CULTJAPAN!

Appleseed Ex Machina is an CG anime film and is the sequel to the 2004 Appleseed film, similarly directed by Shinji Aramaki, and was produced by Hong Kong director and producer John Woo.

The setting takes place in the year 2133, following World War III, which was a non-nuclear war that killed half the world’s population. The city-nation of Olympus stands as a beacon of hope in a world of chaos and conflict. The utopian metropolis is governed by Gaia, a vast artificial intelligence, and administered by genetically engineered humanoids known as bioroid, whose designer DNA suppresses strong emotions. With bioroids being half of its population, peace and order are easily maintained.

Church scene and construction landmate battle
The movie opens with Deunan and Briareos being deployed as part as an E.S.W.A.T. operation to recover E.U. officials taken hostage by combat cyborgs. Deunan infiltrates the church (3D model of the Prague Castle) and quickly subdues the cyborgs in a short firefight. She secures the hostages as other E.S.W.A.T. members arrive. She then follows some cyborgs into a worship hall when Briareos arrives. The cyborgs surround them, but the two kill them all easily. Briareos goes up to a fatally wounded cyborg and asks who sent him. When the cyborg’s body counts down to detonate, he grabs Deunan jumping out of the chapel as it explodes. Briareos is unfortunately injured while saving Deunan and is taken to the hospital. The movie then goes to Deunan riding her motorcycle on her day off when she hears a police report of a recently fired construction worker who had take control of a construction landmate and goes on a rampage. Deunan is able to disable the landmate with its killswitch. Just as E.S.W.A.T. arrives and Deunan is about to leave, she sees someone with a face eerily similar to Briareos before he became a cyborg; Commander Lance introduces him as Tereus, a bioroid assigned to Deunan as her new partner. Deunan then goes to Athena’s adviser, Nike, and complains to her about getting a new partner. Nike tells Deunan that he is a new generation of combat bioroid, based on Briareos’s human DNA and E.S.W.A.T. wants her to evaluate him.

The birthday party
Deunan meets up with her bioroid friend Hitomi after leaving the facility. Hitomi then takes Deunan to the cyborg hospital to see Briareos, and along the way, Deunan notices people wearing devices that cast a holographic ring around their eyes. Hitomi tells her that they are called Connexus and that everybody has them, then Hitomi takes out a pair and Deunan tries them on. Hitomi tells her to open a message: it’s a message inviting Deunan to her birthday party. Later on at Hitomi’s birthday, Deunan arrives slightly depressed, but she raises her spirits when she sees Briareos at the party; they have a short conversation until it is interrupted with the arrival of Tereus. Deunan and Tereus then sit down and have a conversation in which he asks Deunan to accept him as her partner until she gets Briareos back. The scene then goes to Aeacus and Briareos talking and discussing what it’s like to be cyborgs. Briareos asks what Aeacus is wearing on his ear, and Aeacus tells him its a Connexus.

International Conference
The movie then goes to an International Conference that will be discussing putting all the nations’ satellites under Olympus’ control. There is massive security outside that is banning cyborgs from the premises, and requires all motorists entering the conference to pass through police checkpoints. But soon, a bus blasts through a checkpoint and is destroyed, but there are incidents like that at every checkpoint, and civilians are engaging the police. Soon, E.S.W.A.T. is deployed, but Aeacus, feeling sick, stays on board the ship. The police, not realizing the rioters are human, engage them. Deunan arrives in a landmate and disables a construction landmate attacking the police. When she opens the hatch, she finds out that the rioters are humans, not cyborgs, but she does find a burnt out Connexus and takes it for keeping. The scene then goes to Aeacus, mindlessly walking up to the flight officer and shooting him; Briareos, now fully engaged in his landmate suit, sees the ship explode and Aeacus fly off in a landmate towards the building in which the conference is being held. Briareos tries to calm Aeacus down, but keeps noticing a skull coming at and saying “we are one”. Inside the conference, the delegates become worried, but are asked to return to the meeting. Unable to calm Aeacus down, Briareos shoots Aeacus, who then, in his final moments, seems to return to normal as he falls out of the sky. It then cuts to Aeacus’ funeral, in which Briareos questions his decision to shoot Aeacus.

