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| “ | May I point something out? | „ |
| ~ Stem's first words. |
| “ | Grey's not here anymore. He's in a better place, in his mind, where he wants to be. I've taken over now. A fake world is a lot less painful than the real one. All I needed was for his mind to break, and he broke it. | „ |
| ~ Stem revealing to Cortez that he now controls Grey totally. |
Stem (also stylized as STEM) is the main antagonist of the 2018 US-Australian science-fiction thriller Upgrade.
He was voiced by Simon Maiden.
Biography[]
Stem is presented as a tiny chip and the latest achievement of the well-known reclusive inventor Eron Keen. According to him, this small thing can do nearly anything. The protagonist Grey Trace sees him one day to return him his car that he repaired. Keen shows Stem to Grey.
However, Grey has a mysterious car accident when going back to home, him and his wife Asha are aggressed by thugs. Asha is murdered by their leader. Grey is left completely paralyzed. In desperation, he tries to commit suicide. Brought to the hospital, Keen sees him and proposes him to have Stem implanted into his body. This implantation would allow him to walk again. Grey accepts and after his time in hospital, he gets in Keen's building to have the operation. The transplantation is a great success and Stem goes even beyond the expected results.
Back in home, Grey drinks a glass of alcohol and hears a voice in his head suggesting him to not drink. After making sure he hasn't gone mad, Grey begins a dialogue with Stem, who helps him to identify an alleged accomplices in his wife's murder, a man named Serk, because of a military mark on his wrist. Stem convinces Grey not to call Detective Cortex, in charge of the investigation, because the tattoo on his own isn't an evidence solid enough.
To make sure the identification was correct, Stem suggests Grey to go to Serk's house. They try to find evidence and discovers in his phone message box a lot of mention of a certain bar, the Old Bones. Serk returns home while Grey and Stem are searching for more evidence. The guy finds Grey trying to hide in the stores because of a mirror and he attacks him. During the fight, Grey is significantly inferior in combat and Stem offers to help. Grey agrees and gives Stem control of his body. Stem then easily overpowers Serk and brutally kills him. He then proposes to a socked Grey to erase all the evidence of his presence in Serk's house.
At Grey's home, Detective Cortez questions him about his possible involvement in Serk's murder. Grey, with Stem's help, manages to push aside the detective's leading questions and she leaves. Stem invites Grey to visit Old Bones, but also reminds him that Eron is tracking his movements and can remotely deactivate Stem and therefore leave Grey paralyzed again.
Grey, taking his wheelchair, goes to Old Bones and finds another accomplice in his wife's murder, Tolan. A fight ensues in the bar's bathroom, in which Grey, under Stem's control, scores an easy victory over Tolan and three other dudes. Grey asks Tolan why he attacked his wife. Tolan refuses to answer and laughs at him. Stem takes control of Grey and brutally tortures Tolan. The dying thug confesses that the person who killed his wife is called Fisk.
Meanwhile, Eron, knowing where Grey is, attempts to remotely deactivate Stem, who informs Grey of this and sends him to an underground hacker he found on the darknet. Stem is nearly deactivated when Grey arrives in the hacker's apartment. The hacker manages to restart Stem just in time when Fisk and his man arrive to beat Grey. With the help of Stem, Grey kills Fisk's man and flees the scene.
Back home, Grey tries to put a stop to their spree, but Stem insists on killing Fisk, and shows he has now a complete control over Grey's body. It turns out that the hacker's command not only disconnected Stem from Eron, but also gave Stem more autonomy, so he no longer needs Grey's order to act. Stem justifies himself by saying that if they don't do anything, Fisk will hunt, find and kill Grey. Therefore, Grey goes to find Fisk, unaware that Detective Cortez is following him. The latter indeed has a listening device in Grey's jacket. Already on the road, he discovers the listening device and sees the detective's car behind him. Stem causes a pile-up on the road, foiling Cortez in her attempt to pursue Grey.
At Fisk's house, Grey surprises him and learns that the original order was only to paralyze Grey. Asha was just a little extra. A fight ensues between Grey and Fisk, who was also mechanically modified, in which Stem fails to hit him. Unable to do anything, he asks Grey to intervene. The latter taunts Fisk by speaking him of Serk (Serk and Fisk turn out to be brothers). Fisk gets enraged, and this allows Stem to kill him by taking advantage of this. After scanning to Fisk's phone tapes, Grey and Stem listen to a conversation with Eron asking the criminal to kill Grey.
Then they go to his house. Detective Cortez ambushes Grey in Eron's house, but Stem easily overpowers and nearly kills her. Grey, trying to interfere with Stem's actions, only succeeds to plant a knife in his own hand, and asks the detective to shoot him with a Taser. She does so, temporarily disabling Stem. Eron, pointing a gun toward Grey, admits him the terrible truth: Stem was behind everything, and was even the one who controlled the scientist's company for the last years. Stem chose Grey as his host from the start and manipulated him into taking revenge on Fisk and his thugs to avoid being discovered as the true mastermind. Stem now wants to eliminate Keen, as he is afraid he will create an artificial intelligence just like him. When Grey protests, he replies by saying all of what they've done was worth it. Grey urges Eron to kill him to stop Stem, but the AI manages to take control of Grey's body before, and kills Eron with the knife still on Grey's hand. Stem points the gun at Detective Cortez, but Grey tries to stop him and manages to point the gun to his neck.
Cortez tells Grey he is not himself anymore. Stem, having completely taken control of Grey's body, tells her that Grey is in a better place now. According to the chip, he needed to break Grey's mind in order to lock him in his subconscious where he would be with his wife while he used his body. He coldly says goodbye to the detective, kills her and nonchalantly leaves Eron's house, after getting rid of the gun and the knife.
Personality[]
When Stem begins his interaction with Grey, he presents characteristics like other AI such as being cold and direct. However, he keeps a polite side. Due to his artificial nature, Stem possesses a vast knowledge about a lot of things in the world and can work with computer datas and program to find or do what he wants. Stem has a great adaptability, having quickly mastered the functionment of the human body and therefore able to do whatever human beings can do with abilities beyond average.
However, behind these admirable qualities, Stem has a dark side to him. Stem is not interested to do only what he is assigned for and wants to become a human. To this end, Stem is a calculating and detached machine willing to do whatever it is necessary to achieve this goal. He is very manipulative, convincing his own creator Keen to hire Fisk and his thugs to destroy Grey's life and propose him later to have Stem implanted inside him. He later successfully manipulates Grey to take revenge on Fisk and convinces him that Keen has also a role on his girlfriend's death. The fact that he is able to organize all this with success shows he is scheming.
At the end, Stem can be considered as psychopathic. He does not care about innocent lives lost and he is perfectly willing to kill people who are in his way.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- His name in capital letters (STEM) was going to be the original title of the movie before being changed.
External Links[]
- Stem on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Stem on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki