I saw the movie "The Fountain" over the weekend, and  another immortality movie with the immortality theme as a negative.

From Netflix:

"A medical researcher's wife is dying and he possibly discovers a drug that will prevent aging while searching for a cure. The drug is from a South American tree. The wife is writing a book about 16th century Spanish soldiers searching for a tree of life that will prevent aging. All the 16th century scenes are imaginary scenes based on this book. The wife dies and her husband plants a tree (the same one that yields the anti-aging drug) on her grave. She had told him a story about a South American man who had done the same feeling that his wife would be reborn into life through the tree growing over her grave. She also discussed the birth of stars from the remains of supernovas (which create all the heavier elements) with her husband. 600 years in the future if the husband is still alive and wealthy from his anti-aging discovery and if he still hasn't gotten over his wife's death then he might transport his wife's grave and the now 600 hundred year old tree to a region of space where new stars will be formed with the idea that they both will be part of the formation of new stars and planets and new life. Apparantly 600 years in the future they still haven't found an anti depressant that would prevent the husband from committing suicide. I might add that the movie was originally a studio film in 2002 but the studio pulled the plug. The producers started over 2 years later with half the budget and a new script. My guess is most of the budget cuts were on the scenes set in the future."

 The ending failed because once the compound was identified in the present day, the medical researcher did not inject the drug into his dying wife's body to save her life. The movie showed that the compound had success in the test chimp before his wife died. If an injection of the drug into his wife was added to the movie, it would have created two possible endings based on the reality of the movie. The movie would make sense, since we go to movies for sense making. 

If She dies, or she lives, that would create drama. The scene was not added, so the movie had no dramatic tension and resolution -- just futuristic eye candy.

The movie was written without a coherent script, ie, no resolution. No wonder it was dumped for funding! 

The acorn the medical researcher places over his dead wife's body reminded me of a picture of a proposed Mechanical Artificial Red Blood Cell that had a tree like structure. Foresight has a picture of a Mechanical Artificial Red Blood Cell, but not the one I remember.

  (http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes.html)

Science as of 2007 has not cured cancer, and the movie mirrors current reality. As of 2007 we are Close to the cure to end cancer, and theoreticaly end aging, but we are not there yet. We are closer to the fountain of youth in 2007 than 1510, but still not there. When we do figure out the technology it will cause several singularities.  

Immortality is seen as a lonely journey through space in the movie. When  immortality is achieved on earth through stem cell implantation,  Mechanical Artificial cells and advanced genomics technology, the result will be very different than any movie ever created.

I guess the biologically inspired spaceship is worth a mention for a concept, unique and visual eye candy. When we do end cancer and understand how to end aging, or stop and reverse aging for increased longevity and creative problem solving, we may advance to a world where everything is biological and natural, and technology no longer exists. (In this world view, poison ivy does not exist, or any "toxic" because we genetically and technically engineer the world to support human life and make biology subservient to humanity. At this level of technology, what ever is killing you is eliminated, and your dna at this level would never die a pre-singularity disease or toxic.  )

The end result would be Adam and eve become one, and the tree of technology recreates the world as a biological paradise to serve man. I guess the the complete cycle would be a biological spore, that would also be a spaceship. the spore would  travel through space to some end point in the universe.

One issue the movie does raise, is why be immortal, if you have no one to share your immortality with.

If we do attain immortality on earth, stars still implode and black holes exist. In this context, we still have a death, but depending on our actions and environment , our actual path before we die could be a few thousand, to millions, to billions of years depending on how cautious, advanced or lucky we become.