The Matrix

Computer hacker Thomas Anderson has lived a relatively ordinary life--in what he thinks is the year 1999--until he is contacted by the enigmatic Morpheus who leads him into the real world. In reality, it is 200 years later, and the world has been laid waste and taken over by advanced artificial intelligence machines. The computers have created a false version of 20th-century life--the "Matrix"--to keep the human slaves satisfied, while the AI machines draw power from the humans. Anderson, pursued constantly by "Agents" (computers who take on human form and infiltrate the Matrix), is hailed as "The One" who will lead the humans to overthrow the machines and reclaim the Earth. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/plotsummary)


The Matrix can be seen as one of the most important films of our generation. This is because it was not only great at its time but by the evnets that have occurred because of the film. The new techniques that were shot in this film are new seen in a large majority of films and even video games of today. It it was not for The Matrix these new ideas and techniques could have never been implemented within our society. The film also brings to question to the viewer the idea about reality. What is reality and how are we able to view it. The Matrix shows the audience a world that is completely made up and fake but this world looks just as our does. How are we able to tell the difference. What if the reality we are seeing now is not real. These are the ideas and questions that the matrix brings within the viewers mind. The film is one of the greatest films in the sense of what it has done for films that have followed it. The Matrix changed the way films are created and viewed.

The Truman Show

In this movie, Jim Carrey is Truman, a man whose life is a fake one... The place he lives is in fact a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles in the most popular tv-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman thinks that he is an ordinary man with an ordinary life and has no idea about how he is exploited. Until one day... he finds out everything. Will he react? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/plotsummary)

The Truman Show is one of Jim Carrey's great films. He is able to create this character who is beloved by the world and is watched 24/7. This film allows the view to question what is reality. To Truman his reality was in fact fake but he did not know this until an event occurred that allowed him to step out of his world and see something else. Once this happened he started to question his whole life and what was really going on within it. This allows the viewer to question what is their own reality. Is it real or is it just what someone else wants us to see and think. Truman allows this question to be brought to the view and then the viewer is able to see the glory behind taking hold of your own life. Truman does this and in the end becomes free. The audience must make the same decision that Truman does, what to do within our life and how to deal with the events that are occurring. What is reality and how are we able to view it.

Johnny Mnemonic

In 2021, the whole world is connected by the gigantic Internet, and almost a half of the population is suffering from the Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS).Johnny with an inplanted memory chip in his brain was ordered to transport the over loaded information from Beijing to Newark. While Pharmakom Industries supported by yakuza tries to capture him to get the informaiton back, the Low-tech group led by J-Bone tries to break the missing code to download the cure of NAS which Johnny carries (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/plotsummary)

Johnny Mnemonic is a film that also deals with the question of memory. This film allows the viewer to see what is possible within the human mind and what can happen when an individual looses part of their memory. Johnny chooses to dump his childhood memory in order to store data within his own head. By doing this he has lost part of himself and is not the person he was before the memory chip was implanted. The film allows the viewer to understand the importance of memory and how it is able to shape us into the person that we are. Johnny lost part of his memory in order to make money and have a job but was it worth it to him? He no longer had any part of his childhood and once you loose part of your memory you are no longer to same person. Our memories help to make us into the person that we are, they help to create our personalities and by taking these memories away we are no longer the same person. So is Johnny still Johnny once his memories are gone?

Total Recall

The year is 2084. Douglas Quaid is a construction worker, every night Doug has been having horrible nightmares about the planet Mars and it has become very obsessive for Doug. Doug goes to "Rekall INC" a company that sales false memories of ideal holidays. When Doug has a false memory of a holiday on Mars implanted, it all goes terribly wrong. Doug has lost his memory and he is being chased by a group of assassins and his beautiful wife Lori is a agent who claims his whole life is a fake and he isn't who he is. After discovering he is Hauser, a former Mars Intelligence agent, Quaid goes to the colony on Mars, in hoping of finding answers. Where he meets a woman named Melina who is working for rebels and the assassins are working for Vilos Cohaggen, the colony's corrupt administrator. As Doug sets out to discover who he is and why Cohaagen is after him, Doug not only is finding answers, he also begins to question reality. Is the events of Rekall INC, being chased by assassins and going to Mars really happening? or Is it all a dream?(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/plotsummary)

Total Recall brings into question what makes up an individuals memories and how we are able to preceive them. By looking at this film the audience is able to start to question their own ideas about memory and what makes a memory. The film is allowing the audience to question if it is a dream or if it is a reality. To me the film is a dream. This can be seen in a few different instances. One is when the doctor comes into Quaid's mind and tells him that this is a dream and that he has taken control of the dream himself. By having Quiad in complete control of the dream and then choses to see the bead of sweat drip down the doctor's face. Quiad made this happen. Another instance is when they say he will have total recall but this never happens. This is because Quiad did not pay for all of the memories that Hauser would have. It just comes down to that he did not pay for those memories and that is why he never gained them. Total Recall allow the viewer to come to grips that our reality is only what our mind and memories make of it.

