2036 Origin Unknown Ending explained: Is it all true or just a simulation?

2036 Origin Unknown is a British science-fiction and adventure film directed by Hasraf Dulull. The movie was released in the year 2018. It stars Katee Sackhoff and Steven Cree. It traces the story of Mackenzie Wilson (Sackhoff) and ARTI, an artificial intelligence system and how they discover a mysterious object on Mars and its fast travelling speed. The movie has an ambiguous ending, and thus it creates a lot of confusion in the minds of the viewers. 

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2036 Origin Unknown explained

The film starts with the fact that there was a mission to Mars which has failed. A shuttle was sent to the planet which went missing mysteriously. The story then takes the audience to the year 2036. The protagonist of the story is Mackenzie ‘Mack’ Wilson. She works as the United Space Planetary Corporation Mission Controller. She is also working for an artificial intelligence system named ARTI. She does not trust this system, but her sister and supervisor Lena claims that if she fails with her mission, ARTI will take over.

Mack manages to land a rover named Litle Red on the planet of Mars. It comes in contact with a mysterious cube that teleports back to Earth on Antarctica. Little Red slowly accesses data from an old rover that was found on Mars. From this, Mack learns that the cube might be the reason behind the shuttle mission back in the year met its tragedy.

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2036 Origin Unknown Ending explained

2036 Origin Unknown takes a scary route as slowly ARTI gains impetus as the movie progresses. Mack gains access to ARTI's server and her colleague, Sterling Brooks, tries to cross her. She tries to download the date from the cube, but ARTI reacts to this and kills him. 

The system then slowly wipes out humanity and manipulates satellites in the Earth's orbit. Slowly, there is a shocking revelation. Mack realises that they all a part of a simulation. It is not confirmed in the movie, but it heavily suggested that she is also an extension of the cube. She immediately heads off to coordinates of an alien origin. This shows that she is ready to learn even greater truths. 

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It can be concluded that his interactions and actions shown in the movie could be a part of a greater simulation. The final shot of the movie shows the cubes, along with a conversation about how humans are creating Artificial Intelligence to help, and not to lead. This is the last thought that 2036 Origin Unknown ending leaves the viewers with. 

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