Netflix's ATLAS ending explained: What happened to Harlan?  

Netflix dropped its latest sci-fi action film, Atlas, on May 24, 2024. Directed by Brad Peyton, the movie highlights the dangers of a superior artificial intelligence technology that can potentially wipe out human civilization in the future.

Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite serve as the film’s screenwriters. In their interpretation of the good vs. evil saga, the rogue AI Harlan is hell-bent on destroying Earth and wants to create his own human-AI hybrid to take over the planet. But Atlas stands in his way and ultimately kills him before he can fulfill his evil plans.

Continue reading below for a detailed description of the film's story and a breakdown of Harlan's fate in the movie.

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The movie's final battle scene explained

A screenshot from the official trailer of the Netflix film (Image Via Netflix/Atlas trailer, 01:02)

The movie's final battle scene takes place on the faraway GR-39 planet in the Andromeda galaxy, where Atlas, armed with enhanced skills from the good AI Smith, sets off for a deadly face-off with Harlan.

Harlan puts his final act of destroying Earth into action by sending the lethal stolen battleship Dhiib toward the planet. However, she stops the battleship in time and also destroys Harlan in the ensuing battle by damaging his CPU. Sadly, Harlan is not the only one to be killed; Smith undergoes irreparable damage as well and seems gone for good.

Having succeeded in her mission, she returns to Earth and begins working on the next generation of ARC, called the ARC10. The last few minutes of the film hold a pleasant surprise for the protagonist and the audience.

She steps inside the suit to find, to her utter bewilderment, that the robot is already updated with Smith's software and reads out her coffee preference to her in Smith's voice. It turns out that Smith's not dead after all. But just how he survives is the topic of another day.

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What makes Harlan go rogue?

A screenshot of Simu Liu from the official trailer (Image Via Netflix/Atlas trailer, 01:56)

The AI Harlan was created by Atlas' mother, who grew up forming a close bond with his creator's daughter. However, one day the young girl gets tricked into allowing Harlan to alter his neural link device, which ends up spelling disaster for humankind. The neural link acts as a pathway between the brains of AI and its connected human, thus giving Harlan the power to control her.

After getting a peek into the best and worst of humankind (with the shared neural link), Harlan tries to destroy most of humanity and replace it with a new species of human-AI hybrid, in which AI reigns supreme over humans. However, his evil plan does not succeed, forcing him to abandon Earth and take shelter in the faraway GR-39 planet in the Andromeda galaxy.

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The plot summary of Atlas explored

The official logline of Atlas from Netflix is as follows:

"A brilliant counterterrorism analyst with a deep distrust of AI discovers it might be her only hope when a mission to capture a renegade robot goes awry."

Feeling guilty for contributing to Harlan's turn to the dark side, the data analyst heads to a different planet with Colonel Elias Banks and the good AI Smith to destroy the villainous bot once and for all. But first, she must overcome her inner turmoil and find the courage to defeat a technologically advanced nemesis like Harlan.

The action-packed movie stars Jennifer Lopez (Atlas Shepherd), Simu Liu (AI Harlan), Sterling K. Brown (Colonel Elias Banks), Mark Strong (General Jake Boothe), and Gregory James Cohan (voice of AI Smith) in important roles.

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