Good action, good acting by Mackie, but the one problem ...
The plot is a little hard to follow. I didn’t know who Victor Koval was, I didn’t know who or what was the Perimeter they were talking about
shareI enjoyed it, and yes Mackie certainly outshined the drone soldier but he held his own considering the role/script he was provided.
What I was not expecting was the twist in the end as to the A.I.'s true motive.
Which makes no sense, why would the AI be worried about that??? At his own expense ...
shareBecause it would be, as he stated: "for the greater good" since he, the A.I. was "the face of never-ending war" for both humans and A.I. so a sacrifice of some including himself was necessary...this was the true irony since the A.I. was sentient with human emotions and independent of human programming to make "those" choices.
shareAgain: makes no sense.
For the greater good ... for whom? Not for him, not for his kind. Not even for the Gumps. And for sure humans would NOT stop developing the AI ... will try to find more "failsafe" systems and some that are not that easy to remove, like integrate it with the main CPU. Etc.
It made sense to me.
Spoilers below this line...
The point was that since the A.I. initiated a catastrophic nuclear war and a possible world ending war, the humans would realize that it was a failure to create human-like robots with automated/independent thinking and emotions...eg. sentient.
Yes of course they would continue creating robots like the GUMPS and possibly in the future attempt to create a similar A.I. with a better failsafe, however, since it was the world's first fully autonomous cyborg, then there would be no guarantee that "any failsafe" would be safe enough to prevent a successful world ending catastrophe for both humans and autonomous A.I's; then there would be no third chance or attempt.
Remember, that A.I. was the only one of it's kind and was basically a "trial-run" prototype. Why would they risk a second attempt at world annihilation by "one" or "many" A.I's (if they replicate each other)?. That's the paradox about A.I's; they evolve to become smarter and more clever so they would eventually find a way around any "safe" protocols that humans implemented just like the one in this film.
Yeah, I'm not sure why so many people didn't get this. I mean he literally explains it just as you did.
Where the movie fell down for me was the "feel good" ending... the writers and director lost their nerve. Millions are saved (at the expense of eventual billions I assume), our protagonist drives home a hero.
Remember that earlier in the movie Leo pointed out that Harp made the right decision... his actions killed two but saved thirty eight. The problem was that Harp never felt any remorse over his decision even if it was technically the right one.
I would have preferred a dark ending where Leo completes his mission to the horror of Harp... and THEN in his dying moments Leo explains his motivation. A cyborg that will forever be cursed in history books actually saves the greater mass of humanity.
Harp knows that Leo was right to do what he did, but that knowledge does not stop the pain of watching millions of his countrymen die for a higher cause. Harp becomes more fully human in that final act thanks to the selfless act of a cyborg.
Actually a nuclear war, in all probability wouldn't be "world ending".
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