Transcendent Man
Transcendent Man Transcendent means superior in quality or achievement. Barry Ptolemy in his film transcendent man tries to portray advances in science and how they will affect the life of man in the future.
The producer infuses a lot of biological studies and images into the film though it is a technology based clip. The brain is the major focus of the film. The thoughts, memories and emotions contained therein are the engine of the individual. They form the personality of the individual. If one could find a way to harness these thoughts one could in effect preserve the individual indefinitely.
There is also a lot of science and technology involved. A lot of high technology gadgets such as robots, state of the art research equipment and filming equipment were used. One can tell this by the wide angles swept by the cameras and the details involved. No cost is spared apparently in the making of the film since they show a step by step development of each discovery and how it affects the next development and even how they hope to one day use it.
The film is very futuristic. The producer tries to portray the world as it will be when technology and biology finally fuse into one, the use of robots and the transfer of human thought process to these robots is something currently only possible at the highest form of research institutes and even there is in the early development stages.
The film is also very optimistic. As opposed to other doomsday film where the world comes to a catastrophic end through earthquakes and tsunamis, the transcendent man uses science to his benefit. There is a great acceleration in technology and at some point in the future humans and machines merge and affliction that face one due to old age are done away with. This would give people faced with a family history of Alzheimer’s, arthritis and osteoporosis immense hope that they do not have to face these afflictions.
Old age is inevitable but with the development of this technology, one can look forward to being able to continue with life as usual even as they grow older. However, the film ignores the slow rate of research as well as all the tests required to be carried out before technology applicable on humans can be circulated in the market. Ptolemy gives a very narrow time frame for the research, implementation and access to this technology.
The film could do with a few improvements and in my opinion a recent release by the name “The surrogates” has addressed these discrepancies.
