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The Creature: The Thing and Alien

Horror is a vast genre, and one of the best at keeping an audience in suspense. The chilling dread that a good horror film can instill is priceless, but creating an avatar of pure fear is even more so. Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien, and John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing, take the classic horror idea of ‘The Creature’ and use their films to explore how an isolated group of humans attempt to defeat an alien organism. Both creatures have unique strengths but must overpower or assimilate the humans in order to escape. In Alien, the crew of the Nostromo, a mining ship, encounter the Alien, and in The Thing, an American Arctic Outpost is infiltrated by the Thing and devolves into paranoia.

Scott’s Alien has arguably been the most memorable and menacing alien design in pop culture for 40 years. The shiny black carapace, metallic teeth, and terrible oozing saliva enraptured audiences so much that sequels and spinoffs were bound to be made, further exploring how the Alien can outthink and outperform any human. It is an alpha predator with the ability to both hide and attack. It is larger, stronger, and faster than any human, with acid blood that makes it just as deadly when it is injured. The crew of the Nostromo, which accidentally let the alien aboard, attempt to stay alive while being used by the corporation and the android Ash to bring the Alien back to earth so it can be used as a weapon.

Carpenter’s Thing may have less lasting cultural impact, but certainly rivals the Alien in creativity. The thing is less tangible, and therein less marketable, but the suspense it creates is just as real. An alien organism that thawed out of the arctic ice, it has the ability to take on any form, and cells that can infect all other organisms and assimilate them until there is only The Thing. The power of The Thing lies in its shapeshifting ability. Anyone or anything could be ‘The Thing’, which ignites the paranoia and suspicion that tears the Artic Outpost apart. The protagonist and de facto leader, MacReady, attempts to keep order by minimizing the paranoia and organizing the living humans to destroy the Thing.

The hunter versus prey dynamic is one of the main differences in the films, with the Alien stalking the humans across the Nostromo and effectively eliminating them one by one. Even in the scenes where the crew is tracking the Alien through the ventilation system, Captain Dallas, the ship’s commanding officer, is not in a position of control. This proves deadly when he is hunting down the Alien and it still sneaks up on him and kills him. The crew must run from and attempt to escape the Alien, which to their horror is faster and arguably smarter than they are, so the dynamic throughout the film is that the humans are being hunted.

In contrast, The Thing centers around the creature being hunted down. MacReady puts it on the ropes when he finally figures out how to differentiate humans from the Thing. By putting a heated wire in a petri dish of human blood, they can determine who is human, due to the Thing’s defense mechanism. The Thing is unique in that each of its cells have their own consciousness, and each cell will defend itself from damage, which reveals the weakness that a single cell would rather avoid its own destruction than protect the rest of the cells. So when the heated wire is brought into the petri dish of Palmer’s blood, the blood moves supernaturally to avoid the heat, revealing the Thing, which must then attempt to escape but is finished off by MacReady. The Thing is still strong as prey however, just because the assimilated Palmer was destroyed does not mean the Thing was defeated, cells of the original monster had infected Blair, who would force the destruction of the entire outpost.

Ripley’s attempt to escape in Alien by setting off the Nostromo’s self-destruct system and using the shuttle to get away showcases how smart the Alien really is, it tracks down and kills the other two crew members, and hides away in the shuttle to escape with Ripley. This action is surprising because it heavily implies that the Alien fully understood that the self-destruct system was being armed and that it would only be safe if it entered the shuttle and hid. The intelligence the creature must have in order to make such a distinction is impressive and proves that the Alien can be a more patient and calculated creature than the Thing, as shown by how it revealed itself in the heated wire scene.

Alien ends with a sense of resolution, as the Alien is gone, floating in the vacuum of space, and Ripley has escaped. The Thing does not end with resolution, as it is unclear if MacReady and Childs (the last surviving humans) are infected or not. The paranoia of whether the creature has really been destroyed is evident as the two wait to freeze to death. If the Thing burned to death in the remains of the outpost, then the world is safe, but if not, when the winter ends, and humans come back to check on the outpost, the Thing could be thawed again and destroy the world. This is the real threat of the creature, despite not being as strong, smart, or immediately deadly as the Alien, its threat spreads inconspicuously and rapidly.

