Avatar. The Avengers. Iron Man 3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The Dark Knight Rises.
These are five of the top ten all-time highest grossing movies. Their (arguable) inclusion in the Science Fiction canon begs a question of the genre: is it just the spectacle that we shell out to witness, or is there some more primitive itch that these kinds of events scratch?
This blog is dedicated to figuring out how it is that Science Fiction addresses the problem of defining "human."
ossibly one of the stranger movies I have seen. The setting was really bleak and the lighting didn’t really help. It helped bring to attention the future that the characters of the movie were in. Despite Blade Runner being set in Los Angeles, there is a lot of East Asian influence. This reminds me of how some would say, “China owns the U.S.” or something to that effect. Perhaps that the director predicted a takeover of sorts by 2019. Admittedly, this was my first time seeing Blade Runner but, the setting and style of the movie was already familiar to me though other works in the genre. Another aspect of that stuck out to me was the way Gaff spoke. The English language is always changing but, perhaps it can get mutually intelligible compared to Modern English in the far future. In some ways, the Replicants seem to be just as human as any of us. I even sympathized with Batty even though he was insane. The inability of the Replicants to increase their lifespan really puts into perspective how unfortunate their circumstances are. Leon exemplifies this when he say, “Wake up, Time to die!” At certain parts of the movie, I was in doubt as to whether Decker himself is human or not and the unicorn theme did not help at all. The line between human and Replicant was blurred throughout the whole movie. Despite the cast being human, it felt the unease of the uncanny valley at times.
I loved Rachel's reaction when she finds out she may be a replicant. She doesn't say much, but it says a lot. It, to me, represented people who fight against inequality. They demand that they are equal, but they also sense their inferiority. They assert that they are equal, but know they are not. They are adamant to gain rights, but are hurt when it is exposed to them that they are lesser - even if unfairly so. Rachel begins to cry when she figures out she may be a replicant. She says she is their equal, but she also knows she is not. She becomes incredibly sad when she realizes that she is not what society thinks is better or more lovable. She is a not the superior being, but an unwanted, to some even a menace.
It goes back to my argument about the fact that people crave acceptance from others and it destroys them when they do not receive it. This may even be the cause of many social justice movements for gender, race, or other sorts of equality. They fight for assurance that they are equal to those around them, that they aren't the inferior beings. They want acceptance and love of their fellow man. They want to alleviate the cognitive dissonance. It hurts them to think that they are less than others or that they are deemed less deserving than someone else so they fight against it.
Kyle McKenna Blade Runner Throughout the class we have talked about he novum or nexus which is the innovation that allows us to exist in the world which is portrayed in science fiction. Similar to Starks transistors the creation of the Nexus 6 artificial intelligence is just accepted. Theses amazing artificial men are able to do amazing things and allowed us to build the world we see in Blade Runner. My only gripe with the film is that it projects us into the year 2019. As much as I would love to believe that in next five years we will have flying cars and be living on multiple planets, along with having a full robot revolution I don’t think its going to happen. However this film does a great job of driving the question of what it means to be human. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Harrison Ford’s character Rick Deckard tears apart the memories that Sean Young’s character Rachael attempts to prove to him she is in fact human. Deckard rattles off some of Rachael’s fondest memories and cements the idea for her that she is a replicant rather than a full human. However her reaction is unbelievable, he had never met a replicant whom did not realize that they were one, or a replicant so convinced she was not a replicant she went out of her way to attempt to prove her humanity. His reaction to lie similarly to a lie a mother or father would respond to a child is comical, he has no idea what to do and simply excuses himself from the conversation. As the film goes on it the line between human and replicant becomes blurred. The man antagonist Roy Batty, attempts to preserve his life and the lives of his friends against the Blade Runner. If the film had been shot from the perspective of Roy and his group, we would be seeing the story of a rebel hero, a man attacking a massive corporation who has enslaved his family and people for many years. Not only have they enslaved them but they are executing them after their usefulness has passed. Hands down Blade Runner is one of the best Sci-Films out there, with a ton of deep meanings and situations throughout.
Hey, nice collar. Yo Harrison, open your mouth when you talk. I'm missing out on dialogue because of your incoherent diction. God I hate this movie. Useless scenes that seem to have been put in because "oh my! we've killed off two of our villains so quickly, we need to fill in these gaps with pointless scripts". What is with Leon? HE IS PRETTY MUCH SUPERHUMAN but he's also challenged. He couldn't just kill Decker, no he had to slap him a few times and "Wake up! Prepare to die!" Awful dialogue. Oh and gymnastic lady, why did you stop beating the shit out of decker so you can show off your handstands and get shot? You're a replicant, why are you so dumb. why was there no follow up on Tyrells death? I kind of wanted to know what happened to the corporation. Are more replicants going to be made? are they going to continue development? did he train a predacessor? No the story ends in a damn love scene that is weird because Harrison Ford just waltzes into rachels Room, wakes her up and "Do you love me". WHO MADE THIS SCRIPT! Hampton Fancher and David Peoples did. They must not know how conversations are actually held. Kind of like Lovecraft and his poor dialogue. Why does the future have so many midget people? I don't think we're going to evolve by 2019. Like "oh yeah, and the golden age of the little man will come and they will roam the streets in as great abundance as all men". Why did they keep bringing up Decker's unemotional tendancies and then move on to not call him a replicant? What? I was totally expecting them to be like "Decker, your life was a lie, and you are also a manufactured human being" but no. He also kisses rachel with his eyes open like a creep. At least I watched it in HD.
