Replicas: Ending Explained

Replicas is a 2019 Sci-fi horror film starring Keanu Reeves. The movie is the first big Sci-Fi flick of the year and has a lot to unpack from its plot and ending.

Throughout this article, I will be breaking down everything you need to know about the film as well as what I took from it. There will, of course, be heavy spoilers, so if you don’t want to know anything about the movie then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

For everyone else, I’m Deffinition and welcome to the channel where I ruin it so you don’t have to.

Replicas: Plot Synopsis

We follow William Foster, played by Keanu Reeves, who is a scientist that specialises in synthetic biology. In the past, he has attempted to use machines to bring humans back to life by transferring their consciousness into a shell. However, this imprinting process causes problems when the robots are energised as they struggle to come to grasp with their transition and have an identity crisis that leads to them destroying themselves.

After his family are killed during a car accident, the character uses all of the means at his disposal to resurrect them and with help of his friend, Clones their bodies, destroys their old ones and uses the synthetic device to transfer their consciousness. Unfortunately, William is unable to resurrect all of his family as there are simply not enough pods to carry out the entire procedure and is forced to choose not to resurrect his daughter Zoe. This causes issues as his family will still have memories of her so he must manually remove all memory of her from their hard drives. In what is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the movie William removes all memories of her and this is a really devastating move, especially with all the reminders he finds with her.

Keeping Up Appearances

With the cloning process taking so long, people begin to notice that the family are missing and William spirals into a pit of lies to cover up their disappearance which involves sending BRB to everyone in their contacts list. Eventually, he is forced to prematurely release them and figure out how to slow the aging process down that will decay them rapidly if not fixed.

During this William realises that a physical body is needed in order for consciousness to fully transfer which is why the android procedure failed in the past. He uses this knowledge to finally bring his wife back to full cognitive consciousness and some amazing bro science revelation.

The family soon fall back into the groove of things though they begin to suspect that something is not right due to their missing memories and flashbacks of the crash. William still needs to fix the very real issue with the Synthetic failure at his job before the project is shut down so he copies his consciousness with plans to upload it to an android named 345. His wife also discovers what is going on and William informs her of her death which she hides from the children but this causes issues when they all begin to remember Zoe.

Keeping Up With The Jones

To make things worse, William’s boss, Jones, visits him in his home to inform him that he is aware of what William has been up to with his family and has allowed it to continue to see the results. He tells him that this is all military funded in order to replicate brain waves for the army. This would allow the best soldiers to be replicated over and over again. He gives William one more night with his family as a chance to say goodbye and tells him that he will be terminating them after this.

Instead, William beats Jones, destroys the only physical copy of the algorithm that allows the replicas to live, tells his wife what is going on and they escape. Unfortunately, they are captured and taken back to the lab where William discovers that it was his friend who betrayed him and that he never destroyed his family’s bodies like William has asked him to. With no copy of the Algorithm, William is the only one capable of producing it, after Jones kills his friend he is forced to reproduce it.

When copying the algorithm, for Jones he also finally uploads his consciousness to 345 and goes Skynet on Jones and his crew in what looks like I, Robot minus the budget. William asks the machine what it feels like to be in the body who states that it feels like he is still himself.

In his dying breath, Jones states that someone will track him and his family down eventually to which Foster makes a deal with him. They copy his consciousness and clone his body seventeen days later so that he can keep the family alive.

William has a touching farewell with his mechanical self and promises to take care of the family before they flee to a beach paradise. William returns one day with Zoe alive and now in a replica body. In Dubai, we discover Jones and the machine replica of William are selling second life programmes to rich old people before cutting to credits. Signifying that the technology will now perhaps be used for good rather than the military, though the implications of this could have dire consequences.

Personally, I believe that this will have a negative effect on the world and that life will become less valued due to the greed of Jones and Foster. William was of course more than willing to cross the line morally throughout the film and this showcases that he has not changed his ways, leading to a world where the rich live forever while the poor are forced to die off and struggle.

Your Thoughts

So, what did you think of Replicas and what did you take from it’s ending? Comment below and let me know and if you enjoyed this video then please like it and make sure you check out my breakdown of the recent Netflix film Godzilla: The Planet Eater, which will be linked at the end.

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Thanks again for taking the time to watch this, I’ve been Deffinition, you’ve been the best and I’ll see you next time, take care, peace!