In conclusion, the creatures portrayed in Alien and The Thing are both deadly alien organisms that infiltrate and nearly destroy a group of isolated humans. The threat posed by the Thing may be more widespread than that of the Alien, but the Alien is an avatar of terror that can overpower any human and shows practically no weakness. Both aliens take the center stage as a ‘Creature’ of terror, cementing both films as terrifying and classic.

The Portrayal of Artificial Intelligence in Modern Sci-Fi Film (Nita)

The exploration of artificial intelligence in film is not a novel concept. Perhaps it has been such a popular topic because it leads humans to self-reflect on what exactly humanity entails. Two films come to mind when I think of modern films that prompt discussion on the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into society: Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014). Both films portray the dynamic relationship between humans and technology in similar, yet distinct ways. The two films do touch on the potential advantages of AI. However, both end on a pessimistic note, with Her and Ex Machina pointing out how the lack of a physical and mental sameness, respectively, can create turmoil.

Her seems to portray the relationship between AI and humans as adversely consuming. Though Samantha (AI) serves as an enhancement in Theodore’s (human) social life, she also acts as a barrier between Theodore and other human beings by replacing authentic social interaction. Throughout the film, the idea that humans are becoming increasingly isolated from their physical surroundings is emphasized through the usage of zooming. On multiple occasions, the camera will focus on a character and gradually zoom out to convey a sense of disconnection to the viewer. One particular scene in which this technique is employed is when Theodore talks to Samantha for the first time. As the two bond, the camera slowly zooms out, leaving Theodore and Samantha isolated in the center of the frame. This camera technique functions as a means of communicating the alienating effect of AI and its ramifications on the relationships between humans. Furthermore, in Her, relationships with AI lack one of the most fundamental elements of intimacy: physical closeness. This aspect of intimacy is emphasized when Theodore meets with Catherine to sign divorce papers. Upon seeing each other, the very first action the two take is to embrace one another – an act that is impossible in the relationship between Theodore and Samantha. During Theodore and Catherine’s conversation, a shot-reverse-shot technique is employed to highlight the authentic face-to-face exchange that is occurring—such as is missing in Theodore and Samantha’s relationship. As Catherine signs the divorce papers, a montage reveals moments that the two shared when they were in a relationship. All of the memories depict the two hugging, kissing, and touching; they also reveal what is lacking in Theodore and Samantha’s relationship. The emphasis on the physical nature of Theodore and Catherine’s relationship serves to point out the deficiencies in AI/human relationships. Additionally, the meeting between Catherine and Theodore suggests that AI can be used to escape genuine human relationships that demand more of an investment. Catherine confronts Theodore about not being able to handle human emotions, which consequently prompts Theodore to question the authenticity of his relationship with Samantha. Thus, the sequence underscores the issue of AI acting as a replacement for real, physical relationships between human beings.

Despite showcasing the negative aspects of AI, Her does suggest that AI can also serve a positive role in a human’s life. When dejected Theodore returns to his bed and recollects a failed date for Samantha, the AI acts as confidant and offers consolation. It is therapeutic for Theodore to discuss his feelings with Samantha, and he cherishes their increasingly intimate bond. Despite their different forms, Theodore and Samantha are able connect in a seemingly genuine manner.  A close-up of Theodore’s face is used in this scene to convey intimacy, even though a physical form of Samantha is absent.

A similar narrative arc can be found in Ex Machina. Like Her, the film begins with a cold gray-scale color palette and depicts a highly machine-dominated world as isolating and impersonal. Caleb’s entrance into Nathan’s advanced estate is daunting; the camera follows Caleb from a distance as he interacts with machines, until finally reaching another human (Nathan) in the depths of the overwhelming structure. Caleb and Ava’s initial exchange is also characterized as distant. The two characters are physically separated by glass, and the two faces are not shown in the same frame. As the film progresses, we see how Ava and Caleb (AI and human) become closer. The meetings between Caleb and Ava are depicted as becoming more intimate, with the camera positioned to show both faces in the same shot. Meanwhile, Caleb and Nathan’s relationship (human and human) deteriorates, while Caleb becomes suspicious that Nathan is the “enemy”.

