I enjoyed this film in its own right. The actors did a great job, however I don't think it really presented much new. Kind of like a 'best of' album. If you're into SF and AI you've probably seen everything before, if not it's an introduction to the themes.
The concept of synthetics in this was pretty much identical to that presented in Humans, and I thought the film overall could have been a two hour 'special episode' of Humans, set in the same world but with an independent storyline. Indeed, as with Humans, apart from the Synthetics, everything else about the world of Zoe seemed pretty much like the present day. Again like Humans, part of the plot centred around the synth brothel. In terms of plot I felt some incongruousness here. Elsewhere in the story other synths are presented as fairly primitive while Zoe and Ash are the next generation research models, however the synth sex workers didn't seem far off Zoe and Ash in capability- it was not apparent that such high level synths also existed in other functions in society, apart from the research models.
One major plot point, implanted memories, was taken directly from Bladerunner, as was the idea of the synthetic not knowing that was what she was until the implanted memories were explained. Of course the human/synth relationship could also be considered to be from Bladerunner, or from many other prior works. The distressed animal in the questionnaire may also have been a nod to Bladerunner. It was interesting to note that the credits listed Ridley Scott as an executive producer.
The dating agency side of things I thought had a nod to a Black Mirror episode- done very differently, but still giving a probability of compatibility.
While I could accept the idea of a romantic relationship between human and a sentient synth, I did feel uneasy about this one, between creator and creation it felt inappropriate on two levels- firstly the creator would have known how the creation worked, what implanted memories, etc. and the creation had only a few months to achieve emotional independence, resulting in a very imbalanced level of control in the relationship; secondly as creator/creation it was almost a father/daughter incestuous relationship- had it been anyone else in a relationship with Zoe it would have been fine.
The concept of synthetics in this was pretty much identical to that presented in Humans, and I thought the film overall could have been a two hour 'special episode' of Humans, set in the same world but with an independent storyline. Indeed, as with Humans, apart from the Synthetics, everything else about the world of Zoe seemed pretty much like the present day. Again like Humans, part of the plot centred around the synth brothel. In terms of plot I felt some incongruousness here. Elsewhere in the story other synths are presented as fairly primitive while Zoe and Ash are the next generation research models, however the synth sex workers didn't seem far off Zoe and Ash in capability- it was not apparent that such high level synths also existed in other functions in society, apart from the research models.
One major plot point, implanted memories, was taken directly from Bladerunner, as was the idea of the synthetic not knowing that was what she was until the implanted memories were explained. Of course the human/synth relationship could also be considered to be from Bladerunner, or from many other prior works. The distressed animal in the questionnaire may also have been a nod to Bladerunner. It was interesting to note that the credits listed Ridley Scott as an executive producer.
The dating agency side of things I thought had a nod to a Black Mirror episode- done very differently, but still giving a probability of compatibility.
While I could accept the idea of a romantic relationship between human and a sentient synth, I did feel uneasy about this one, between creator and creation it felt inappropriate on two levels- firstly the creator would have known how the creation worked, what implanted memories, etc. and the creation had only a few months to achieve emotional independence, resulting in a very imbalanced level of control in the relationship; secondly as creator/creation it was almost a father/daughter incestuous relationship- had it been anyone else in a relationship with Zoe it would have been fine.