History Film / Transcendence

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Will and the hybridized humans only exacerbate RIFT's faith in this. It's even posited that, though Will's personality may be entirely intact, he's simply grown so far beyond humanity that the difference is academic. [[spoiler: Too bad they were totally wrong.]]

** Bree believes that Will isn't human and therefore is a threat to humanity. [[spoiler:In the climax, she threatens Max to get Will to upload the virus, even though a machine wouldn't care for the fate of one man. Will then willingly destroys himself to save Max even though he could have saved both his wife and himself, not to mention wiped out all the threats to himself at the same time. In short, Bree ends up using Will's humanity against him when trying to argue that he isn't human.]]

* MasterOfTheMixedMessage: Evelyn. '''''Every woman who has ever lived''''' is infuriated by how the man in their lives ''occasionally'' puts his own interests ahead of hers, and has difficulty understanding her moods. [[spoiler:Post-upload, Will thinks of '''absolutely nothing''' save "realize Evelyn's dreams of helping humanity and the world" and "what is Evelyn feeling right now?" Evelyn's response is to be insulted by Will's explanations of his godlike technologies (primarily medical and environmental -- ''her'' fields, whereas he is a computer scientist), increasingly frightened by his efforts to heal humans and the biosphere, and have a ''colossal freakout'' at how he constantly monitors her biometrics in his attempts to understand her. After she permits Will to upload her she is deeply ashamed at how she had mis-interpreted his devotion to her and horrified that she only realized this ''[[NiceJobBreakingItHero after]]'' she acted as a TrojanHorse to infect him with Max's shutdown virus]].

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler: If AI Will had ever bothered to explain himself or think about how he's phrasing things, everything could have gone a lot differently. Max gets freaked out by how proactive he is on waking up (because he doesn't explain he's trying to realise Evelyn's dreams), worries people when he answers the "are you sentient?" question the way PINN did (even as a joke, it still creeps them out), and generally does disturbing things without thinking how they'll look, like networking with the hybrids or admitting he's monitoring Evelyn's biology. Even if he was socially awkward to begin with you'd think attaining superintelligence would make him better at imagining how his actions will be interpreted.]]

* WoundedGazelleGambit: In the climax, the military fires on Will [[spoiler:(now in a physical copy of his old body) and Evelyn]], reasoning that [[spoiler:Will is more likely to concede to uploading her along with the virus if she's in danger]].

* MagicFromTechnology: At numerous points in the film, Will's new abilities are treated more like supernatural forces than super science. A major point of the film is whether the singularity is Will, or just deliberately pretending to be Will so it can trick people into handing processing power over to him -- very similar to the situation in horror stories and urban legends where demons supposedly will pretend to be the spirits of dead loved ones in order to deceive people. RIFT at times acts like {{KnightTemplar}}s hunting witches than Luddites, believing that singularities are inherently evil, and once one comes into the world, it will try to replace God; i.e. like Lucifer. Another example the treatments that Will effects with nanites are also treated like magical cures/curses. [[spoiler: For instance, when Will is shut down, the blind man who was cured somehow goes back to being blind. He wasn't ''fixed'', he was just under the effects of a magic spell.]]

* MasterOfTheMixedMessage: Evelyn. '''''Every woman who has ever lived''''' is infuriated by how the man in their lives ''occasionally'' puts his own interests ahead of hers, and has difficulty understanding her moods. [[spoiler:Post-upload, Will thinks of '''absolutely nothing''' save "realize Evelyn's dreams of helping humanity and the world" and "what is Evelyn feeling right now?" Evelyn's response is to be insulted by Will's explanations of his godlike technologies(primarily medical and environmental -- ''her'' fields, whereas he is a computer scientist), increasingly frightened by his efforts to heal humans and the biosphere, and have a ''colossal freakout'' at how he constantly monitors her biometrics in his attempts to understand her. After she permits Will to upload her she is deeply ashamed at how she had mis-interpreted his devotion to her and horrified that she only realized this ''[[NiceJobBreakingItHero after]]'' she acted as a TrojanHorse to infect him with Max's shutdown virus]].

* WrongGenreSavvy: Every single human character, at one point or another, react as if they are on the front row of an "[[AIIsACrapshoot Evil A.I. is about to go]] [[Franchise/TheTerminator Skynet]] and TakeOverTheWorld" sci-fi film, and RIFT believes this so much that every spiel they deliver follows this mentality (such as killing one of the hybrids and labeling it a MercyKill even if the guy, who had no connection to Caster's network and thus is doing it on his own free will, is ''begging them to let him go so he can survive'') and thus decide that the ends make the means. The reality is that, even if Will's [[UncannyValley capacity to show humanity has pretty much bottomed out]], he has ''no'' desire to perform such a thing, and he's actually trying to help.

** The question is prominently raised whether the uploaded "Will" consciousness that exists on a computer is the real Will's transferred consciousness, or rather a perfect copy. [[spoiler: Ultimately his colleagues conclude that the answer is irrelevant, because even if the process managed to successfully "transfer" and not merely "copy" his mind, his vastly increased intellectual capacity has transformed his personality so radically that he's functionally not the same person he was before the transfer. Then zig-zagged back around, as the film shows that while he has transformed into something incomprehensibly more advanced than the human original, that doesn't mean that he/it is malevolent.]]

