The Matrix Journal

Ah yes, the Matrix. Easily the best movie we've seen all intersession long. I consider myself to very literate as far as the Matrix [trilogy] goes, even so I love to watch it despite the myriad of occasions I've seen it in the past.

There were a few things that I picked up on in this view however, that I didn't pick on before. This is probably because of the themes we've been discussing the past few days. One of themes was what makes us human. In the case of this film masterpiece, the question was, what is reality? According to the movie, reality is just electrical signals that our brains interpret. Another more subtle question was, what is freedom? Scifer said: "you call this free!?" when talking to trinity. Well in a way that was freedom. He know the truth about the world and the matrix, and therefore his mind was free.

There were other things that I picked on that I hadn't noticed before. The machines were imperfect despite them believing they were perfect. This was evident in the glitches in the system. Two that I picked up on were the deja vu and the blind man that can "see". The deja vu was obvious because it was a pivotal plot device. However, the blind man was in the scene when they were walking into the elevator to see the Oracle. Morpheus nodded at him, despite his inability to see, and he nodded back. Morpheus had obviously been to see the Oracle before and he knew about the glitch in the system that was the blind man and he exploited it in a way. The matrix must have known about it but never really fixed it, letting the logical imperfection remain in its "perfect" system.

Another imperfection that I had seen was the agents' "torture" methods. In their attempt to replicate a human world, they couldn't pull off torture. Most people succumb to physical torture, maybe the agents didn't know that. Instead they chose to mentally torture him, a technique that failed in the end.

The last thing I'd like to discuss is Neo's monologue at the end of the movie. There were two words that he used that caught my attention, "borders" and "boundaries". He said "I'm going to show these people a world without borders or boundaries." Borders and boundaries are computer terms that computer programs read. In Neil's class we learned about computer programming. Borders and boundaries were used to assign parameters for the program. Neo was talking to the matrix in a way it can understand.

Brazil Journal

At first glance, I felt that Brazil was a very stupid, pointless movie. As we watched it, I shook my head and wondered why we were watching it. Once it was over I liked it just because of how wacky and stupid it was. I felt like I'd wasted what was an eternity watching it and that the joke was on me.

After the discussion however, I felt so ignorant, that I had missed so many of the main themes, some extremely obvious others more subtle. The theme that caught my attention the most was the whole bureaucracy that was present throughout the duration of the film. Everyone in the film was governed by the desks and paperwork. Their whole world was controlled and boring. This is what made Tuttle so much of a cool character, he was a rebel in his own right; in this bureaucratic world. He didn't want to do all the paperwork so, he expedited the entire process of fixing air conditioners.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Journal

This movie left me with mixed feelings. I liked it but I didn't like the closing scenes. Call me a Luddite if you must, but I wish it would have ended at the Flesh Fair. I say that because I started to not like the David character, he wanted to become something he's not. Though he did begin to behave like a human boy he wasn't one.

However, this movie did put the question "what makes us human?" to the test a lot more than any other movie we had seen thus far. I thought of other things that make us/me human as I watched the movie. Two things that stood out in my mind were insanity and philosophy. I asked myself, can I envision David being being a philosopher? No. Philosophy is very complex, and requires meditation and deep thought. Despite David being a complex robot, he was built with a purpose. That purpose was to be a lovable boy that loved back. Because of that he can never think of philosophy. He was limited in that sense; he could not mature and really take in and learn from his experiences at a deeper level where wisdom is created in a person, a real person.

Insanity I decided was another state of being a robot could never accomplish. True: it is a less desirable human trait that some would never want, but that psychological imperfection is an extremely human trait, indescribable almost.


A character that I really like in the movie was Martin. Though most would say he was their least favorite. He's my most favorite because of how REAL he is. He shows a wide range of emotions in a short span of time. David eventually showed a lots of emotions, but over a longer time span. Martin really was a boy, flesh and bone, one that could die, one that had obvious physical disabilities, and because of all that--I loved him.

As I type this I 'm listening to music. Can a robot ever create original music that really touches the senses? No, I don't believe so. Music is another sole human self expression ability that we have made using technology, but by itself technology could not make on its own.

To conclude, I like the movie, I just didn't enjoy the last half because it became too unreal and ridiculous almost.

Blade Runner Journal

Blade Runner is another movie that we have seen that I didn't really like. I feel like I didn't enjoy it because, it was too boring, for lack of better words. It had a great story and plot but, just the way it was executed on screen didn't strike a chord with me. It seemed as though all the action scenes were very poorly done and there were large spaces with nothing happening, just dialogue that seemed very abstract.

One of the themes that I'd like to discuss from the film is the guiding question that we had before and after we watched it: What makes us human? What I said during the discussion I pointed out that we as humans (or animals) can reproduce. As of yet we have not seen a robot, android, computer, monster etc, that no matter how [emotionally] advanced, that has been able to reproduce. Reproduction may seem simple but, it may be one of the few things if not the only that separates us from the more advanced beings that have been created in the sci fi films we've seen so far.

The genetic code that's passed on in [sexual] reproduction, I feel, simply cannot not be done artificially. Well, maybe it can be done artificially but, not at the will of the artificial being in question.

