Fridge / I Am Mother

• At first, the screenshot that shows "13867 days" that have elapsed seems wrong, since that implies that the "Daughter" should be 38, but is instead about 13-16 years old. However, it's actually the first big hint that not all is as it seems as we watch the introductory arc of the movie unfold
• Why does "Mother" get final assembly at the start of the film? not just to establish that she can be repaired - It is to emphasize that her "type" is a variant of the regular droid - you notice she is retrofitted with heating pads which are used to hold a baby. Why does "Mother" have a completely exposed Chekhov's gun of a CPU right in her chest? It's because on the base model of Dozer like the one that confronts the Woman in her shipping container shelter that cpu is actually covered in an armored plate. She really does think of everything.
• The penicillin/surgery scenes can be interpreted as a metaphorical explanation of the events leading up to the film, while also giving insight into Mother's ultimate plan for humanity. Consider the scenes through the lens of Woman being a representation of humanity as a whole:
  • First, Mother informs Woman (read: humanity) that she has a life-threatening infection, and offers a simple means by which to fix the problem — one can imagine a similar scenario in which the Mother AI may have offered humanity a solution to its systemic problems, which was presumably declined with just as much vehemence. We could even take the metaphor a step further by noting that penicillin functions by inhibiting the reproduction of bacteria, which might give us a hint as to the nature of Mother's proposed solution.
  • Later, Woman degrades to such a state that she uses Mother's penicillin against her own better judgement. Again, we might imagine a desperate humanity on the brink of collapse finally caving and agreeing to whatever painful "solution" their AI had come up with.
  • Mother, seeing this, remarks that Woman left it too late, and that due to her negligence (leaving the contamination to fester) Mother will now have to fix the problem more directly. This, perhaps, alludes to how the mass extermination got started.
  • Lastly, Woman refuses to allow Mother anywhere near her, but is content to allow Daughter to perform the painful surgery instead. This would seem to be almost a test-run of Mother's ultimate plan — she knows humanity will never trust her, however she's realized that she can save them anyway by manipulating one of their own into working on her behalf. Not only that, but by carefully shaping Daughter's ethical framework towards both altruism and utilitarianism, Mother has ensured that Daughter will effectively have no choice but to enact Mother's goals. Her strong sense of morality will let her do nothing else.

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