Don't spend too much time or money on this movie if you are bothered by seriously inconsistent or unrealistic science in a science-fiction movie. Despite great production values and acting, the film is marred by a badly imagined technological world.
A world technologically capable of producing robotic avatars that convey complete sensory experiences to the users would not, as the world in this film does, resemble early 21st century in every other meaningful way. The technology necessary to accomplish such remote direct brain interface control and sensing is so advanced on so many levels; it would, by definition, be accompanied by other equally huge changes in technology.
In Surrogates, the world is basically "ceteris paribus" but for one enormous mind-bogglingly advanced change. We would expect, for example, far more advanced robotics in other areas, such as dangerous occupations such as law enforcement and tedious occupation such as low level sales. Yet there is no evidence of this in the film.
Similarly, the notion that the entire world's robotic avatars would be susceptible to a one-point attack is simply too absurd. The Web today has multiple redundancies in terms of DS servers as well as other protocols. Corporations and governments maintain multiple backups for important functions, with several levels of Internet available only to high level academic and military users. That a similar level of sophistication doesn't exist in Surrogate's world, despite having an economy dependent on the technology, is too implausible.
I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but the suspension necessary to enjoy Surrogates comes at too high a cost.
A world technologically capable of producing robotic avatars that convey complete sensory experiences to the users would not, as the world in this film does, resemble early 21st century in every other meaningful way. The technology necessary to accomplish such remote direct brain interface control and sensing is so advanced on so many levels; it would, by definition, be accompanied by other equally huge changes in technology.
In Surrogates, the world is basically "ceteris paribus" but for one enormous mind-bogglingly advanced change. We would expect, for example, far more advanced robotics in other areas, such as dangerous occupations such as law enforcement and tedious occupation such as low level sales. Yet there is no evidence of this in the film.
Similarly, the notion that the entire world's robotic avatars would be susceptible to a one-point attack is simply too absurd. The Web today has multiple redundancies in terms of DS servers as well as other protocols. Corporations and governments maintain multiple backups for important functions, with several levels of Internet available only to high level academic and military users. That a similar level of sophistication doesn't exist in Surrogate's world, despite having an economy dependent on the technology, is too implausible.
I can suspend my disbelief with the best of them, but the suspension necessary to enjoy Surrogates comes at too high a cost.