These past couple days I've been real busy working on the video, and it's turned out really great. Once it gets on youtube I'll post a link, it's over 40 minutes long, longest movie I've ever worked on. So now, I'll combine the three movies into one post. They were pretty good, but Blade Runner remains my favorite movie in this intersession and one of the best of all time.
AI-
AI was a great film that really raises the question about what humanity is. Simply put, I don't think there's anything that we can do that a machine won't be able to do later on. We're just made up of code, what's keeping us from creating something as complex from a different type of code? It was well done, even the ending was pretty good, which a lot of other people didn't like.
Brazil-
The film did a good job of showing how bureacracy can get inefficient, and it's already like that when it comes to some aspects of life. It happens a lot when things are run by the government. I really enjoyed the dream sequences. It can be confusing to see this movie, and the ending is sort of an answer to the matrix question that I'll mention next.
Matrix-
I was wondering what I would do in Neo's place. Would I rather wake up to some real life, where everything is miserable or live in a great place, that's not any less real that the supposed real place. Maybe it's fake but there's not a difference that can be perceived. Everything could be great and there wouldn't be a point to fighting the machines really, since it wouldn't make human life any better than it is in the matrix. So in the end of Brazil, would it be better to live in that dream world, free of everthing else? Or would it be better to be miserable and tortured? I think the answer is easy.
All these films were really well done, and pose great questions. But they're still not as good as Blade Runner. Not even if they were combined and made into one movie.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Blade Runner
Even though other people have mentioned that this film was slow and that the movie wasn't interesting. I thought it was the best movie we've seen in this intersession and is now one of my all time favorites. The story was well done and acted. It was an interesting story and it was great to see how it played out.
The film itself, as art, was visually striking. The shots of the city were done with so much detail and with great sets. The vehicles hovering and flying off. These effects were much greater than the effects they have now. I feel that computer graphics have sort of taken away from the realistic feel of movies. If Blade Runner had been done today then the computer graphics would've been easily noticeable. The gritty, dark and unkept streets of the city were just simply amazing. These are some of the best effects I've seen in movies, in many ways better than the things that come out now.
Another things that was amazing was the music. I knew of Vangelis, the composer, beforehand but never listened to this soundtrack so I didn't know what to expect. The use of synthesizers and other keyboards fits perfectly with the era that this film takes place. The music adds a lot to the film in silent parts. I can't say enough about the artistic merit of this film. But, enough ranting.
The film does carry a deep message about how humans will someday create something better than them and fear it. They have fear of something better like the replicants taking over the world. They fear this because humans would and have done the same thing to an inferior species, take over it and establish their rule over everything. If we were to find some other race out there in another planet that was lesser than our own, we would probably conquer them and use them for labor or something. It's part of human nature. They are shutting them down when they get to 4 years before they develop emotions and become humanlike and take over anything they deem inferior. In fearing the replicants, they are fearing themselves.
The film itself, as art, was visually striking. The shots of the city were done with so much detail and with great sets. The vehicles hovering and flying off. These effects were much greater than the effects they have now. I feel that computer graphics have sort of taken away from the realistic feel of movies. If Blade Runner had been done today then the computer graphics would've been easily noticeable. The gritty, dark and unkept streets of the city were just simply amazing. These are some of the best effects I've seen in movies, in many ways better than the things that come out now.
Another things that was amazing was the music. I knew of Vangelis, the composer, beforehand but never listened to this soundtrack so I didn't know what to expect. The use of synthesizers and other keyboards fits perfectly with the era that this film takes place. The music adds a lot to the film in silent parts. I can't say enough about the artistic merit of this film. But, enough ranting.
The film does carry a deep message about how humans will someday create something better than them and fear it. They have fear of something better like the replicants taking over the world. They fear this because humans would and have done the same thing to an inferior species, take over it and establish their rule over everything. If we were to find some other race out there in another planet that was lesser than our own, we would probably conquer them and use them for labor or something. It's part of human nature. They are shutting them down when they get to 4 years before they develop emotions and become humanlike and take over anything they deem inferior. In fearing the replicants, they are fearing themselves.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Soylent Green©
Soylent Green seems to me like an accurate description of a future that is overpopulated. Resources are very limited and are reserved for only the richest. The rest of the people are forced to eat from the soylent line of products. They're heavily processed foods that are very cheap to make.