Similar to how Her depicts the protagonist confiding in AI, Caleb discusses his negative feelings toward Nathan and begins to plot with Ava – in a sense, switching sides. The emotional progression of the plot leads us to empathize with her character while wondering how AI can be used in a moral manner to create a positive influence.

Ultimately, Ex Machina indicates that the possession of a human form may not necessarily translate into cognitive closeness between humans and AI. Ava’s “inhumane” betrayal of Caleb’s trust towards the end of the film suggests that AI’s lack of human consciousness may have problematic implications for humanity. Both Her and Ex Machina create an interesting dichotomy between AI’s capability to foster connection and disconnection. However, the two films have pessimistic conclusions, with the AI transcending the humans and leaving the protagonists’ lives incomplete.

LOVE DEATH & ROBOTS: What is Female Agency When the Female Body is Gone? Part 2 (Katie)

Two weeks ago I discussed the autonomy and survivability of women in the world of “SONNIE’S EDGE.” I’ve returned to discuss another episode in the action-packed anthology, one which puts a similar but new spin on the way women survive: “GOOD HUNTING.” As a story about a Chinese demon hunter, the colonization of Hong Kong, and the disappearance of old, natural magic in the world, there’s a lot to unpack. Spoilers ahead for the whole episode!

The first quarter of the episode opens with young son Liang, accompanying his father on a hunt to kill a húlijīng—a nine-tailed fox. Allegedly, the húlijīng has enchanted a merchant’s son, and the family hired Liang’s father, the demon hunter, to kill the húlijīng and get rid of the enchantment.

The father and son camp underneath the enchanted son’s bedroom window. His moans for the húlijīng ring out over the courtyard. Finally, the húlijīng comes. While Liang’s father and the húlijīng skirmish, Liang is momentarily entranced by the beauty of the húlijīng, and narrowly manages to throw dog’s piss over her body in time. The piss prevents the húlijīng from transforming completely into her fox form, leaving her in a half-fox, half-human state.

Liang’s father tracks the húlijīng to her den at a nearby temple. While they split up to scout for their quarry, Liang discovers one of the fox spirit’s hiding daughters: Yan. She is young, beautiful, and talks to him in her naked, snow-white fox form, emphatically inhuman. Liang is all eyes, even as he cowers, even as she leaps from rock to rock. And in a single argument, she changes Liang’s worldview.

YAN

Why are you hunting us? We did nothing to you.

LIANG

Your mother bewitched the merchant’s son. We were hired to save him.

YAN

Bewitched? He’s the one who wouldn’t leave her alone.

LIANG

That’s not true.

YAN

Once a man has set his heart on a huli jing, she can hear him, no matter how far apart they are. All that moaning and crying, she has to go to him every night just to keep him quiet.

LIANG

No, she lures men and feeds on them for her evil magic.

YAN

A man can fall in love with a huli jing just like he can with a human woman.

LIANG

It’s not the same!

YAN

Not the same? I saw how you looked at me. [4:26 - 5:12]

Immediately after this talk, Yan witnesses the graphic death of her own mother at the hands of Liang’s father.

The opening of “GOOD HUNTING” tells us immediately that this will be a subversive story. Here, the female húlijīng are not the evil, demonic witch-figures that men would paint them as; Yan is as sympathetic as she is inhuman. This is the first argument that “GOOD HUNTING” will make about the agency and power of women: the beauty of a húlijīng is a not a weapon used against men, but men will oppress her for it all the same. They will resent the way they feel about a beautiful húlijīng, and they will blame the feminine fox spirits to absolve themselves.

