The Future and Looking Deeper Into Films

I am told to think of my future almost every day. Not a day goes by where we do not make a decision that will affect what happens later on in our life. The choices we make could have an impact on something as close as a second later to as long as something 40 years away. So clearly the future is one of the most important parts of our lives. A man that goes by the name of Ray Kurzweil is a genius when it comes to predicting the future. He is ranked eighth in the United Sates for entrepreneurs which makes him one of the leading inventors. By him making all of the different inventions, he received a $500,000 MIT-Lemelson Prize. What I understand from learning about Kurzweil, by the year 2030 our technology is going to be so advanced that machines will not be referred to as machines anymore, and we will not be known as humans. This could lead to numerous outcomes for our future. One possibility is that people might be able to live much longer or even for eternity, and their life could be more fulfilling by using this new technology. This would be a utopic world. It could also make things worse and become a dystopic world, for example, if people are already becoming more and more anti-social with the technology today than it can only get worse. Advancements could lead to more obesity and people not knowing what the real world is like. There are many pros and cons to technological advancements. 

Another interesting topic that I have been learning about of late is looking deeper into films. There is so much more to movies that I just never noticed. For example, the lighting effects on all of the different shots have a great impact on what message the director is sending to the audience. Some movies in particular go from happiness to depressing very quickly. When the movie is in a happy state the shots are usually bright and nicely lit up. Other times the movie is dark which symbolizes the depression. I also learned that there are different types of camera shots. "The three most basic shots are as follows: the long shot, the medium shot, and the close-up" (Snyder 2011, 178). These different camera angles have a great effect on the movie. By looking deeper into the clothing of the characters can give some great incite as to what their attitude is towards each other. For example, in War of the Worlds (2005) the son has a Boston Red Sox hat on and the father has a New York Yankees hat. The hats are just one symbol of how they are different. A few other scenes that mean more than what we would normally think of are when a character is walking and there is something crossing in front of the shot. A car would be a good example, it could symbolize how the character is always busy and their mind is always running at a fast pace. There are just so many little details that a normal viewer like me, would never spot while watching a film. This personally, is fun to do because it makes watching any movie more interesting.           

Utopia and Science Fiction vs. Horror

Utopia can be described in many ways, just because it is whatever you want it to be. "I agree that it is useful to think about utopia as a space in which to explore alternatives" (Baccolini and Moylan 2003, 18). Everyone has their own idea of what it looks like and consists of. The biggest part of a utopia is the government and what shape it is in. In today's world the government is in very bad shape and it does not look like things are getting any better. The economy has been at its lowest point in a long time since the Great Depression. In my opinion we are getting closer and closer to dystopia which is the opposite of utopia. Everything is very bad and people are poor, it is a world that no one would ever want to be in. The dystopian world might be run by a dictator which does not usually turn out well, just look at Adolf Hitler. Germany could be thought of as a dystopia, especially if you were Jewish. For Adolf Hitler this could be thought of as a utopia because he had all of the power and everything was being carried out the way that he wanted. The idea of this is that since everyone has a different utopia, one’s utopia could be another’s dystopia.

Science Fiction is a very broad term and many people have different ways of interpreting it. From what I have learned there is no specific definition. One of the first science fiction movies to come out was Destination Moon (1950). About a year later another movie was produced called The Thing (1951). No one was used to seeing these kinds of films and people ended up finding them very entertaining. Horror is another genre of movies that people started to create. I use to think these two were very similar, but in fact they are not. One difference that never came to me was that in science fiction movies, the creature threatens a group of people for the majority of the movies. The creature is also very unrealistic in most of these films, for example The Blob (1958) was about this big ball of mush that slid around and ate people. In horror films the monster is always after one person or group of people and this does not change until the end when most likely everyone is dead or there is one survivor. The monsters are usually more realistic in horror movies because sometimes it is a person who does the killing. For example, the original horror film Friday the 13^th (1980). In each movie there is a select group of teenagers who get murdered by Jason the serial killer. The closest the teenagers come to outside contact in the movie is a cop who ends up getting killed all the time due to ignorance and stupidity. Horror films give people the feeling of being vulnerable just because of how the characters are excluded from society. This is why horror is more frightening than science fiction. In my opinion horror is better than science fiction just because it is a little bit more realistic. On the other hand there is the possibility of some science fiction movies reperesenitng our future which would obviously make them more reasonable. 

