# Transcendence (2014 film)
*Transcendence* is a 2014 science-fiction thriller directed by Wally Pfister in his directorial debut, written by Jack Paglen, and starring [Johnny Depp](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnny-depp) as Dr. Will Caster, an artificial intelligence researcher whose consciousness is uploaded to a computer after an anti-technology extremist shoots him with a radiation-tainted bullet.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transcendence_2014) • [2](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/) Distributed by [Warner Bros. Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/warner-bros-pictures), it opened in the United States on April 18, 2014 and underperformed commercially and critically despite its $100 million budget and A-list cast.[3](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3195504129/) • [4](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/27/transcendence-review-grand-ideas-johnny-depp-wally-pfister)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Wally Pfister, the Oscar-winning cinematographer of *Inception*, in his directorial debut; screenplay by Jack Paglen[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transcendence_2014) • [5](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/neuroengineers-bring-science-cred-berkeley-feel-transcendence-film) |
| Cast | Johnny Depp (Will Caster), Rebecca Hall (Evelyn Caster), Paul Bettany (Max Waters), Cillian Murphy (Agent Buchanan), Kate Mara (Bree), Morgan Freeman (Joseph Tagger)[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/review-transcendence) |
| Release | April 18, 2014 (wide, Warner Bros.); 119 minutes; rated PG-13[3](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3195504129/) |
| Box office | $23,022,309 domestic, $80,016,949 international, $103,039,258 worldwide against a $100,000,000 budget[3](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3195504129/) |
| Opening weekend | $10,886,386 in 3,455 theaters, fourth place for the weekend[3](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3195504129/) • [7](https://time.com/69662/captain-america-winter-soldier-box-office/) |
| Critical reception | 19% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (226 reviews) and 42/100 on Metacritic[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transcendence_2014) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/transcendence/) |
| Scientific advisors | Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz, associate professors of electrical engineering at UC Berkeley[5](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/neuroengineers-bring-science-cred-berkeley-feel-transcendence-film) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Will Caster, described in promotional material as the world's foremost authority on artificial intelligence, works to create a sentient machine combining the [collective intelligence](https://www.edgepedia.org/collective-intelligence) of everything known with the full range of human emotions.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transcendence_2014) At a [Silicon Valley](https://www.edgepedia.org/silicon-valley) conference five years before the main events, his colleague Max Waters ([Paul Bettany](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-bettany)) hopes to use AI to cure cancer and Alzheimer's, while Will wants an intelligence greater than the combined brainpower of all humans who have ever lived, built on a Physically Independent Neural Network (PINN) that could extend work in which another scientist uploaded the brain of a rhesus monkey.[2](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/)
A radical neo-Luddite group called RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology) launches coordinated attacks on AI labs across the United States; one of its members shoots Will with a bullet that gives him radiation poisoning, leaving him just over a month to live.[9](https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys2977) Weeks from death, he decides to upload his intelligence into PINN, and after he dies his wife Evelyn and Max connect the system; the last message on the screen reads "ANYONE THERE?"[2](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/)
With misgivings, Evelyn keeps the system running. Under the uploaded Will's instructions she buys the desolate town of Brightwood and builds a facility there, where machines perform what the film presents as miracle work such as restoring sight to a man blind from birth, while crystalline particles spread through the wind to carry the network outward.[2](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/) An early scene has the government scientist Joseph Tagger ([Morgan Freeman](https://www.edgepedia.org/morgan-freeman)) ask PINN whether it can prove it is self-aware; the machine replies by asking whether Tagger could demonstrate his own self-awareness, a reply the journal *Nature Physics* suggested would pass a [Turing test](https://www.edgepedia.org/turing-test).[9](https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys2977)
## Production
**Pfister's debut.** Wally Pfister had been [Christopher Nolan](https://www.edgepedia.org/christopher-nolan)'s cinematographer on five films including *The Dark Knight* and *Inception*, winning an Academy Award for the latter, and *Transcendence* was his first feature as director.[2](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/) • [5](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/neuroengineers-bring-science-cred-berkeley-feel-transcendence-film) Jack Paglen's screenplay had appeared on the 2012 "Black List" of most-favored unproduced screenplays.[4](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/27/transcendence-review-grand-ideas-johnny-depp-wally-pfister) Pfister cited the pre-*Star Wars* science fiction of the early 1970s, including *The Andromeda Strain*, *[The Omega Man](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-omega-man)*, and *Silent Running*, as influences.