As the episode reaches its halfway point, Liang’s father passes away. Now a grown young man, Liang lives in a modernizing village: the first trains travel through the countryside, and the colonizing presence of the British Empire looms large over natives’ shoulders. For their last meeting in a long time, Liang and Yan commiserate about the state of the dying earth around them. Yan speculates that the magic is disappearing from the earth due to “iron roads” and “machines that breathe smoke” (6:46). As the magic leaves, so does her ability to change into her “true form” (6:52). Soon, she may lose the ability altogether.

The steampunk twist that “GOOD HUNTING” takes, a sharp veer from its fantastical origins, is another message about female oppression. It is, after all, mother nature that begins to be exploited and mutilated for arrogant white men. All the (literally) magical beauty of the earth, including that of the húlijīng, is slowly suffocated once ambitious men enter the picture.

Years pass. The episode continues to tell the story of Liang. He finds himself extremely skilled at engineering, specifically that of automata; even as a much-hated minority in Hong Kong, he makes himself useful to the British and has a decent living. On a chance encounter, he bumps into Yan. He rescues her from a group of overly eager British men who seek to have their way with her.

As they catch up, Yan tells Liang she has been permanently stuck in her human form: “no claws, no sharp teeth. I can’t even run very fast. All I have is my beauty. Now, I live by the very thing you accused my mother of: I bewitch men for money” (9:05). She laments the lack of power and control she has over her life in Hong Kong: “I dream of hunting in this jungle of metal and asphalt. I imagine my true form leaping from beam to ledge to terrace roof until I am at the top of this island. Until I can growl in the faces of all the men who believe they can own me” (9:40).

The story that Yan presents is that of a loss of agency. When Yan grew up, she had both her human and fox form. Now, she is chained to her human form, and she is forced to use her beauty to survive. This is in direct contrast with how Yan and her mother were treated in China, where they were wrongly hunted for being too beautiful. The world of men has declawed the húlijīng. Not only did men take away her ability to transform into a being with sharp teeth and claws, they made safe the one thing they feared most about a húlijīng: her beauty. Yan’s beauty is now merely a tool for getting by, a plaything for rich, white, colonial masters.

So far, in every aspect of storytelling, “GOOD HUNTING” has depicted a universe in which women are hardy and survivable, but terribly oppressed. Unfortunately, things only get worse for Yan from here.

Yan’s long-time client, the Governor, was only sexually attracted to machines. Naturally, the Governor decided to drug Yan and strap her to an operating table. By the time they were finished, Yan was entirely a machine. The ultimate fantasy for men who lived and profited off automata.

Yan’s non-consensual body swap, and the complete and total murder of her autonomy, needs no explaining. But “GOOD HUNTING” is not without hope. Far from it.

When Yan comes to Liang and tells her his story, she reveals that she escaped the Governor by killing him. One night, she told him no, and it enraged him. He struck her. She struck back and realized how much strength she had gained with her metal limbs: “A terrible thing had been done to me. But I could also be terrible” (12:38).

Yan reassures Liang that she does not want to reverse what has been done to her body. She wants to make the best of it. How? By using what automata parts existed in her, and changing them to become something else entirely.

At the end of the episode, Liang has successfully changed Yan’s machine body—originally made for man’s sexual pleasure and subjugation—into one that, with the right amount of coal and fuel, transforms into a lithe, agile, and beautiful nine-tailed fox. Shimmering under moonlight and padding gracefully on the balcony of Liang’s house, the automata-fox-form of Yan is graceful, dangerous, and dazzlingly powerful. From then on, Yan does what she promised she would do: growl in the faces of all the men who believe they can own her.

While the storyline of “GOOD HUNTING” is filled with hardship and oppression for both Liang and Yan, Yan’s story is ultimately optimistic—boldly, emphatically, and rebelliously optimistic. When Yan lost control and ownership of her entire body, she managed to make the best of it and, with the help of another oppressed party, become something closer to her original self. Even though she has been through hell, she persevered, and she was rewarded for it in the end.