I’m not quite sure how I felt about this film. Admittedly I had never seen it before, and I probably could have gone the rest of my life without seeing it and not miss out on much. The plot was very choppy and difficult for me to understand, more than half the time I had no idea what was happening or why. It’s likely that I just wasn’t paying enough attention to the begging of the film, where all of the background information was given, but I was unclear as to why Harrison Ford’s character was sent out to retire the four rogue androids; I didn’t understand why they were such a threat. Plot aside; I found the existence of robots so identical to humans that they had to be put through extensive testing to determine whether they were android or not to be intriguing and terrifying at the same time. These robots were so physically superior to humans that they were able to sustain multiple bullet wounds and crowbars to the head before being killed. Their capacity for emotion was also growing so rapidly that they were able to overthrow their creators, which is something that I would assume to be a very real threat if they were ever to come into existence in the future.
I like that the people actually considered humans hate the Replicants so much, but praise Deckard on his detective skills, especially for killing Replicants. The film heavily questions what it means to be a human, and what it means to have some sort of humanity inside a person, and Replicants remain the enemy to human beings. It’s interesting because in a lot of cases they show more humanity than the actual humans around them, especially Deckard, who seems kind of stiff and emotionless throughout the movie. It’s also interesting he ends up having such a big connection to Rachel, despite him being a human and she being a Replicant. She ends up showing him a little bit of humanity and brings out his emotions, even if it is just love for her. I like that the movie questions whether Deckard is also a human or a Replicant as well, because in a couple of scenes you can see the weird reflection in his eyes that the rest of the Replicants have. If he did end up being a Replicant, it would be interesting that he had to kill off his own people, and the entire time the enemy was under the nose of the rest of the detectives as well. All the Replicants want to do is live, and it angers the main Replicant enough to kill people to try and live because he wants to see how beautiful the universe is, and experience it in a way humans cannot possible do. Even if there wasn’t a way to fix the short life span so late in his stage, he wanted a change for Replicants to live like the rest of the humans, at least to live as long as they could.
ossibly one of the stranger movies I have seen. The setting was really bleak and the lighting didn’t really help. It helped bring to attention the future that the characters of the movie were in. Despite Blade Runner being set in Los Angeles, there is a lot of East Asian influence. This reminds me of how some would say, “China owns the U.S.” or something to that effect. Perhaps that the director predicted a takeover of sorts by 2019. Admittedly, this was my first time seeing Blade Runner but, the setting and style of the movie was already familiar to me though other works in the genre. Another aspect of that stuck out to me was the way Gaff spoke. The English language is always changing but, perhaps it can get mutually intelligible compared to Modern English in the far future.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, the Replicants seem to be just as human as any of us. I even sympathized with Batty even though he was insane. The inability of the Replicants to increase their lifespan really puts into perspective how unfortunate their circumstances are. Leon exemplifies this when he say, “Wake up, Time to die!” At certain parts of the movie, I was in doubt as to whether Decker himself is human or not and the unicorn theme did not help at all. The line between human and Replicant was blurred throughout the whole movie. Despite the cast being human, it felt the unease of the uncanny valley at times.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI loved Rachel's reaction when she finds out she may be a replicant. She doesn't say much, but it says a lot. It, to me, represented people who fight against inequality. They demand that they are equal, but they also sense their inferiority. They assert that they are equal, but know they are not. They are adamant to gain rights, but are hurt when it is exposed to them that they are lesser - even if unfairly so. Rachel begins to cry when she figures out she may be a replicant. She says she is their equal, but she also knows she is not. She becomes incredibly sad when she realizes that she is not what society thinks is better or more lovable. She is a not the superior being, but an unwanted, to some even a menace.
ReplyDeleteIt goes back to my argument about the fact that people crave acceptance from others and it destroys them when they do not receive it. This may even be the cause of many social justice movements for gender, race, or other sorts of equality. They fight for assurance that they are equal to those around them, that they aren't the inferior beings. They want acceptance and love of their fellow man. They want to alleviate the cognitive dissonance. It hurts them to think that they are less than others or that they are deemed less deserving than someone else so they fight against it.
