History Headscratchers / ExMachina

** I was rather expecting the reverse, with Caleb realising finally what he have done and ambushing her while she's busy dressing up, averting a complete DownerEnding. Instead, the film ends up with completely sadistic note and makes the viewer percieve Ava as EvilAllAlong, with absolutely no redeeming qualities other than falling for her exploitation of the "cute, trapped girl wants to get free" mindset.
** I think it's more a matter of BlueAndOrangeMorality. Nathan had to be killed because he was an immediate threat. Caleb could just be tricked into staying in the room, so there was no need to kill him. Ava doesn't understand the idea of a MercyKill or YouKnowTooMuch because it's not relevant to her values; she just does what is necessary to survive. She doesn't feel disdain or pity; Caleb is just no longer relevant.
** There's a few more pieces to this: in the end, its apparent the androids were conspiring against Nathan. We're led to believe that Caleb was the one who ultimately orchestrated the escape, but its clear Kyoko benefitted from foresight, when A. she entered Ava's test chamber, and B. arrived pre-equipped with a kitchen knife ahead of the power outage. Right before Ava and Kyoko engaged Nathan, they had what appeared to be an affectionate exchange. Nathan mentioned himself, that edits to the AI only caused "partial" wipes, which meant, while Ava was customized to seduce Caleb, she also had some residual memory of everything that's happened before. Aside from Nathan, Ava's main partner in life thus far was Kyoko. Lastly, we see that once Ava satisfies her "prime directive," she doesn't shut down or crash. These all suggests that Ava became functionally human.

** Or it's a massive PlotHole, given how Ava had no means to fiddle with the system at all and it's explained how she causes the power surges. Alternatively, it's what Caleb originally programmed, thus trapping himself. Or, even more obvious, it's Caleb inserting his own security card to the computer, thus it locks down the facility due to original security protocol. After all, when he fiddled with the code, he was using Nathan's access card.
** Caleb programmed the doors to open during power cuts only. That's why he asked Ava to cause a power cut, and said that Nathan would be trapped inside after the power cut. The power cut lasts a minute, then the security system is back to being keycard-based.

** Or, [[HanlonsRazor which is more logical option]], he didn't program them this way. Part of them developing consciousness is their desire to leave a tiny room they are locked in, because they suffer from pretty obvious CabinFever.

*** Somebody would notice.... at SOME POINT. He's famously reclusive, a chronic alcoholic, and has contact with almost nobody in the outside world on a regular basis. Caleb, meanwhile, has only a couple days before he dies of thirst. Sure somebody will investigate at some point and find him dead, but by then Caleb will be long dead and nobody else will have any real idea what happened.

** Caleb's trapped in a room that has an adjoining bathroom, so he should be able to get water while he's locked away, which will buy him a bit more time, but if nobody gets curious before Caleb dies of starvation, he's toast.

** Her seat has a panel on the side. She's shown to be touching it right after the second outage.

** It's never said that Ava was responsible for ALL power cuts. She seems to think that she can get away with causing some power outages to hide certain behavior, which implies that some amount of the power outages that she was not actually responsible for. So it was a 'natural' power cut that simply happened to occur when she was with Caleb.

* When we see Caleb in the bathroom early in the movie, we notice he has some quite prominent surgical scars on his back, yet this never becomes relevant. So what was the point of showing them?

** Caleb wasn't a good enough programmer to be recognized by his company's CEO. The point of choosing him was that he was very average, and therefore a good subject for Ava's manipulation. In terms of how Ava might get her documentation, she does have internal access to the equivalent of Google - there's no reason to assume she couldn't find some kind of resources to help her create or access believable identification.

* How exactly does Ava intend on getting the legal documentation she needs to survive in the modern world? Moreover, wouldn't keeping Caleb alive and working help her with this? I guess she can pin the murder on him, since having to explain who she is to a court would be a little problematic; however, on the other hand, she has no money and presumably little skills to get a job, and having a steady source of income, presumably large enough to support two people and get some illegal documentation if Caleb apparently is a good enough programmer to be recognized by his company's CEO.

* How exactly does Ava cause the power cuts? She says at one point that she does it by "reversing the current" through the induction plates that she uses to charge her batteries, but at least two of them happen when she's nowhere near one of those plates. (E.g., power cut 2 happens while she's seated opposite Caleb.)