But it’s true: Yan suffered terribly for being a beautiful woman, both as a child and an adult, and both in a rural village filled with magic, and a modernized world filled with steam-run automata. Yan had to lose all of her organic body in order to gain the ability to transform into her fox-form—to gain power—again.

Like “SONNIE’S EDGE,” “GOOD HUNTING” also seems to think that the only way for a woman to achieve anything close to true power is to not be a (biological) woman at all. And even then, there is something bleak and grim about that power. For Sonnie, it is having to fight for her life every time she enters that ring. For Yan, it is the complete loss of her actual body and true form before she could return to her fox form again. While women in these sci-fi worlds can survive through oppressive hells, it is entirely unclear whether what lays on the other side was better than what spawned those hells.

There’s still more I want to talk about. Why do Yan’s story and Sonnie’s story feel so similar? What does it mean that all the women in these sci-fi settings seem to get treated with ultra-violence? Why do increasing amounts of modern stories tell us that, when high-tech finds a throne in the world, oppressed groups get jailed into the low life? But these questions must be saved for another time.

Works cited in this text:

“GOOD HUNTING.” LOVE DEATH & ROBOTS. Netflix. March 15, 2019. Netflix.

LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS: What is Female Agency When the Female Body is Gone? (Katie)

I cannot lie: I love a good sci-fi story. When LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS released on Netflix, I made quick work of binging the animated anthology. The first episode I saw (although Netflix has apparently randomized episode orders for this series) was “Sonnie’s Edge,” which had me thrilled and shocked in multiple ways throughout its 17-minute duration. One of the questions the episode asks, at least in my opinion, is what female agency, victimization, or empowerment means when the female body no longer exists.

There are spoilers ahead in my discussion of the short’s plot and implications, and I’m also including a trigger warning for rape due to the episode’s nature. (Seriously, there will unfortunately be a lot of talk about rape in this post.)

Now, onto the plot of “Sonnie’s Edge.” In a futuristic and dystopian society where prize fighters compete in death matches for money, we follow a day in the life of one female “pilot” who is exceptionally skilled at controlling her “beastie.” The beasties are the gladiators in the arena; they are bioengineered monsters made for killing.

As the opening sequence cuts to introduce our main characters, a few things immediately stand out. A notably female-presenting companion, Ivrina, and a noticeably male-presenting companion, Wes, walk in with Sonnie—who looks androgynous, if not far more ambiguous in terms of gender presentation. Her name, “Sonnie,” also evokes a more masculine aura to her character, even though her slimmer and curvier frame denotes some presence of conventional femininity.

The first conflict Sonnie faces is with a rich and corrupt man, Dicko (great naming right there), who wants to rig the next prize fight. He will pay her hundreds of thousands for her to voluntarily lose the next round. When Sonnie tells him to screw off, Ivrina steps in to further defend her from the old man. It is in the exchange between Ivrina and Dicko that we learn of Sonnie’s backstory—and this is a noticeably exposition-y bit of dialogue. When I say noticeably exposition-y, I mean that anyone versed in a little bit of writing will realize just how shoehorned the dialogue feels.

Here’s my transcription of the bit of dialogue, taken from Netflix subtitles, plus screen directions.

IVRINA

[Exhales angrily] Fucking men. It’s cunts like you that fucked her up to begin with.

Bodyguards approach Ivrina threateningly.

IVRINA

[Sighs] Fuck. A year ago, Sonnie got snatched by an estate gang, and when they was done using her, they started cutting, slicing their marks into her flesh. Can you imagine that kind of pain, that kind of humiliation carved into her skin? A lifelong reminder of that day. So when Sonnie steps into the pit, she’s not fighting for pride or status and certainly not for your fucking money. She’s carving up the men who did this to her. [3:30 - 4:11]

See what I mean? At least to me, the dialogue felt like someone writing a background inspired by some erotic fantasy. It was put in purely for the benefit of the watcher, and it was done in a quick and dirty way that seemed to want to titillate or horrify rather than offer meaningful explanation. The exposition appears much like other incidents of rapes of female characters in media nowadays, many of which seem to be written in for no other reason than the shock factor.