Kyle McKenna
ReplyDeleteBlade Runner
Throughout the class we have talked about he novum or nexus which is the innovation that allows us to exist in the world which is portrayed in science fiction. Similar to Starks transistors the creation of the Nexus 6 artificial intelligence is just accepted. Theses amazing artificial men are able to do amazing things and allowed us to build the world we see in Blade Runner. My only gripe with the film is that it projects us into the year 2019. As much as I would love to believe that in next five years we will have flying cars and be living on multiple planets, along with having a full robot revolution I don’t think its going to happen.
However this film does a great job of driving the question of what it means to be human. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Harrison Ford’s character Rick Deckard tears apart the memories that Sean Young’s character Rachael attempts to prove to him she is in fact human. Deckard rattles off some of Rachael’s fondest memories and cements the idea for her that she is a replicant rather than a full human. However her reaction is unbelievable, he had never met a replicant whom did not realize that they were one, or a replicant so convinced she was not a replicant she went out of her way to attempt to prove her humanity. His reaction to lie similarly to a lie a mother or father would respond to a child is comical, he has no idea what to do and simply excuses himself from the conversation.
As the film goes on it the line between human and replicant becomes blurred. The man antagonist Roy Batty, attempts to preserve his life and the lives of his friends against the Blade Runner. If the film had been shot from the perspective of Roy and his group, we would be seeing the story of a rebel hero, a man attacking a massive corporation who has enslaved his family and people for many years. Not only have they enslaved them but they are executing them after their usefulness has passed. Hands down Blade Runner is one of the best Sci-Films out there, with a ton of deep meanings and situations throughout.
Hey, nice collar. Yo Harrison, open your mouth when you talk. I'm missing out on dialogue because of your incoherent diction. God I hate this movie. Useless scenes that seem to have been put in because "oh my! we've killed off two of our villains so quickly, we need to fill in these gaps with pointless scripts". What is with Leon? HE IS PRETTY MUCH SUPERHUMAN but he's also challenged. He couldn't just kill Decker, no he had to slap him a few times and "Wake up! Prepare to die!" Awful dialogue. Oh and gymnastic lady, why did you stop beating the shit out of decker so you can show off your handstands and get shot? You're a replicant, why are you so dumb.
ReplyDeletewhy was there no follow up on Tyrells death? I kind of wanted to know what happened to the corporation. Are more replicants going to be made? are they going to continue development? did he train a predacessor? No the story ends in a damn love scene that is weird because Harrison Ford just waltzes into rachels Room, wakes her up and "Do you love me". WHO MADE THIS SCRIPT! Hampton Fancher and David Peoples did. They must not know how conversations are actually held. Kind of like Lovecraft and his poor dialogue.
Why does the future have so many midget people? I don't think we're going to evolve by 2019. Like "oh yeah, and the golden age of the little man will come and they will roam the streets in as great abundance as all men". Why did they keep bringing up Decker's unemotional tendancies and then move on to not call him a replicant? What? I was totally expecting them to be like "Decker, your life was a lie, and you are also a manufactured human being" but no. He also kisses rachel with his eyes open like a creep.
At least I watched it in HD.
I’m not quite sure how I felt about this film. Admittedly I had never seen it before, and I probably could have gone the rest of my life without seeing it and not miss out on much. The plot was very choppy and difficult for me to understand, more than half the time I had no idea what was happening or why. It’s likely that I just wasn’t paying enough attention to the begging of the film, where all of the background information was given, but I was unclear as to why Harrison Ford’s character was sent out to retire the four rogue androids; I didn’t understand why they were such a threat. Plot aside; I found the existence of robots so identical to humans that they had to be put through extensive testing to determine whether they were android or not to be intriguing and terrifying at the same time. These robots were so physically superior to humans that they were able to sustain multiple bullet wounds and crowbars to the head before being killed. Their capacity for emotion was also growing so rapidly that they were able to overthrow their creators, which is something that I would assume to be a very real threat if they were ever to come into existence in the future.
ReplyDeleteI like that the people actually considered humans hate the Replicants so much, but praise Deckard on his detective skills, especially for killing Replicants. The film heavily questions what it means to be a human, and what it means to have some sort of humanity inside a person, and Replicants remain the enemy to human beings. It’s interesting because in a lot of cases they show more humanity than the actual humans around them, especially Deckard, who seems kind of stiff and emotionless throughout the movie. It’s also interesting he ends up having such a big connection to Rachel, despite him being a human and she being a Replicant. She ends up showing him a little bit of humanity and brings out his emotions, even if it is just love for her. I like that the movie questions whether Deckard is also a human or a Replicant as well, because in a couple of scenes you can see the weird reflection in his eyes that the rest of the Replicants have. If he did end up being a Replicant, it would be interesting that he had to kill off his own people, and the entire time the enemy was under the nose of the rest of the detectives as well. All the Replicants want to do is live, and it angers the main Replicant enough to kill people to try and live because he wants to see how beautiful the universe is, and experience it in a way humans cannot possible do. Even if there wasn’t a way to fix the short life span so late in his stage, he wanted a change for Replicants to live like the rest of the humans, at least to live as long as they could.
ReplyDelete