Blade Runner

Los Angeles, 2019: Rick Deckard of the LPD's Blade Runner unit prowls the steel & micro-chip jungle of the 21st century for assumed humanoids known as 'replicants'. Replicants were declared illegal after a bloody mutiny on an Off-World Colony, and are to be terminated upon detection. Man's obsession with creating a being equal to himself has back-fired
Blade Runner this film bring a few different questions to mind, mainly dealing with Artifical Intelligence and the idea of immortality. The Replicants are the most advance A.I. that has ever been created they look and act like humans. Even when they are killed blood and gore come out instead of wires and batter acid. Blade Runner bring to mind at what point does the A.I. become an individual with all of the same rights as a human. Also by giving these replicants memories does this only add to their individuality.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/plotsummary)

The idea of immortality is also brought into this film. By having the replicants with memories it brings to question how long would it be until a human placed all of their memories into a replicants body. Is this the next evolution of humanity? To become binded with technology into the sense we will be unable to live without it. Is this the solution to all of the problems with A.I.? Placing all of our memories and thought into a body that is artificial? By doing this do we really answer our question concerning A.I. Man is jealous of A.I. or a cyborg, it will never die as long as its parts are replaced and it is serviced.

One thing that I didnt get within the film was all of the Asian culture within L.A. granted I could see the increase of Asian culture on the west coast but to the point where the majority of the city,we see, is Asian? I dont understand what the directer was going for here, especially for the year being 2019. I could see the shock value in it. Look how crazy looking L.A. is in the future it has all become as though it was a chinatown section within a city. Although this is a problem I have with the film it does not take away from the rest of the film and how great it truly is.

Tron

Hacker/arcade owner Kevin Flynn is desperate to prove that the hottest videogames from ENCOM were stolen from him by a former co-worker, who is now a senior executive there. Flynn's efforts, however, are made fruitless by ENCOM's "Big Brother," the megalomaniacal Master Control Program. One night, the MCP catches Flynn in an attempted hack and pulls him into the virtual world. Flynn finds that the MCP is making life in the virtual world just as, if not more, miserable as in the real world. Flynn's only hope is to find TRON, a heroic independent system security program, and help him destroy the MCP to bring order to both worlds. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/plotsummary)

Tron allows the audience to fully become immersed withing the film. By taking the human character and placing him into a computer the audience is also transported with him. The detail of the film allows for the audience to full understand the film. Also by using games of the time and also computers of the time it showed the audience that we are living in the future now. This goes a long with other films that we have already viewed. The idea that we are living in the future in the present is able to be seen within Tron just as it did in other films viewed thus far.

Looking at Tron a few different elements come to mind, the first being the large underling theme of ancient Greece. This only comes into play when looking into the computer. The outfits that the programs wear are very symbolic of ancient Greece. Also the idea of the games and having to fight within them also goes along with this concept. Epically that other programs are stolen and made into slaves to fight in the game just as slaves were forced to fight in the gladiator fights.

The idea of a quest that Tron must go on also cosponsoring with the notice of the Greek that often a mortal would have to go on a quest for the gods and in some instance the gods would help themselves. Tron is able to show the use of new digital technology within film, it creates a new digital Greece within the computer age.

THX 1138

The human race has been relocated to a underground city located beneath the Earth's surface. In the underground city, the population are entertained by holographic TV which broadcasts sex and violence and robotic police force enforces the law. In the underground city, society controls all life, all citizens are drugged to control their emotions and their behavior and sex is a crime. Factory worker THX-1138 stops taking the drugs and he breaks the law when he finds himself falling in love with his room-mate LUH 3417 and is imprisoned when LUH 3417 is pregnant. Escaping from jail with illegal programmer SEN 5241 and a hologram named SRT, THX 1138 goes in search of LUH 3417 and escape to the surface, whilst being pursued by robotic policemen. (From IMDd http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/plotsummary)

George Lucas is able to create a future world within THX 1138, within this world each individual is seen as a part to the larger whole. People are not seen as individuals only to sever the goals that must be achieved. Within the film there occur a few different instances that stand out within my own mind. These sections of the film bring into question many of Lucas's choices for plot and characters.

1) The presents of African Americans within this film are minuscule, only seeing them as part of the hologram program ( and later when the hologram escapes). This brings into question Lucas's thoughts about African Americans, in my option Lucas classifies everyone within this film. All of the humans have been broken down into their most basic function. This can be seen with the African Americans being used as only entertainment value. Now this notion of classification of group is not only seen in THX 1138, it can also be seen within the Star Wars Services. Often there are alien that depict different human races, these aliens are often stereo types of these different races. Could George Lucas have elements of closet racism that he hides through the use of digital technology?

2) The Hologram and THX 1138 comes across is very symbolic of Huck Finn and the run away slave Jim. Jim and the Hologram have many things in common, both freed black man on the run with a white companion. The Hologram is freed from the Holoprogram(TV) and is now on forced to flee with THX 1138. As Hologram and THX flee from their imprisonment they pass though a corridor filled with people, a metaphor for the Mississippi river referencing Huck Finn once again.

3) The last scene of the film shows THX existing the silo with the sun setting in the distance. This end scene only make me think of Japanese films with the rising/setting sun and the samurai. Even looking at the stance of THX resembles to an individual preforming Kata(practice/training fight). Many aspects of the last scene are lost on me for all I see is Samurai and not THX. This brings into question where Lucas is creating his ideas from, referring to #2 it can come apparent that Lucas is borrowing from past stories and events from both western and eastern civilizations.

Lucas is able to show what would be possible with technology and its use within the media of film, even though he used many elements of other stories to piece his plot together.