It sort of seems like this movie, made in the 70's, is an accurate prediction of life now. Although there aren't 40 million people in New York City, there's only about 9 million people there now, there are still some other problems with corporate greed. Since there's a lot of people around, there needs to be a lot of food for them, companies that are able to exploit the cheap production of food and sell a lot. Now, companies make meat from cattle that are fed hormones and other foods that cows wouldn't normally eat. Only the people willing to spend a lot of money on meat are able to get true natural grass fed beef. Others are forced to resort to cheaper foods like McDonald's which isn't known for the quality of its food. Overpopulation is an issue that not very many people think about, but is a possibility for the coming years. The population doubles every 50 years, there were only 2.5 billion people in the world in 1950, now there are 7 billion of us. It's not an easy problem to solve, we can't kill people off and it's hard to enforce a limit on the amount of kids. With medical technology improving, only more people will be able to survive in the world. It's something that should be addressed before it gets out of hand.
It sort of seems like this movie, made in the 70's, is an accurate prediction of life now. Although there aren't 40 million people in New York City, there's only about 9 million people there now, there are still some other problems with corporate greed. Since there's a lot of people around, there needs to be a lot of food for them, companies that are able to exploit the cheap production of food and sell a lot. Now, companies make meat from cattle that are fed hormones and other foods that cows wouldn't normally eat. Only the people willing to spend a lot of money on meat are able to get true natural grass fed beef. Others are forced to resort to cheaper foods like McDonald's which isn't known for the quality of its food. Overpopulation is an issue that not very many people think about, but is a possibility for the coming years. The population doubles every 50 years, there were only 2.5 billion people in the world in 1950, now there are 7 billion of us. It's not an easy problem to solve, we can't kill people off and it's hard to enforce a limit on the amount of kids. With medical technology improving, only more people will be able to survive in the world. It's something that should be addressed before it gets out of hand.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Planet of the Apes Pictures
Sucks that his throat was shot. Maybe things would've been much different had he been able to talk from the beginning.
Lucky for Taylor, he had some apes on his side. They were able to break Taylor out and take him to the forbidden zone.
The doctor had to balance religion and science, a tough job for one person.
Taylor was able to escape with Nova. They're probably going to go repopulate the earth or something.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Planet of the Apes gives some good ideas about the downfall of mankind, and how technology was misused by the humans which lead to the destruction of humanity. I agree with this view of the future, if we don't use our technology properly by using it to improve our life and help others then we'll use technology to hurt others with weapons and to take control of the world. Eventually, our weapons will lead to our downfall.
The film also reaches out to people, during the civil rights decade and puts everyone in the position of the person being prejudiced. They see how the apes' actions are unfair towards the humans, and how they have no good reason. It's a very effective way of putting people in the other person's shoes and have them evaluate their fear and dislike of others who might have a different skin color.
The film also reaches out to people, during the civil rights decade and puts everyone in the position of the person being prejudiced. They see how the apes' actions are unfair towards the humans, and how they have no good reason. It's a very effective way of putting people in the other person's shoes and have them evaluate their fear and dislike of others who might have a different skin color.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
2001 Pictures
The Discovery One, I think it's incredible what they did with the detailed miniatures. The special effects in this film are good enough that remaking it would only end in failure. For our time, the effects still work.
It's awe inspiring how they managed to create this effect without the use of advanced computers. It probably must have taken a lot of work.
The original HAL 9000, with the red light in the middle.
Altough it's probably too small, on the top left corner of the image is Auto, the bad robot from Wall-E. It has a single red eye in the middle, coincidence? I think not.
2001: The Space Odyssey
The film does correspond with my view of the future. We have advanced technologically but the technology itself isn't the reason for our downfall. Rather, how we use the technology. I don't think HAL had emotions or anything, he was just following orders given to him by the engineers that built him to get to Jupiter and then tell the crew the real mission. Since he was the only one that knew the real reason for getting there, that's why he tried to prevent David Bowman from disconnecting him, since then the mission would end in failure. The evil robot in Wall-E was very similar to HAL, they look similar as well. They both were just following commands gave to them by humans, but appeared evil in doing so. HAL was right when he said it was human error and not him.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The Day the Earth Stood Still + The Thing + The Remakes of Both
I am posting these pictures to see how the new actors that portrayed the monsters further took the idea of humanizing or dehumanizing them.
In the original, Klaatu displays a caring, yet foreign personality. We can relate to him through his humanity yet, he seems out of the ordinary.