The virus within
Briareos goes to his cyborg doctor, Dr. Kestner, who assures him that he is not insane; Athena discusses the attack with a Poseidon corporation executive, Yoshino, who denies any involvement in the attacks; E.S.W.A.T. discovers that robotic doves that were nearby during the conference were sending the signal that caused the riots, so Commander Lance orders all cyborg operatives off duty. Deunan, Briareos and Tereus go out for a drink and to watch the inauguration of all the satellites joining, creating a green olive tree, as a symbol of peace. There, an unmanned vehicle crashed into Briareos, destabilizing him. He connects to a terminal, but in doing so he sends a virus that attacks Olympus’ main satellite control, forcing them to switch to backup. Tereus and Briareos recover in a hospital. Hitomi researches cyborg viruses and finds Project HALCON, which was originally to help brain damaged veterans, but was taken over by Kestner. However, all data on HALCON is mysteriously erased. Briareos breaks out of the hospital and goes to find Kestner, with Tereus in pursuit. Meanwhile, the mechanic Yoshitsune analyzes a chip found on one of the rioters and reports that it is a piece of Connexus that can take over a person’s mind, human or cyborg when the right signal is played. Realizing that the Connexus is all over the city, the authorities try to round them up.

At Kestner’s apartment
Kestner arrives at his apartment to find Briareos waiting for him. Kestner tells him that with the uniting of the satellites and the Connexus (which works directly with the nervous system), Kestner believes that he and the others will create a slaved human and cyborg race devoid of individuality, united by a hive mind and connected through the new satellite network. Those chosen through natural selection will survive; those who are unworthy will be taken care of. He also explains that his Hecatonchires systems were too advanced to control remotely. So while Briareos was being repaired, he infected him with nanomachines, that activate when Briareos’ adrenaline passes a certain level causing him him to enter an uncontrolled rage. Just before the police arrive, Kestner pulls out a gun and commits suicide to protect his data, expecting to be reassimilated into HALCON. Briareos goes into a rage fit and jumps out a window. From there, he makes his way to a rooftop where Tereus expects him to come. Tereus is about to take him in when Deunan arrives in a Landmate with a cyborg virus antidote just as Briareos goes into a rage. Deunan gets the antidote in him, but it’s not permanent. Unfortunately, an unknown signal takes control of the satellites, changing the olive tree into the symbol of HALCON. Anyone wearing a Connexus (which was almost, if not all, of the population, despite the government’s best efforts) gets mind control and forced to head towards Tartarus (Olympus capital) in the hundreds of thousands. Immediately, this happens around the world and Olympus loses contact with the other countries. E.S.W.A.T. works in conjunction with the police to suppress the riots but there are too many to stop and are overwhelmed. Briareos figures that HALCON is behind this and Poseidon knows something about it.

Halcon Facility
The three then journey into the ocean and intercept a Poseidon ship to ask about HALCON. Yoshino tells them that HALCON Labs were obsessed with mind-control and their operations had to be stopped, especially when the project leader, Elizabeth Xander, was killed. But by covering it up, it only motivated Kestner into completing his goals. They traced HALCON’s transmission coming from an abandoned research facility. Supplied with new Landmates, Deunan, Briareos, Tereus, and a Poseidon task force fly off in ships towards to HALCON Zero Gravity One. They go into the main hatch and are met by drones, especially two big humanoid ones that kill off most of the task force. Most are killed except for Argus who continues to assist them. They fight their way to the core, where they find the source — the cyborg form of Xander, who has Kestner controlling her mind. Kestner/Xander goats Tereus into shooting him/her and warns that if he/she is dead, then all those connected to HALCON will be lost. Deunan uses the last anti-virus serum and stabs it into the cyborg’s neck, allowing Xander to regain control of herself. She manages to reset the signals controlling the civilians and asks Deunan to shoot her to prevent the virus from taking over her again. As the virus takes control again, Deunan shoots her through the head, destroying HALCON. The virus lets go of Briareos, as well as anyone wearing a Connexus, and the three run as the facility falls apart. They get to a ledge and Tereus asks them to leave him, but they deny it just as Argus shows up with the ship, and they escape the collapsing facility.

Back in Olympus, the rioters were released and collapsed en masse. They later woke up, not remembering a thing that had happened. With Athena watching from her office window noting that “Human’s have a tendency to self-destruct but their spirit always manage to hold them from the brink, that’s why they should be saved”

Deunan and Briareos share an intimate hug together with Deunan promising to protect Briareos. Argus asks if Tereus is okay and he replies by saying, “He was her partner first. She’ll have him and I’ll find my own girl”; Argus jokes that they could just make one. Their transports then speed off to Olympus.

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