can take a look of our own everyday life. Every person own a smartphone, which has some applications of artificial intelligence. Applications like Siri that act as personal assistants, GPS and Maps applications that give users the best or the shortest routes to take as well as the traffic and time estimates to reach there, use AI. Applications on phones or computers that predict user actions and make recommendations that suit user choice are applications of AI. The pros of AI is that it has made daily life a lot easier.
The cons of AI is that it is against the human beliefs. If the evolution within technology, evolution etc. etc. happens too quickly, there will be no reason for the humans to live anymore. As humans, we get concern about ethics and moral values. Is it ethically correct to create replicas of human beings? Do our moral values allow us to recreate intelligence? Intelligence is a gift of nature. It may not be right to install it into a robot machine to make it work for our benefit. These robots may be able to store enormous amounts of data, but the storage, access, and retrieval is not as effective as in case of the humans brain. They are also able to perform repetitive tasks for long, but they do not get better with experience, like humans do. They cannot act different from what they are programmed to do. Therefor are robots not as efficient as human´s in altering their responses depending on the changing situations. The robot machines can complete human´s jobs quicker, more accurate, and cheaper. Today, we have factory machines that have replaced people´s jobs. If robots begin to replace humans in every field, it will eventually lead to unemployment. People will have nothing to do. So much empty time may result in its destructive use
Transcendence is the second most important theme in this movie. As the title “Transcendence” says, Dr. Will want to create a perfect world with the new technology he has developed. In his perfect world, the blind man, can now see again, because of the nanotechnology treatment. He has created some very strong and immortal robots.
The third worth mentioning theme in the movie is love. A love between Will and Evelyn. When Will only get one month of his life to live in, Evelyn want him uploaded in the computer. Hereafter all the things Dr. Will do is for her. It is to achieve Evelyn´s goals, not his. In one of the last scenes, Will state, “Look at the sky. The clouds. We are healing the ecosystem. Not harming it. Particles join the air, building themselves out of pollutant. Forests can be regrown. Water so pure, you can drink out of any river. This is your dream.” Five years later Max Waters visit their house. He go out to the garden, where he only sees two sunflowers that have survived. The two sunflowers symbolize Will and Evelyn, as two lovers that never get apart. They live and die together. We see that in the last scene, they both died together.
The sci-fi genre do enhance in the movie. Wil explains Evelyn the new “changes” he have made: “this thing is like any intelligence. It needs to grow, to advance. Right now, it is settling somewhere it thinks it is safe from outside threats. Somewhere it is massive appetite for power can be met. But it will want more than that. After a while, survival will not be enough. It will expand, evolve, influence – perhaps the entire world”. The sci-fi elements are the immortal human robots. The technology Will has developed that has a cure for everything you can think of.
We do not get any sympathy for the characters as well as we cannot relate to any of them. One of the main lead role characters is a robot, with no or artificial emotions. Therefor we cannot identify us self with them. We do not get any clarification about if Will is good or bad.
The movie is very confusing for me. I like the idea behind “Transcendence”, but the theme do not match the movie, so that sucks. We start with the ending of the movie, so we already knew what will going to happen in some sort. However, the movie is not about the end, but about the journey, they have. It is about the evolution and the line between humanity and evolving into something more. Overall, it is a good movie, but I think they could have made it better and more entertaining.

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