Sometimes a great look at the future shows up in places you weren't looking. The Bourne Legacy, the sequel to the trilogy with Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye in the Avengers) taking the lead role, is a fast-paced look at posthumanism and one of the better futurist films I've watched in some time.

I'd mostly ignored Legacy, figuring it would eventually hit Netflix, but found it in the library on Blu-ray this week and picked it up. Finding some free time today, I started watching and was blown away as the back story came together piece by piece. Sometimes the best views of the future arrive in a medium other than science fiction.

Stop here if you don't want to read spoilers. But this is a great movie and worth checking out.

In a nutshell, there is a new program called Operation Outcome. Members of this program are augmented via changes to their DNA, both to their physical abilities and to their mental abilities. Agents are placed on a regimen in which they take two pills (green for physical enhancement and blue for mental enhancement) and receive regular checkups. As a twist, some agents are "viraled" off the pills, or at least the need for them and are provided what I assume are placebos thereafter, when given a permanent modification delivered via a virus.

As an added twist, the reason for Cross to to seek out Dr. Shearing is knowledge that if he runs out of blue pills, he will degrade to the limited intelligence (12 IQ points below military requirements according to the film) he possessed before being uplifted by the project. This part of the plot might be the most important. Clearly influenced by Flowers for Algernon, we should ask ourselves the risks before undertaking either temporary or permanent genetic modification as an "improvement" on our humanity.

If our bodies are machines and our minds are software, what happens when we upgrade? When upgrading our genetics, what happens when newer and better processes develop? Maybe the doctors will keep a copy of our original code, rewriting us back to "human" before applying the next generation of modifications.

What if that's risky? Maybe they can develop a process that overwrites everything, reducing issues created by previous uplifts. Either way, it will be interesting to see how science progresses. The human body, unlike a $300-$3000 computer, isn't as easy to toss and replace.
Finally, who is eligible? It could be limited to individuals facing a life of limited intelligence or physical fragility. If the price is too high, wealthy individuals and groups could control not only eligibility, but also deny someone future treatments. Or we'll have a future where the process is inexpensive enough, it all comes down to a combination of what you can afford and how far you want to over clock yourself - with all of the consequences of doing so.

A great movie and worth two hours for futurists looking to ponder our posthumanity.