Movie: Transcedence

"People fear what they don't understand."

How very true - that was my first reaction upon hearing that line.

The movie was devastating, it affected me in so many levels: spiritual, professional, and personal.

Spiritual

The talk of god comes up during Dr. Will Caster's talk about the advancement of science using nanotechnology. He's a brilliant man involved in a group that is constantly looking for ways to make humanity create a step ahead in technology. During the discussion portion, someone asked: So you want to create a god, your own god? And his answer was That's a very good question, isn't that what man has always done? Which was a very good but not in a sense of humanity, morality, and spirituality, so it seems, because Will Caster got shot after this talk by that same audience member. Not shot by an ordinary gun, but a gun  loaded with a bullet that seems lethal enough to kill you in a few months.

Well, on the logical practical sense, isn't it nice to have things to work out faster, and easier? I think the purpose of intellect is to be used, otherwise, why would the god that audience member so dearly loved give this thing to humankind?

But I do get where he's coming from. And in the film, the anger from his party was coming from a reasonable background story. Apparently, someone who had been studying and pursuing the same technological advancement had tried the nanotech on a monkey, and well it didn't turn out well - the monkey 'begged for the humans to stop' so the story goes. That someone ended up dead, killed by this group who witnessed the event. If the events were for real, and not at all fiction, I would've come up to them and asked: So you want to create a god, your own god? And if they got confused and threw a why to me, I'd say: Gods take lives, and that's what you did - you took lives. Of course they'd argue that it's to save humankind, and all other life forms who'd possibly become high-tech monsters in the future, but still, murder is murder.

Professional

As an IT professional, I could say the same thing about the environment I'm in. People indeed fear what they don't understand. Why should they not? If a stranger called you on a phone and told you that you can claim a reward of say, a million bucks but you have to fill up this form, go to this place, would you not be afraid? No matter how good the promise of "nice things" brings, you'd still fear the unknown. We even fear ghosts simply because we don't understand why they exist at all, and thus theories emerge.

I'd say this, but not to come off as offensive - most of the time, old people are the ones who are so afraid of technological advancement. It is not just the monetary issues, I think, but the fact that it's back to zero again. It's going to take some time to go from manual to automatic. The buttons seem confusing all the time, and the screens are just too bright. The thought of being mocked by the younger generation also scares the older generation, and I bet nobody would ever want mockery on their everyday life event.

But we need advancement simply because we can't be forever stuck in manual counting. Life is a race, and whoever has a life can either run or die dissatisfied. Especially if your track is on the corporate world, you gotta adopt the trend, and adapt to it, else you lose the race.

Personal

Who doesn't fear advancement or the things we don't understand? Yes, in a professional sense it is important to not fear advancement, but in our personal lives, advancement doesn't necessarily mean things are on the positive ground.

(for example) Advancement in relationships: why should you think it is not supposed to be feared? It means commitment, time investment, etc., so why should we think all things that move forward in our lives are just pursuing the goodness?

Wrap

Sci-fis are always the best, in my opinion. From the rich vocabulary to the plot twists, they never seem to fail. The scripts are always wonderful and I tend to hang on into every word the actors say. It gets the mind working and at the end of the day, even if I get reminded about the reality that is slow and boring, I still find myself grateful for the little bit of distraction.

In Transcedence, the great people are the ones who understood each other, and are the ones who got misunderstood. I think a great deal of miscommunication took place. Will Caster should've put more heart onto that answer about creating his own god, and the audience member and his party should've used words before guns. Sometimes people are so impulsive it makes broken things look like they need complex calculus and methodologies when, really, it's just the simple arithmetic that's the key.

It's not that the scientific minds don't pay heed to souls and humanity, of course they do. But usually, the impulsive judgmental afraid minds who claim to be activists pro-humanity and morality, pull the trigger too soon and forget that they too now look like they're creating their own god by taking the laws into their own hands.

But did Will Caster and Evelyn Caster crossed the line? Evelyn did, Will was a dead man whose mind got altered upon getting uploaded. But Evelyn was a human being and here's the cliche: human beings make mistakes. Does that give "activists" the right to kill her? No, definitely not. But they do have a right to go to the authorities and work with them.

Evelyn did the biggest mistake a brilliant mind can ever do, but she paid it anyway, so I guess I don't have to hate her that much.

The Rate

4/5

Recommended?

To those with open minds. Close minds see nothing but the flaw ahead, I shit you not ;)