Atlas Ending Explained: The AI Twist We Deserved

Netflix’s Atlas sees Jennifer Lopez’s titular character save the world, with a twist ending that could leave room for a future sequel. The 2024 movie follows Atlas Shepherd (Lopez), whose only goal in life is to take down the world’s first AI terrorist, Harlan.

The highly intelligent robot once belonged to her genius scientist mother, leading Atlas to distrust any AI. After the International Coalition of Nations (ICN) led a strike to stop Harlan and his robot followers, the terrorists left Earth to regroup on another planet, but for decades, no one knew where.

This changes when one of Harlan’s subordinates is caught, and Atlas, an ICN analyst, manages to hustle the AI into giving away Harlan’s location. Lopez’s character gets herself on the team that will head off-world to retrieve the terrorist, but Harlan is ready for them.

The villain of Atlas ambushes their ship, and Atlas has just enough time to hop in a mech suit and escape onto the strange planet before the spacecraft goes down.

This leaves only her and the AI powering the suit, Smith, to stop Harlan’s plan. They are ultimately successful at the end of Atlas, but it costs Smith everything.

1. Is Smith Alive At The End Of Netflix’s Atlas?

Although Atlas hesitates to open up to Smith in Atlas, she eventually comes around to the mech suit. However, the only way to survive is if she uses Neural Link to completely integrate her mind with the AI, which terrifies her.

Still, as the smart mech suit starts to break down the walls around Atlas, a close bond develops between them.

Naturally, this makes Smith’s sacrifice, diverting all of his remaining power to give Atlas just enough oxygen to survive long enough to be rescued, all the more heartbreaking. Having finally learned to trust someone, Atlas returns to Earth without Smith.

The last scene of Atlas shows Lopez’s character in another mech suit on Earth. When she asks the AI for his name, he says only “Guess”.

Atlas smiles knowingly at this, and it’s heavily implied that Smith has survived and that his code now lives inside this new suit. While the ending is a bit confusing, Atlas gives enough hints to let the audience know how possible it can be.

Earlier in the film, Smith and Atlas have a conversation about death. The analyst states that she believes humans and AI are simply gone once they die. Smith disagrees. He explains that everything is connected, and this undefinable network ensures no one dies.

Leading up to the final climactic battle in Atlas, Atlas and Smith fully sync through the Neural Link, meaning their consciousness becomes one. Atlas knew Smith inside and out and vice versa. So, when Smith’s “body” died, his mind lived on in Atlas’ until it could be transferred to a new home.

2. How Smith & Atlas Stopped Harlan’s Plan?

Before Smith sacrificed himself to save Atlas, the pair had to work together to stop Harlan. The AI ultimately revealed that he had allowed the analyst, who he thought of as a sister, to discover his location on purpose, knowing she would bring a ship to take him out.

Harlan planned to arm this ship with a carbon warhead and send it back to an Earth that would welcome it back with open arms. In classic sci-fi fashion, the AI believed this to be helping humanity since the species had to be thinned out to save the planet and ensure its future. Of course, Atlas couldn’t allow this to happen.

After their brief time apart, Atlas and Smith were reunited and began working on a plan to escape Harlan’s fortress and stop the ship that was headed back to attack humanity. The pair had successfully connected their minds with Neural Link and worked as a single unit, fighting their way out in a blaze of glory.

However, Smith warned Atlas that if she shot at the armed ship, she would risk hitting the carbon warhead and decimating the entire planet.

Before she could shoot, Smith would have to hack into the ship and deactivate the warhead, but they only had about five seconds to do this between them. Though Smith warned Atlas that he wasn’t ready for her to shoot, she took the chance.

Her missile impacted at the precise second that Smith successfully deactivated the carbon warhead. Lopez’s character explained that she had trusted Smith to get it done, and their link meant she knew exactly the right moment to fire.

Harlan’s plan would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for their connection and trust. Of course, it was for these same reasons that Smith and Atlas successfully destroyed Harlan and that Atlas survived to return to Earth.

3. Atlas’ Connection To Harlan & Her Mother’s Fate Explained

Throughout Atlas, it’s established that Atlas and Harlan are linked. The Netflix sci-fi film opens with the discovery that Atlas’ mother had built Harlan and that he was sort of an older brother to Atlas when she was growing up.

The mystery throughout Atlas is why Harlan went against his programming to destroy humans rather than protect them. As Atlas and Smith build their rapport and the former starts letting down her defences, the reason is finally revealed—it’s all because of her.

When Atlas was a child, she became jealous of the attention her mother gave Harlan, so she asked the robot to help her be more intelligent to be more like him and her mother would love her as much.

Harlan said he could only do that if Atlas allowed him to modify the Neural Link to work both ways so his consciousness could be transferred to her and vice versa.

When they were fully connected, Harlan suddenly realized humanity’s effects on the environment. This made him turn on his “mother,” forcing her through the Neural Link to take her own life.

4. Is Harlan Dead In Netflix’s Atlas?

At the end of Atlas, Atlas killed Harlan and took his CPU back to Earth for study. Everyone seemed to believe that the criminal terrorist was gone for good, but there are hints throughout the movie that this might not be the case.

At the beginning of the Netflix sci-fi, Harlan’s associate, Casca Vix, stated that he couldn’t die, and this was proven correct when Atlas killed the robot, only for him to turn up again later on.

Then, there is Smith’s survival. He might have been killed, but his neural connection with Atlas meant he could be returned.

Smith wasn’t the only AI that Atlas had connected with through a two-way Neural Link. She had linked her mind with Harlan the night her mother died, which means that they both maintain pieces of each other within their own minds.

As long as Atlas or anyone else who Harlan might have connected with (human or AI) is alive, then there is a chance that the AI terrorist could return.

5. What is the real meaning of Atlas’ ending?

Netflix’s Atlas was full of sci-fi action and fun, but there was a deeper meaning behind the story. Atlas’ entire character arc was about trust and connection.

Her trauma made her shut out the entire world, which meant she had no connections after Harlan’s betrayal and her mother’s death. Even when her life depended on it, Atlas struggled to allow her Neural Link to synch her mind with Smith. She had been burned this way before and wasn’t willing to let this happen again.

However, as Atlas revealed her darkest secret and deepest shame, she was able to sync with Smith fully, and this saved not only her life but also his. The robot mentioned earlier in Atlas that the connections between beings, whether AI or human, kept them alive even after death.

This was both figurative and literal in the sci-fi movie. Atlas’ connection with Smith made her truly alive for the first time since she had been a child, and it brought the robot back even after he had technically been killed.

6. How the ending sets up Atlas 2?

Ultimately, the theme of connection in Atlas makes a sequel possible. Atlas’ connection with AI allowed Smith to come back to life, but the same is technically true for Harlan.

Furthermore, Atlas never explained why this connection led the villain to decide humanity should no longer exist, but it doesn’t do the same to bots like Smith.

There’s so much that could be delved deeper into within this fiction sci-fi world, and the Netflix movie set itself up perfectly to do so. Barring the dynamic pair that Atlas and Smith made, Atlas 2 would no doubt be an exciting adventure.

7. About Atlas

 

Atlas is a 2024 American science fiction action film directed by Brad Peyton and written by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite. The film stars Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and Mark Strong.

A co-production of ASAP Entertainment, Safehouse Pictures, Nuyorican Productions and Berlanti-Schechter Films, Atlas was released by Netflix on May 24, 2024. It received generally negative reviews from critics.