Xtra-vision peeks behind the scenes of Surrogates, a unique sci fi detective story.

Exclusively available from Xtra-vision on Blu-ray and DVD, Surrogates is a gripping science fiction thriller from T3 director Jonathan Mostow and action icon Bruce Willis. Based on a hit graphic novel, it sees people living their lives remotely from the safety of their own homes via robotic surrogates - sexy, physically perfect mechanical representations of themselves.

It's an ideal world where crime, pain, fear and consequences don't exist, but when the first murder in years jolts this utopia, FBI agent Greer (Willis) discovers a vast conspiracy behind the surrogate phenomenon and is forced to abandon his own surrogate, risking his life in the real world to unravel the mystery...

"The premise of the movie is that surrogacy has taken over the world like cell phones and computers," explains Mostow. "Surrogates are new devices that offer users the opportunity to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. In our film, surrogates represent the ultimate freedom, from both physical harm and the mental toll of everyday life. Pleasure is achievable simply by plugging in.

"But for some, surrogacy feels like the abandonment of humanity itself," he continues. "In a world where actual physical contact is increasingly rare, does the very notion of love threaten to lose its meaning? Those are some of the ideas we explore in our story."

First-time author Robert Venditti came up with the unique premise while looking for a new spin on the graphic novel. Venditti recalled a sociology book he had read for one of his graduate school courses which depicted "...an actual study of people who played one of those early community-type online games. I was fascinated by how these people just became so involved in this game, creating these alternate personas for themselves.

"They became so identified with them that they would lose their jobs and their marriages, because they just couldn't separate their lives from this persona that they created. It was an idea that stuck with me - the basic human desire to be something other than oneself."

Producer Max Handelman, a lifelong comicbook aficionado, optioned the graphic novel from Venditti. He found the story's themes compelling. "The story really moves along at a great pace and allows you to imagine something that could impact our society someday. Are we all going to have surrogates? Probably not. But it's a metaphor for our society's increasing reliance on technology and increasingly virtual communication."

To bring Surrogates' conflicted FBI agent Greer to life, the filmmakers turned to global superstar Bruce Willis. "He's really one of the great film actors of his generation," says Mostow. "It's a very specific skill to be able to pull off movies that have a very high-concept idea behind them. Here, it's an alternative reality, and yet he makes it credible. That's really his gift."

The actual robotic look of the main cast and hundreds of extras appearing in the film came to life through the combined efforts of the film's two makeup departments - the key makeup under the guidance of Oscar winner (for T2) Jeff Dawn and the special prosthetic designs courtesy of Oscar winner (for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) Howard Berger. Because most of the main cast portrays two or more versions of their characters, Dawn and Berger utilised their many years of trickery to distinguish between the perfect surrogates and their rather imperfect human counterparts.

"The challenge for makeup and hair on this film from day one was determining what differentiates a human from a surrogate," says Dawn. "Surrogates - are they plastic? Are they hyper real? Are they better looking than normal attractive people? The challenge was to make people who are already good looking look spectacular in every shot.

"The idea of surrogates touches on vanity that we all have, especially in this industry," continues Dawn. "It touches on the technological advancements that we've made in the last few decades. You combine the two and you come up with a seemingly wonderful idea – the perfect man. I'll make myself younger or taller or better looking."

Dawn says that Willis had no trouble accepting himself in his own skin - even when the artisans added less-than-ideal details. "The human Greer character is a little older, a little rougher, a little more wrinkled," says Dawn. "And Bruce was very good about that. When I needed to add a little age, some wrinkles, a salt-and-pepper beard, he was game for all of that. Now the surrogate Bruce had to be perfect, which we accomplished using a full head of blonde hair and these blonde eyebrows."

"The core idea of Surrogates is how we retain our humanity in this increasingly, relentlessly technological world that we live in," says Mostow. "Technology is great. The fantasy of technology is that it frees us to be creative, productive and to do all these wonderful things. The flip side to that is that we wind up being servants to it in a certain way. We're tethered to our cell phones, to our BlackBerries. It's great to have email, but when you spend hours a day returning emails, it becomes an obligation. So, these new opportunities and possibilities in life also restrain us in certain ways."

"Technology becomes a lifestyle," says producer Todd Lieberman. "That seems to happen with a lot of technology. It pervades society and people then depend on it in their lives. What would we do today without the Internet? Without cell phones? It's hard to imagine. In this world, what would they do without surrogates?"

"The story's just meant to raise such questions," Venditti concludes. "I don't know the answers to the questions. When I wrote the story, I wanted people to see the good uses surrogates would present to society, as well as the bad ones. Ultimately, I wanted people to make that determination for themselves."