Soylent Green Journal

I really didn't like the movie. It had an important message to transmit, which it did in one way or another but I don't feel it did it in an artsy fashion, as the other movies we've seen have. I see it as a product of cinema in the 70's. That in itself suggests that it wasn't very good as most of the movies from the 70's are known to be bad, with Star Wars and Godfather being the exceptions. One of the things that drew me away from the film was the lack of creativity in the sets. Of course, this is a rather harsh criticism of the movie because the movie makers had no indication of how the times would be in 2022. Movies like this really help me appreciate 2001 even more. In 2001 it was really over the top with the technology, but still believable. In Soylent Green it seemed as though nothing has changed technologically speaking since the 70's. One would argue that that's because it's a sign of the times they were living in but, still even the "elites" should have better tech (I'm not criticizing the video game, either...) but the overall aesthetic of the "rich peoples" environments seemed too uninspired and too 70's-ish. All the way down to how they dressed and the accessories they wore. I would have been happier even if the wardrobe was completely different from what we see today, or anything else we may have seen but, but at least they would have tried.

As far as the thematics go, it was actually somewhat interesting. It was a weird concept, that soylent green was people. There's not much more that I could say really. Even in the discussion is seemed as though it was a fairly straightforward film considering the questions that were asked. The clarifying questions didn't seem too in-depth. Most of them really didn't require that much thought to answer. It was very obvious that it was trying to convey a dystopian society that was a result of the mistakes that were made a couple generations back as far as the energy crisis went.

Planet of the Apes Journal

One of the ideas I felt strongly about was the whole faith vs religion argument that arose, especially at the end of the movie. The way I see it, the apes had made a religion that coincided with their scientific discoveries. This could mean that their religion may have constantly been changing to relate perfectly with their religion.

This also brings up the argument of whether or not the truth should be hidden. Not only the truth about the humans but their own faith. Would the truth have eventually been too much to hold back and
retrain from the other apes. I believe that over time scriptures that they had made (and maybe have been changing) would have deviated so much from the originals that people would have taken note. The scriptures themselves even point towards the truth of the ancient human civilization. At the end the doctor has them read the scripture about pushing man back into the jungle, and how he should never be allowed to rise [again].

It's hard to say whether or not the ape civilization or the human has better ethics than the other. I say that because the ape civilization was directly based off of the human civilization. Therefore I can't put one over the other.

2001: A Space Odyssey

My thoughts on this movie can pretty much be summarized by what I said in during the class discussion. I spoke mostly about communication. That's why I believe that the humans are more "advanced" than the monkeys at the beginning, and even the HAL9000. By communication I mean language. There wasn't very much dialogue in the movie so that made it that much more precious whenever it was used.

The humans in the space ship could communicate with the HAL 9000 directly by talking. However, they knew that the only safe place was in their heads. The HAL knew that too, he plotted against them. It had somewhat been established that the HAL had to talk to people, and that he had no independent thought. It turned out that he did. At the end of that act Dave had to plot against HAL and he did so by not talking. Obviously his mental capacity was greater than that of HAL because his silence prevailed over HAL's silent plans.

It seemed as though HAL was only able to mimmick or replicate human emotion on the outside, not on the inside. He could only replicate what he could see from other people. In the interaction between HAL and Dave it seemed that Dave had more of an advantage. However in the interaction between Dave and the Gods, Dave was the inferior being.

The Day The Earth Stood Still Journal

Some of the main themes in The Day the Earth Stood Still include militaristic ideas and peaceful democracy. At the conclusion of the film I felt that it was mostly about a "utopia with a catch". I felt that way because the alien race had apparently achieved some sort of utopia where peace reigned, always. However, at the same time they were under the control of these "police-like robots" that would deal justice wherever necessary. It seemed to me that those people were living in fear, fear of their police.

I also saw another message: perhaps their peace was genuine peace. Perhaps I, or we, was [were] looking at it too cynically. This was apparent to me when I saw the machine Gort had put Mr. Carpenter into. It gave him life back, after he had died. This teaches the audience that if you use peace creatively for "advancement", it can be used to create great machines that can even give life to the dead. True: he knew he was going to die, but not yet.

A question that had stuck in my mind after the discussion was: do we as humans need to have a certain amount of chaos, or not have peace? At the time the film was released, in the 50's, it was evident later that American life was really....boring. You could see that in the way little Bobby lived his life. He always was a good little boy and his mom never had any trouble with him at all (at least until the UFO came) and family life was just perfect. The most excitement he ever got was pulling out his train set when he should be sleeping! He's really a rebel! The truth is that everything was becoming too uniform in American society at the time. Yes, there was the whole cold war thing but as for here in the states, something closer to home, there was no real excitement and culture seemed to be at an all-time low.

Little Bobby's generation would later find excitement in music and drugs in the coming decades, as the hippie generation rose and eventually grunge in the 90's. Is this rise and fall in culture necessary for it to survive and not become too dull? Maybe the people in control think all is fine and swell but, sooner or later the people inside get bored

Frankenstein Journal Entry

What strikes me as interesting in this movie is the whole nature vs nurture debate. Was the monster the way he was because of how he was raised, or because of the faulty brain that was implanted into him? I believe it's a little of both. The faulty brain that he had, had a limited capacity so in theory he would never have been able to operate as a fully socially "acceptable" person. On the other side of the debate we have the nurturing process, or how the person is raised. This seems to be the more obvious in Frankenstein. Everything went awry once the monster was introduced to the flame, and fire itself. It was incomprehensible for him so he feared and hated it.The nurturing process took a turn for the worst once that happened, as he was seen as a lost cause (and in many ways he was...). This was especially evident when he [accidentally] killed a little girl, an act that in almost all societies deserved the death penalty. He later suffered that fate by the hands of the one true menace in his world: fire.

Another interesting theme of Frankenstein was "man playing God". As hard as men try, it simply doesn't work. It was manifested in this movie when the monster turned on the village. Though he was created with the best of intentions, it was beyond that of human capability and therefore the whole experiment failed miserably. When men try to play God it fails when the demand not only exceeds his/her physical capacity but psychological as well. It was too much for even the doctors of the village to handle, as the result showed.