I was unimpressed with this bit of writing, but the ending of “Sonnie’s Edge” actually did an impressive thematic reversal on this blatant—and even almost disrespectful—telling of Sonnie’s past.

Later, when Sonnie is having a discreet conversation with Dicko’s female consort, they flirt and talk about Sonnie’s past. (Their conversation is more like foreplay than anything else, with kisses and soft touches included.) Here’s the relevant excerpt:

DICKO’S CONSORT

But that night, the gang, the…

SONNIE

Rape. Yeah. It’s not that. They can’t see past it. No one can. But it ain’t what gives me my edge. Angry little girl, out for revenge. Dicko believes that shit…

Dicko’s consort lightly tugs one strap of Sonnie’s shirt off a shoulder.

SONNIE

… ‘cause he wants to. They all do.

Dicko’s consort slides her dress straps off her shoulders.

DICKO’S CONSORT

[Slowly raising her skirt] Everyone sees what they want to see.  [12:50 - 13:33]

I felt like “Sonnie’s Edge” was calling many of the audience members out, myself included. Once we heard Sonnie’s shocking backstory within the first five minutes of the episode, all we could think about was her history.

Not to mention the fight scene between Sonnie’s beastie, Khanivore, and her male opponent’s beastie, Turboraptor. There’s plenty of forced, penetrative imagery between the beasties that’s rendered a lot more noticeable once you remember Sonnie’s apparent origins—definitely an intended effect.

We only saw Sonnie in light of her rape. We all saw what we wanted to see, even if the episode does reinforce seeing Sonnie in this specific light.

But there’s more to discuss. The twist ending to “Sonnie’s Edge” includes more violence to the female body. It turns out that Dicko’s consort is a bioengineered servant made to execute Dicko’s commands, and she penetrates Sonnie’s skull with Wolverine-like claws from her knuckles right after a kiss. Dicko comes out of the shadows to gloat.

Sonnie is dropped to the floor, and her skull is bashed in by Dicko’s foot. When Sonnie’s voice does not falter, and she does not die, it’s revealed that Sonnie was Khanivore the entire time. Khanivore then kills both Dicko and his consort.

While the explicit logistics aren’t made clear, the gist of the reveal is as follows: Sonnie’s original body was lost after the gang attack; Ivrina and Wes linked her consciousness with Khanivore’s, and Sonnie lives solely in Khanivore. Her human body is just a bioengineered puppet from her uploaded brain, and when she is fighting in the pit as a beastie, she is fighting for her life. That is her “edge.”

There is a lot of complexity to this short episode’s plot. The episode seems to take on a feminist role at the surface, with Sonnie being a character like Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The episode also makes a big deal out of Sonnie being the only female pilot in the beastie ring.

But what about the writing itself? The writers wanted everyone in the audience to think about Sonnie’s rape origin story in every minute of the episode, up till the very end. Much like Sonnie says, we can’t see past it. References to the rape in imagery and small plot points keep the origin story fresh in our minds; clearly, writers want us to be thinking about Sonnie’s rape, even if only as a blind to the real twist.

I found myself asking this question by the end of the episode: if Sonnie survived the rape not as a human woman, but an uploaded consciousness linked to a beastie who literally fights to live, which is better?

As a beastie, Sonnie has unlimited power at her hands. Physically, she is superior to all the beasties in the ring so far; she is mentioned to being on a 17-count win streak. She is obviously superior to every human; she’s a bioengineered monster made for killing. But she has limited autonomy and limited friendship with even her closest apparent friends, Ivrina and Wes. Khanivore, or Sonnie, has to keep fighting in the pit to make a living, and she has an added stake of needing to stay alive while in the pit—unlike every other pilot, her consciousness is directly tied to her beastie’s. Additionally, the implication of Ivrina and Wes finding Sonnie’s broken body and uploading her consciousness into Khanivore means that, at worst, they only saved her as a means of profit, or, at best, out of a desperate lack of other measures.

