Sai and Shujath talk Cinema

Surrogates October 14, 2009

The first question which comes to my mind is this – Unless you are completely paralyzed from head to toe or you are trying to save the world from “The Matrix” why would you want to be plugged to a chair for most part of your existence while a made-to-order surrogate robot actually lives out your life in the big bad world.

Apart from experiencing brief nostalgic feelings about “losing touch with one’s humanity” it is suggested (or rather assumed) that having a good looking surrogate is anyone’s natural choice. More laughably the first shot of the film shows a news report mentioning that once “surrogates” have become common the rates of “crime and racism” have fallen by 100% and 99% (who’s that unfortunate 1%?) respectively. The actual news report also should have had one more line “Mortality rate climbs 100% due to lifestyle diseases caused by being stuck to a chair for entire life”.

Also, except for the benefit of not getting physically hurt what is it that stops human controlled surrogates from commiting “crimes and racism” (even to that mysterious 1%). In fact when the “human” Bruce Willis has to step out in the real world (after his surrogate is destroyed), everyone around warns him how dangerous it is for humans to be out in the world of surrogates (maybe these adventure seeking “humans” constitute those 1% ). I don’t think I actually saw a child in the movie except in a photo and a brief glimpse of a pregnant “human” (thankfully no surrogates here).

If you’ve read till here and still want to watch the film then stop right there because I am giving away the ending now. SPOILER ALERT: Bruce Willis saves the world one more time. Humanity is free to get out of their chairs only to be greeted by the creepy sight of an equal number of disconnected surrogates lying on the street – which I presume they’ll have the spend the rest of their lifetimes cleaning up. Thank Bruce for that!!!