Atlas Ending Explained: Is Atlas Able to Catch Harlan? What is Their Connection?

Atlas Plot

In this action, sci-fi movie, we see data analyst Atlas Shepherd go on an adventure to find out a rogue AI robot’s whereabouts in a faraway galaxy 28 years after he committed genocide against humanity. However, everything that could go wrong goes wrong, leaving Atlas to race against time and stop her old nemesis before it’s too late.

Atlas Ending Explained

The movie starts with Atlas waking up to news about the capture of an AI robot called Casca, AI terrorist Harlan’s right-hand man. We get a glimpse into why Harlan is such an important enemy to capture, with him committing genocide against humanity 28 years ago after he rewrote his own code and that of other AI robots around him. Harlan’s creator was Atlas’s mother, who died when Atlas was 11 years old.

After getting the news, a surprised Atlas is ushered to work where she uses her techniques to interrogate Casca into giving up Harlan’s location, which is on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. Insistent on going on the mission against Colonel Banks’s wishes, the team find themselves ambushed when they enter the planet’s atmosphere, resulting in a catastrophe wherein Atlas is saved by her AI companion, Smith, whom she distrusts. After getting into a fight with Harlan’s robots on her way to the emergency pods, she and Smith fall into a sinkhole and the two of them bond after they both realise that they cannot get out of this alive without establishing the neural link.

Unfortunately, after going through a big chunk of the sync, Atlas is taken hostage by Harlan’s robots who take her to their boss wherein he reveals that he needed both the battleship and her in order to get the access codes for the weapons. She realises that he has been making robots similar to Casca and it was just a ploy to get the Battleship Dhiib to the planet in order to steal the nuclear weapons and attack Earth once again. Overcome with frustration for falling into his ploy, she has a heart-to-heart with a gravely injured Colonel Banks, who gives her his neural link to bring Smith to rescue both of them.

It is here that is revealed that she was the one who gave Harlan the green light to override the codes in his system due to her jealousy of her mother’s affection for Harlan. She wanted him to help her get better but Harlan used the young Atlas’s desperation to his benefit and ended up murdering her mother before turning the AIs against their humans. Smith reminds her that it was beyond her control and that she shouldn’t burden herself with this guilt. The conversation helps her to get over the last bit of distrust that she had, resulting in Smith establishing a full link with Atlas and coming to her rescue.

The two of them attack Harlan’s base and eventually stop their aircraft from getting away from the missiles before getting into a fight with Harlan himself. In the end, however, she is able to overcome Harlan and takes his CPU out, but Smith ends up giving up his last bit of energy to keep her alive as she is rescued by rescuers.

In the future, we see General Jake Boothe giving Atlas a pot of the plants that she saw on the planet and she then meets her new Series Ten ARC, which has been modified with the memories of Smith and their previous interactions. Plus, she has now also been promoted to a Ranger.

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