Film Analysis One

Michael Mercadante

English 199–001

Film Analysis One

22 September 2011

Men In Black (1997): What it Really Means

            The science fiction film, Men In Black written by Barry Sonnenfeld in 1997, has a lot more meaning to it than people notice when they watch it.  Yes there are aliens, guns, and spaceships in the film, but it goes deeper than this and it can be connected to our society today.  To start off what does science fiction actually mean?  I never did know just what “science fiction” meant (Sobchack 18).  There really is no definition everyone has their own opinions.  Many people today have different stories that go from being abducted by aliens to seeing a UFO in the sky and all of this gives people ideas of science fiction stories.  There was supposedly an alien space ship that crashed in Mexico in the year 1971 and this is probably the most known government conspiracy.  All of this leads people to think, where do they hide it all?  Area 51 is thought to be the place where everything gets covered up by the government.  No one has found this top secret government base, but many people still believe that it exists.  A possibility is that if aliens do exist, maybe they could help humans create a utopia.  They could also cause much more chaos than there already is.  There is also something ironic about this movie, the setting is in New York City and this is where the MIB fight the undercover aliens.  This is not much different than how we are trying to stop terrorism in today’s world.  The attack on 9/11 in New York City is a huge part of history in the world today and it will never be forgotten.                     
            Before this gets into detail, MIB the movie came from a comic book called “Men in Black” written by Lowell Cunningham.  History is a large part of our life, but the present is even more important.  When I look up in the sky at night and see the stars many things go through my mind.  I think to myself, it is impossible that we are alone, there has to be other life out there.  MIB really brought this thought to life and made the possibility of other life become even more fact than fiction to me.  There are billions of solar systems in each galaxy and there are billions of galaxies in the universe.  The numbers are so large that it is impossible to grasp.  As of right now we do not have technology to reach far enough out in space to discover other life.  If we do ever come in contact with anything it will most likely be them coming to us.  This means that they will be much more advanced.  Hopefully that whatever it is that comes will bring peace to our planet earth.  In MIB there were aliens that were peaceful and aliens that were the opposite.  It gives the viewer a little taste of what the outcome could be if aliens did exist and if they were good or bad.  As of right now everyone in the world is basically separated by their country, race, sexuality, opinion, etc.  If aliens were to come then I think everyone would have to unite as one and forget about all of their petty little differences and work together if the outcome was bad.  In the movie it is a different situation, the MIB take care of the alien threat and no one on earth besides them knows what is going on.  This shows how oblivious the human race is to everything that is going on around them and how the government can easily hide important information from the general population.                     
            Our species is very complex, but one thing in particular that is very clear is how we do not always think or care enough about what is happening in the real world.  It is like we just plug ourselves in and block everything else out and live in our own little fantasies.  This, in my opinion is how dystopia is formed and the world becomes chaotic.  In the face of a hostile world, retreat, escape, or simply a compensatory fantasy to cheer yourself up may be reasonable and humanly valuable responses (Baccolini and Moylan 14). What this quote says is that once we are in a dystopian world we do not want to realize what is really happening.  In other words people seem to block out the bad stuff and just try to think happy thoughts to get away from it all.  If people stick to this method then nothing will ever get fixed and the world will just stay as it is.  In MIB the men who know about the aliens being on earth work together with them to try and fight off the extra-terrestrials who do not have good intensions.  If no one ever questioned the possibility of aliens existing then the MIB movie would not exist.  It is good that the film maker produced a movie like this; I know it sounds far-fetched, but who knows it could actually be happening right now.  It puts the idea in everyone’s mind and gives them something to think about.  If E.T. arrives here one day since they are going to be more advanced, maybe they could help the human race fix all of the issues that we have in present day.  For example our pollution on mother earth is probably the biggest issue to this day and will not move from a top priority because our lives depend on how we treat our home.  We are yet to figure out a way to not use diesel fuel or any type of toxic gas to run our machines, at least in a global wide situation.  There are a select few companies and citizens who have gone green, but not many.  Maybe there is life out there that has the solution to this problem which would lead to our atmosphere being stronger.  A stronger atmosphere adds up to to a huge decrease in global warming.  A disadvantage that could arise from aliens coming to our planet is if they come to take our resources.  In MIB one specimen comes for one purpose and one purpose only, to get O’ Ryan’s belt and he kills anything that gets in his way.  This shows on a smaller scale how it could be if aliens did not care about the human race, but came for our planet.  There are many other advantages and disadvantages that could arise from coming in contact with another species and MIB does a good job of showing this.     
            The director chose and ironic spot to shoot this film, he chose NYC.  The irony comes from 9/11 of 2001 because of what happened when the twin towers came crashing down from the terrorist attacks.  post-9/11 that we all have become accustomed to hearing, yet we still grapple with understanding its implications for our lives and our society (Snyder 294). In MIB, NYC is where all of the action happens. The aliens are disguised as humans which can be related to today’s terrorism.  Nobody knows when or where terrorists will attack, it is all done by surprise.  This is the hardest part of the war we are fighting in right now.  We are not standing in lines shooting at each other like the British use to do, the threat is unknown and they use all kinds of different weapons.  Some examples are RPG’s, mines, and road side bombs that can be activated by someone hitting a button on a cell phone.  Our soldiers can never let their guard down because they have no idea who they can and cannot trust when in hostile territory. All it takes is one wrong decision that could cost the lives of many young men.  In the science fiction movie, Agent K and Will Smith make decisions that impact other people’s lives in very drastic ways all the time to contain the alien threat.  Maybe not all of the characters have the consequences of death, but some of them do if they fail their mission.  Just like our soldiers over in Iraq and Afghanistan, if for whatever reason we never made the decision to put our foot in the Afghani’s door then the random acts of terror would be greater in the United States.  Our country would be in a much worse position with not just the economy but also with issues of innocent people dying more often than they already are.                                      
            In general, this idea that the writer came up with makes a huge impact on how people view the situation of aliens and the possibility of them actually existing.  For me it kind of gave me the chills, but at the same time brought excitement.  If there really was an underground layer where everything was hidden, also known as Area 51 it would be a spectacular place where numerous opportunities would arise.  If there are people in an actual hidden base right now, I’m sure they are doing their best with trying to improvise new ways of doing things for planet earth.  Something needs to be done about pollution as soon as possible before global warming becomes even worse than it already is.  It would also be ideal if somehow the world could stop fighting and realize how much worse everything could be if for example an alien attack were to happen and they just came in to try and wipe us out.  But for Utopia to be transformative, it must also disrupt the structural closure of the present (Baccolini and Moylan 16).  Hopefully one day peace can be brought to the planet and all of the secrets will be revealed.

Works Cited

Baccolini, Raffaella, and Tom Moylan. “Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination.” New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.

Bragg, Rick. "Men in Black Come From His Galaxy - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.    

Snyder, Mary H. “Analyzing Literature to Film Adaptations: a Novelist's Exploration and Guide.” New York: Continuum, 2011. Print.

Sobchack, Vivian Carol., and Vivian Carol. Sobchack. “Screening Space: the American Science Fiction Film.” New York: Ungar, 1987. Print.