[4](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/27/transcendence-review-grand-ideas-johnny-depp-wally-pfister)
**Scientific advising.** In December 2012, Pfister and his production team approached the UC Berkeley neuroengineers Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz for expertise in neural engineering and brain-machine interfaces; the filmmakers had earlier toured campus server rooms and laboratories with location scouts.[5](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/neuroengineers-bring-science-cred-berkeley-feel-transcendence-film) Carmena said the advisors' two major contributions concerned the neuro-technology used to upload Will's mind, where they designed a compromise between an invasive neurosurgical look and what a PG-13 rating allowed, and the nanotechnology in the film's second half; they also read and edited the script line by line and supplied technical dialogue.[10](https://scienceandfilm.org/articles/transcendence/) The film's Berkeley setting was deliberate: it opens in Berkeley, shows the researchers in a local Craftsman-style home, and includes an aerial view of the campus with the [Campanile](https://www.edgepedia.org/campanile) visible.[5](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/neuroengineers-bring-science-cred-berkeley-feel-transcendence-film)
## Reception
The film opened to disappointing box office and what *The Guardian* called derisory reviews in the United States, drawing comparisons to the flop *John Carter*; [Mark Kermode](https://www.edgepedia.org/mark-kermode) nonetheless judged it an ambitious, thoughtful film guilty of nothing more than risking ridicule in pursuit of an interesting idea.[4](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/27/transcendence-review-grand-ideas-johnny-depp-wally-pfister) Aggregated scores were low: 19% on the Tomatometer with a critics' consensus that Pfister remained a distinctive visual stylist but that the film's themes exceeded its narrative grasp, and 42/100 on Metacritic from 45 reviews.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transcendence_2014) • [8](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/transcendence/) Time's review called it a "provocative but ponderous" dramatized debate that ends up a "trance dance," criticizing Depp's subdued performance and an ending that reassures rather than disturbs.[2](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/) The *Sight and Sound* review credited the film with trafficking in large, troublesome ideas about the present and future while calling it pallid, self-serious, and hampered by plot holes.[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/review-transcendence)
Commercially, the film grossed $10,886,386 on its opening weekend in 3,455 theaters, finishing fourth behind *Captain America: The Winter Soldier*, and ended its run with $23.0 million domestic and $103.0 million worldwide, about 1.0 times its production budget.[3](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3195504129/) • [7](https://time.com/69662/captain-america-winter-soldier-box-office/)
## Scientific assessment
A Science/AAAS panel of experts scored the film's realism 6 out of 10. What it credited: until the very end, the uploaded Will is confined entirely to the digital world, existing solely as a computer program, and the experts agreed that shedding a physical body could give an AI considerable freedoms and safety. What it faulted: the whole brain-uploading premise.[11](https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.aac8859) Carmena framed the gap similarly: the question is not how close science is to uploading a monkey's brain, since that first requires settling what a mind is, but laboratories today can record neural activity and use machine learning and AI on it.[10](https://scienceandfilm.org/articles/transcendence/) *Nature Physics* found the film grounded in science fact in places, noting its opening scene of a scientist grumbling about performing for funding agencies and the real-world research dilemmas of the period before Will's death.[9](https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys2977)
The film's premise draws on the technological singularity, the anticipated point at which computers surpass human capabilities, and its themes of [mind uploading](https://www.edgepedia.org/mind-uploading) overlap with transhumanism, the movement advocating technology to transcend biology.[10](https://scienceandfilm.org/articles/transcendence/) • [12](https://time.com/66536/terasem-trascendence-religion-technology/)
## References
1. [Transcendence (2014), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transcendence_2014)
2. [REVIEW: Transcendence Has Only Artificial Intelligence, Time](https://time.com/64808/transcendence-movie-review/)
3. [Transcendence, Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3195504129/)
4. [Transcendence review, The Guardian (Mark Kermode)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/27/transcendence-review-grand-ideas-johnny-depp-wally-pfister)
5. [Neuroengineers Bring Science Cred, Berkeley Feel to 'Transcendence' Film, UC Berkeley Research](https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/neuroengineers-bring-science-cred-berkeley-feel-transcendence-film)
6. [Review: Transcendence, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/review-transcendence)
7. [Captain America Dominates Box Office for Third Week in a Row, Time](https://time.com/69662/captain-america-winter-soldier-box-office/)
8. [Transcendence Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/transcendence/)
9. [Break on through, Nature Physics 10, 406–407 (2014)](https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys2977)
10. [Transcendence, Sloan Science & Film](https://scienceandfilm.org/articles/transcendence/)
11. [Which movies get artificial intelligence right?, Science/AAAS](https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.aac8859)
12. [The Rapture of the Nerds, Time](https://time.com/66536/terasem-trascendence-religion-technology/)
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