Surrogates: The Internet IRL

I'd like to preface this post with an apology: I'm sorry this entry is late. It's hilarious that it is, since it's the first one since my self-imposed deadline. Not to get too specific, but I've been laid up in bed these past two days with a very unhappy stomach. I promise that next week's post will not be late. I think I'll be reviewing Whip It! Now on to the blog.

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After adjusting to looking at Bruce Willis with hair, something occurred to me: I was thirsty. So I paused the movie and made the long trip down the hall to the fridge on a perilous quest for caffeine. It was on the trek back that something movie-related occurred to me: Surrogates. Surrogates is MySpace, but REAL.

"Life, but emo-er."

-Ish. Anyone can just design a face and say, "This is the new me", while spending their biotic life attached to a creepy sex-chair (it looks like a sex-chair. Or what I imagine a sex-chair would look like). That actually happens in the movie. Some old, fat guy is discovered in his apartment, dead, after his "unit" (DIRTY) is destroyed. His "unit" (still dirty) was a 20-something blonde bombshell (I sound 50), who was decidedly female. Imagine how easy it would be to become a tranny, eh?

"Hey, baby. How you doin'?"

And yet, the fact remains: a surrogate is still just a glorified avatar, and though technically you're not in any real physical danger if your surrogate ends up boning a major creeper, it is major weird. For example, a 15-year-old could be using a surrogate that looks 25. They meet someone sexy who looks to be around 25 as well, but behind that sexy, 1/4-century-old face lurks a 60-year-old pedo. Chris Hansen's electronic head would explode.

"I like to make love." -- Chris Hansen

Of course, if both "surries" (I can't believe I just typed that. I need to go vomit.) look 25, what are the legal repercussions for the people controlling them, if one is 15 and one is 60? Man, you would think there would be regulations of some sort, controlling who uses what "unit". Also, for the record, I did not make up the term "surries"; it's one of the nicknames for surrogates used in the film. It's my least favourite term for them. To me, Surrey is in England. Anyway, I'll stick to calling them surrogates, or "units" (gonna stick to quotation marks, though).

I won't lie. I love Bruce Willis movies. Hostage, Mercury Rising, Pulp Fiction (he's in it, at least), UNBREAKABLE (HELL YEAH!), Sixth Sense, Lucky Number Slevin, Tears of the Sun, and on, and on, and on. I did not love Surrogates. I didn't really give a crap about it. It was okay, at best. For everything it could have been, it really fell short. I expected there to be more to it. That's not to say that the story wasn't interesting (though not interesting enough, apparently), it just left way too many holes. PLOT holes.


There were a lot of questions brought up by the subject matter that were never dealt with. Also, how fucking easy would identity theft be in that universe? Anyway, what bothered me was when Bruce Willis' a.k.a. Tom Greer's partner was killed and her surrogate stolen. It's made clear earlier on in the film that advanced surrogate models (because there are cheap ones and fancy ones; like hookers) are tailored to the user's genetic signature (like hookers) ... (Wait--). So how the hell does the guy who steals her surrogate use it?

"Heh, heh, heh. Suckers."

Man, imagine how annoying surrogates would be if they glitched all the time. Lag would be uber-annoying, particularly during sex or some shit.

This, but she's on top of you.

But the real issue here, and with the whole concept of surrogates, is the psychological impact. I mean, talk about midlife crises now. With surrogates, how would you ever know who you really are? You'd never know if your husband/wife really loved you or your sex-bot. You'd also never feel anything real again. So what if your "unit" has the most advanced "touch/feel" systems? It's not real. Basically, it's the next step in human evolution, if people can't get their heads out of their computers and get their asses off social networking websites.

Or their heads out of their asses and
their computers off social networking sites.

I know I haven't mentioned the plot much, but in truth, it's not a bad plot. It's a poorly executed one at times, but not bad. I still recommend seeing the film, particularly if you love Bruce Willis. I just also recommend not going into it thinking it'll be the best movie ever. Then again, my mom loved it. And hated Whip It! The world makes no sense.