The Next Place

"It's just a temporary body, Mommy. You don't have to go to the next place."

Long after the credits rolled, I sat stunned and thought about what I'd just been taught by the movie "CHAPPiE." Could it be that there's more this film was saying about mankind's perception of this existence than just some fanciful curiosity about artificial intelligence, as a possibility in our modern society?

I've seen other movies in the past 10 to 15 years that explored this idea of artificial intelligence, but something about this film - maybe even this one line with which I opened, uttered by CHAPPiE to a deceased Yolandi - really struck me with a thought:

We don't want this life to end. 

To give a quick background on everything (and if you haven't seen this movie, and would like to without a spoiler, then go rent it on Redbox, watch it with a grain of salt - it's rated R for pervasive language and violence, mostly - and come back to my post later):

CHAPPiE is created when an engineer repurposes a scrap robot from a futuristic robotic police force that's been put into play in Johannesburg, South Africa. His maker, Deon, has had a breakthrough in A.I. and CHAPPiE is the test bot who comes to display extraordinary development and all the traits of humanity, down to discerning between right and wrong, truth and lies, and fear and loyalty. CHAPPiE is caught between the influences of good and evil (i.e. Deon, his programmer, and a family of criminals). In the end, he comes to realize the gravity of the fact that his battery, which is inextricably connected to his body's chassis, will run out, and he'll die, in essence. Among all the fracas of the various plot lines converging, CHAPPiE wants to find another robot body to download his own consciousness into from a programming he's made himself. He gets his chance to first see this manifested successfully when he transfers Deon's consciousness into another robot before he can die of a mortal wound. The two get CHAPPiE transferred into another robot (there are lots of vacant, "offline" robot bodies lying around by the end of this flick) before his battery life ends, and they return to the family of criminals to help Ninja (CHAPPiE's "daddy") bury his girlfriend, Yolandi (who had CHAPPiE call her "Mommy"), who died in a gunfight. As the movie ends, CHAPPiE is accessing manufacturing to autonomously create a replica robot body for Yolandi, so her consciousness can be transferred off a flash drive it was saved to from syncing with her consciousness earlier in the movie by way of a helmet that controls other robots. Before that final image of Yolandi's replica creation, CHAPPiE says the words I opened with as they bury Yolandi:

"It's just a temporary body, Mommy. You don't have to go to the next place."

"The next place," according to Yolandi in the movie, as she tells CHAPPiE about death one night, is the name of the ambiguous place we go to when we meet our end. 

Aside from what CHAPPiE learns experientially during the movie, there's no direct indoctrination of this sentient being that he shouldn't want to die, or that going to the "next place" is a horrible thing. The fact that CHAPPiE wants so badly to stay alive that it essentially overrides his program and leads him to break promises to his maker, to not commit crimes, to ensure his survival, seems to suggest that this subtext of the story is a reflection of our society's view of the afterlife. 

I wonder if this is why movies about artificial intelligence are so popular, and seeming to spike in number in recent years ("Lucy," "Transcendent," "Ex Machina"). Mankind has always been searching for a solution to the problem - as mankind sees it - of mortality. Be it the Fountain of Youth that Ponce de Leon tried to find as a conquistador, or any other elixirs or scientific advancements, fictional or real-life, that have been concocted...it's as if we just can't stomach the idea of having to die, or lose others to death. 

This is, of course, nothing new. We want to live forever, and in a way that's totally natural. There was a time when such a desire would've been completely normal and would've been realized, since we were originally created to live forever, by God. That original design, though, was sabotaged by the Fall into sin and ever since those first people, Adam and Eve, mankind has been pining for the immortality that we lost. 

The "next place," however, doesn't have to be the dreaded destination that most will make of it nowadays. 

The creators of the idea in the film "CHAPPiE" will have you believe that one way of looking at the consciousness of humanity is that it's the soul. Science has yet to truly come to terms with what the consciousness is, and maybe that's because it is the soul, as God speaks of it in Scriptures. Maybe the lines on that subject are too blurry for us humans to ever understand. 

But what I can know, as a Christian, is that my soul is meant for heaven. That next place that waits for me, until the God-ordained time when I'll pass away from this earth, is a beautiful place that will be the awarded to me because of God's mercy and grace. It will be an existence completely devoid of sadness, anger, sin, pain, death, or fear. Everything dark and dreadful about this life on this fallen earth will be in the rearview mirror and fading fast. As many a hymn will say, "Heaven is my home." I'm just a tourist here. 

Watching CHAPPiE struggle and strain with his last gasps of energy and battery to survive to prolong the "life" of his maker, Deon, and then to ultimately extend his own consciousness -- basically, to live forever, just makes me wonder "WHY?"

What is there here that's so worth clinging onto? What is the often times maniacal drive of man to try and stay alive, as if every inch he creeps closer to death and the afterlife is a torment and a cruel harbinger?

I guess where there's no God, there's no hope of anything more. Maybe that's all these artificial intelligence plots serve to remind us of. Of course, there'll be other messages sent in movies such as this that suggest that this is all about an evolutionary truth that, in the grand scheme of things, mankind has only ever been an entity of consciousness, and the human body as we know it today is just the latest vessel we've had to deal with traveling in. If we were to evolve further and live on in more durable shells like robots or other mechanical means, maybe we'd be better off?

Or maybe....just maybe....we're not meant for any of it. We do serve a purpose while here in this mortal life, but that's God's purpose. It's a sometimes mysterious mission, but it grows ever brighter and more vibrant under the light of God's grace, forgiveness, and new life in Christ. And when this time here is up, according to his heavenly plan, we get to go to "the next place." 

This "we" I'm referring to is anyone who has the one true God in their heart. It's true that, without knowing him and his plan for me, and all of the liberating truths he has in store, this life's brevity and fragility could be so frightening, and could lead me to scramble for any options that could prolong my time. That's why it's an indescribable relief that, thanks to Jesus Christ, I've been given the prospect of a far different ending one day.

That ending will be only the beginning. "The next place" will be the place where God's always been wanting me to be, the true home I long for in my heart. That's where eternity in God's presence begins. I guess the makers of "CHAPPiE" got one thing right: We can live forever. 

Just not here. Nor should we want to, considering how immeasurably greater life in "the next place" can be.

In the deepest part of my being, I wish for this destiny for everyone. CHAPPiE was spot on. It's just a temporary body...But we do have to go to the next place. If heaven, where God dwells in eternity, is your next place, you'll be doing better than ever.