Transcendence Trailer - 5 Key Things We Learned

If you ever questioned the quality of Transcendence, you should perhaps have considered the talent behind it. The film is of course the directorial debut of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy) and stars Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany, Cillian Murphy and Kate Mara. The film will follow Dr. Will Caster (Depp,) the foremost researcher of Artificial Intelligence, who is working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions, because that has always gone well in sci-fi history. He has become famous for highly controversial experiments, which have also made him a prime target of anti-technology extremists who are attempting to destroy him. In that attempt they inadvertently drive him to succeed, which of course becomes a Frankenstein like blind thirst for knowledge and power. And then it falls to his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), to work out how to stop him. Earlier this week the viral marketing campaign for the film went into full swing, as three cryptic and cautionary teasers were released, and now Warner Bros. has given us our first glimpse at the film in the form of a two and a half minute trailer: The film was written by newcomer Jack Paglen, is executive produced by Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, and arrives in theaters on April 17, 2014. Now that we've had a chance to see our first bit of footage, let's examine the trailer in more detail. Here are five things we learned...