Keanu Reeves portrays Klaatu in the remake, he's a familiar face. Unlike Michael Rennie, it might be hard to believe that he's an alien, since he's widely known. Maybe the role of Klaatu would've been better served by an unknown. Casting unknowns can do great things for a film and its characters, just look at the original Star Wars trilogy.
In the original The Thing, the monster still looks a lot humanlike, but displays no human qualities during the movie.
Looking at pictures of the thing in the remake, they made it appear even less human and more like a monster. Maybe they were limited in how different and weird they could make the thing look back in 1951. With the technology of today how would the movie look if that technology was made available back then?
In the original, Klaatu displays a caring, yet foreign personality. We can relate to him through his humanity yet, he seems out of the ordinary.
Keanu Reeves portrays Klaatu in the remake, he's a familiar face. Unlike Michael Rennie, it might be hard to believe that he's an alien, since he's widely known. Maybe the role of Klaatu would've been better served by an unknown. Casting unknowns can do great things for a film and its characters, just look at the original Star Wars trilogy.
In the original The Thing, the monster still looks a lot humanlike, but displays no human qualities during the movie.
Looking at pictures of the thing in the remake, they made it appear even less human and more like a monster. Maybe they were limited in how different and weird they could make the thing look back in 1951. With the technology of today how would the movie look if that technology was made available back then?
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) + The Thing (1951)
Something that caught my interest was how the "monster" was portrayed in both films. In The Day the Earth Stood Still the alien is shown to have a caring, humanistic quality about him. He's a nice person who doesn't want to see other people harmed. Klaatu is misunderstood by the others to have negative intentions, which is the very opposite.
In The Thing the monster is portrayed as something that could not have a shred of kindness inside. The only moment that the monster is given a chance to be seen as good was when the scientist approached him trying to make communication. But the monster only threw him to the side and continued his pursuit. We never learn what his intentions were, or what he thinks about the people.
As an audience, we're left to hate The Thing, without a shred of doubt. With Klaatu, we look at our own downfalls and how we may be making a huge mistake when resorting to violence first.
In The Thing the monster is portrayed as something that could not have a shred of kindness inside. The only moment that the monster is given a chance to be seen as good was when the scientist approached him trying to make communication. But the monster only threw him to the side and continued his pursuit. We never learn what his intentions were, or what he thinks about the people.
As an audience, we're left to hate The Thing, without a shred of doubt. With Klaatu, we look at our own downfalls and how we may be making a huge mistake when resorting to violence first.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Frankenstein: Images
The first image is of Boris Karloff, before his makeup work.
Jack Pierce was the make up artist for Frankenstein. He also created the look of many other famous monsters like the Wolfman and the Mummy.
Jack Pierce came up with the iconic square shaped head of Frankenstein's monster. He believed that if someone were to transplant a brain, they would saw through the head and attach a latch to the top.
Karloff and Pierce worked together for The Mummy (1932), with Karloff playing the part of the mummy.
Frankenstein Journal Entry
The film raises interesting questions about meddling with things that we don't yet fully comprehend. Dr. Frankenstein played with life and mentioned he was being like god, but ended up creating a monster. He created something that was alright to begin with, but without understanding how the experiment could go wrong, how he could make people suffer through his actions, he looked at his experiments with a heavy bias. He had no concern for anyone else but his research. He failed to recognize when he had to start over, or do something correctly, for example, upon being told that the brain he was using was faulty, he simply brushed it off. The brain might've contributed to the monster's violent nature.
This type of mistake is one that other scientists try not to make. With the hadron collider, scientists are taking every measure possible to make sure it isn't dangerous and creates a black hole. For any small problem that may occur, there's a delay in the project. It's been run once and the scientists would like to run more tests with it, but they have to be completely sure it can't go wrong. If they were blind like Dr. Frankenstein, they possibly could've ended the world already with the hadron collider.
We have to be careful when conducting new research and passing the limit. We have to fully understand the next step and know how it can go wrong and prepare for it. Instead of rushing into things and ignoring the consequences.
This type of mistake is one that other scientists try not to make. With the hadron collider, scientists are taking every measure possible to make sure it isn't dangerous and creates a black hole. For any small problem that may occur, there's a delay in the project. It's been run once and the scientists would like to run more tests with it, but they have to be completely sure it can't go wrong. If they were blind like Dr. Frankenstein, they possibly could've ended the world already with the hadron collider.
We have to be careful when conducting new research and passing the limit. We have to fully understand the next step and know how it can go wrong and prepare for it. Instead of rushing into things and ignoring the consequences.
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