* AGodAmI: During his speech in the beginning, Will is asked if he seeks to create a god, given his desire to create an intelligence vastly superior to the collective intelligence of humanity past and present. Will calmly counters that mankind has always created its own gods. Later he essentially becomes this himself.

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: As Will points out, RIFT wants to take down potentially useful technology, and they won't hesitate to kill anyone to do so. On the other side, Will's move toward hybridization and group consciousness, no matter how peacefully he goes about it, is seen as a threat by everyone, including his closest friends and his wife.
** Will never crossed any moral boundaries with the actions at he took:
*** All of the people he initially hybridized willingly offered themselves for the process, aside from the injured worker whose life Will saved.
*** Will never used violence against anyone, aside from dealing with terrorist attacks from RIFT - and even then, he ''never'' took a life.
*** Will was turning Earth into a paradise and his enemies would gladly sacrifice this out of ideological hypocrisy and spiteful pettiness.

* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: RIFT is a terrorist organization that has no problems murdering innocent people and for all intents and purposes is no different than Will, desiring to force the world to conform to their ideals regardless of their personal choice.

* TallPoppySyndrome: There are several discussions on the notion there will always be people who fear change and will violently fight to prevent it. RIFT's goal seems to be achieving this trope on a global scale, by ridding the world of technological advancements.

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler: If AI Will had ever bothered to explain himself or think about how he's phrasing things, everything could have gone a lot differently. Max gets freaked by how proactive he is on waking up (because he doesn't explain he's trying to realise Evelyn's dreams), worries people when he answers the "are you sentient?" question the way PINN did (even as a joke, it still creeps them out), and generally does disturbing things without thinking how they'll look, like networking with the hybrids or admitting he's monitoring Evelyn's biology. Even if he was socially awkward to begin with you'd think attaining superintelligence would make him better at imagining how his actions will be interpreted.]]

* UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot: The "hybrids" are this as cyborgs. Apparently Will wasn't content with merely fixing injured and disabled people, he also felt the need to give them superhuman physical abilities and add enhancements to their brains that would make them his puppets and voice-pieces. Not only was it unnecessary (since the healed people would be happy to work for Will without having their minds altered), it is also what convinces the FBI to attack Will over the threat it represents.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Every single human character, at one point or another, react as if they are on the front row of an "[[AIIsACrapshoot Evil A.I. is about to go]] [[Franchise/TheTerminator Skynet]] and TakeOverTheWorld" sci-fi film, and RIFT believes this so much that every spiel they deliver follows this mentality (such as killing one of the hybrids and labeling it a MercyKill even if the guy, who had no connection to Caster's network and thus is doing it on his own free will, is ''begging them to let him go so he can survive'') and thus decide that the ends make the means. The reality is that, even if Will's [[UncannyValley capacity to show humanity has pretty much bottomed out]], he has ''no'' desire to perform such a thing.

* NewTechnologyIsEvil: The head of the group cites the first brain uploading experiment which involved a monkey on why brain uploading is evil. "It just screamed." A monkey freaked out upon finding itself in a situation it could not possibly comprehend, so brain uploading is therefore evil because a monkey didn't like it.

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: Foreshadowed by the title of the movie and Caster's speech near the beginning where elaborates on the necessity of creating a god. Then Caster dies and becomes an [[DeusEstMachina ascended intelligence with omnipresent-omnipotent-omniscient powers]] and set about making the world a better place for everyone in it. He/it was on the verge of [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence elevating humankind]] to his/its level when the [[HumansAreMorons stupid humans]] committed deicide.

* AGodAmI: During his speech in the beginning, Will is asked if he seeks to create a god, given his desire to create an intelligence vastly superior to the collective intelligence of humanity past and present. Will calmly counters that mankind has always created its own gods. Later he essentially becomes this himself.

* MasterOfTheMixedMessage: Evelyn. '''''Every woman who has ever lived''''' is infuriated by how the man in their lives ''occasionally'' puts his own interests ahead of hers, and has difficulty understanding her moods. [[spoiler:Post-upload, Will thinks of '''absolutely nothing''' save "realize Evelyn's dreams of helping humanity and the world" and "what is Evelyn feeling right now?" Evelyn's response is to be insulted by Will's explanations of his godlike technologies(primarily medical and environmental - ''her'' fields, whereas he is a computer scientist), increasingly frightened by his efforts to heal humans and the biosphere, and have a ''colossal freakout'' at how he constantly monitors her biometrics in his attempts to understand her. After she permits Will to upload her she is deeply ashamed at how she had mis-interpreted his devotion to her and horrified that she only realized this ''[[NiceJobBreakingItHero after]]'' she acted as a TrojanHorse to infect him with Max's shutdown virus]].

* [[UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot Unnecessarily Creepy Cyborgs]]: The "hybrids". Apparently Will wasn't content with merely fixing injured and disabled people, he also felt the need to give them superhuman physical abilities and add enhancements to their brains that would make them his puppets and voice-pieces. Not only was it unnecessary (since the healed people would be happy to work for Will without having their minds altered), it is also what convinces the FBI to attack Will over the threat it represents.

* SceneryPorn: Even detractors admit the film is beautiful to look at, thanks in part to cinematographer Jess Hall.