I agree completely with your complaints about the ending — I was ranting after the movie about how many people would have just been killed.

Although, I’m thinking that the fact he just saved a billion people might mitigate the punishment for causing (by inaction) the death of probably thousands.

Just want to point out; plot and motives are better in the comic it is based on. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surrogates )

Just like with 300, Watchmen, and the three in a pac Marvel ones.

@ copperfish:

You know, they should hire some of us interenet people to review and edit movie scripts before they are made. :)

On an unrelated (or semi-related note) have you seen the new TV commercials they have been showing to promote the DVD release in US? It’s like a whole different movie they are selling.

It pretty much goes like this:

1. A quick “In a world…” opening
2. Narrator says something about a new terrible weapon
3. Shot to Bruce Willing saying something like “We are all in danger”
4. Cut to shots of the Surrogates switching off from the end of the movie
5. Narrator says that Bruce is the only man who can stop it
6. Car chase, explosion, explosion, helicopter crash, boom, boom, boom
7. Surrogates – buy today on DVD

They are pretty much selling it as an action flick in which Bruce is fighting terrorists with some futuristic weapon of mass destruction that makes people fall over or something. It’s so misleading it’s hilarious.

Look it up on youtube if you haven’t seen it yet. Me and my brother have been looking at these TV spots since the DVD premiere and they have been progressively re-cutting them to seem more like Die Hard and less like SF every week. Its actually pretty funny to see this process in action.

Watched the movie after you commented on it. I thought it was a pretty decent science fiction film. I like the fact that they paid attention to certain things like the need to charge your surrogates because I’ve seen far too many films that just assume something like “micro fusion generator” and ignore reality.

Your network comment is fair, but the angle the movie takes is not entirely implausible. Take the iPhone ecosystem or the Kindle ecosystem and the control Apple or Amazon has over each and extrapolate that into the future.

The robot killing bit was like any “humanity against technology” plot I’ve seen over the years. I agree that the likelihood of no human casualties is zero. That just wasn’t plausible. As for whether his actions were selfish? I suppose they were, but given the saviour angle and the stated fact that no humans died I think we were supposed to look past it. I was comfortable to have everyone lose their barbie doll alter egos and have to face the real world.

A much more effective plotline would have been:

1. Multiple companies and networks exist in the surrogate market.
2. Greer destroys the surrogates of one of the networks he has access to.
3. Planes crash, humans die.
4. People begin to doubt the promised safety of surrogates.
5. Human backups are required for jobs like flying planes.
6. Surrogates are still used, but become less popular as you can die if you use them just like in real life.
7. Greer still resolves his relationship with his wife and goes into hiding.
8. The world moves on and is wiser.

sounds good to me. hahaha. although i do agree with you on the fact that the law enforcement had unrestricted access and could remotely disable ones surrogate. i will have to see the movie to know more about it.