You say magic, I say they didn't waste limited minutes making up a technical back story. The things that worked by "magic" were all well within bounds of what an AI with access to computing power, solar power, and swarms of nanobots would accomplish, sure seems to me.
It's not just the upload being powerful that made it magic, it was also the fact that the technology wasn't even internally consistent. None of its powers or limitations were derived from anything scientific, it was just a complete mess wearing the attire of science. I call such a mess "magic".
Stuff like:
Nick Bostrom takes on the facts, the fictions and the speculations in the movie Transcendence:
Could you upload Johnny Depp's brain? Oxford Professor on Transcendence
How soon until machine intelligence? Oxford professor on Transcendence
Would you have warning before artificial superintelligence? Oxford professor on Transcendence
Oxford professor on Transcendence: how could you get a machine intelligence?