The picture that “Sonnie’s Edge” paints of female power and agency, then, is bleak. Sonnie, even in her most powerful form as Khanivore, is still subjugated to other forces—whether or not the female body is still intact. These other forces can include the violence of men, or the oppressive difficulty of surviving in a dystopian society. This message is also reinforced in the character of Dicko’s consort. She is completely without autonomy: every one of her acts is in service to Dicko, regardless of her physical superiority to him. (She is a more subtle and organic-looking, but she can be a killing machine, too, as evidenced by her Wolverine-like claws.) There seems to be no hope: Sonnie was raped and apparently nearly killed by men as a human, and when she became Khanivore, her new physical powers were restricted only to the pit, where she faces a greater loss than her opponent if she loses.

Might we be able to say, then, that “Sonnie’s Edge” at least views female endurance and survivability with optimism? Even if there’s no autonomy for characters like Sonnie or Dicko’s consort, even if the only source of happiness for many characters is achieving violence against an opponent, can we at least say that the women in Sonnie’s world can stick through anything to see another day?

Yes, although the optimism is laced with grit. Sonnie’s “edge” is the real, omnipresent fear of losing her life in the ring. She claims she’s always afraid in her conversation with Dicko’s consort, and by the end of the episode, she openly cites her fear as the thing that keeps her alive. It’s admirable, how indomitable Sonnie’s will to live is, even if it may be depressing that she needs the fear to begin with.

Then the question becomes why the framing of Sonnie's backstory needed such a specific blind. Do women in the world of "Sonnie's Edge" require a digestible, plausible backstory in order to go unnoticed by men and the rest of society? Perhaps; Sonnie states that she keeps her story so that men like Dicko can believe it. But it doesn't keep her safe; what keeps her safe is the secret that she no longer has a human body. And that argument is even more bleak: the only way to stay safe as a woman in Sonnie's world is to not be a woman.

All in all, “Sonnie’s Edge” is a visually stunning science fiction piece that falls comfortably into the grim and cynical subgenre of cyberpunk. Besides the thrilling colors, fight sequences, and beautiful animation, I think it plays with storytelling expectations in interesting ways... even if the rape as a red herring may not have been totally necessary or respectful. That’s a question I’ll have to tackle another time.

Works cited in this text:

“SONNIE’S EDGE.” LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Netflix. March 15, 2019. Netflix.

The Inspiring Plot of Captain Marvel: Subverting Expectations (Katie)

March 8, 2019. This day has two particular meanings—not only is it International Women’s Day, it is also the day Captain Marvel (2019) arrives in theatres in the USA, UK, Canada, China, and more nations across the world.

This was certainly intentionally done. It’s no secret that Captain Marvel is about Carol Danvers, a skilled, otherworldly heroine who takes her empowerment into her own hands (much like DC’s Wonder Woman did in 2017). Both official trailers even identify Carol’s femininity and womanhood with her pure heroism (the trailer slogan words, “DISCOVER WHAT MAKES HER,” animate seamlessly into “DISCOVER WHAT MAKES A HERO,” emphasis mine). After seeing the film for myself, I must say that Captain Marvel did a brilliant job in portraying a truly powerful and human female superhero.

Of course, it was a movie done by Marvel Studios, which means a few things. Was it more focused on thrilling action than murky-yet-inevitable and psychologically complex character evolution? Yes, probably. Was there the shoehorned humor that accompanies every Marvel movie? Absolutely. Did it fall into the same formulaic structure that Marvel is notorious for? Of course!

Still, there is veritable merit in having a rote, run-of-the-mill superhero action flick where every important character is a woman instead of a man, especially including women of color—and besides, I would make the argument that Captain Marvel breaks the formula in subtle but meaningful ways. I think Carol’s story is standard-defying and satisfying, and that it does more than the generic Marvel origin movie.

Spoilers ahead for the film!

One of the most remarkable things in Captain Marvel is Carol’s literal and figurative journey to self-realization. When Carol is introduced to the audience, she is a soldier struggling to place the memories that surface in her nightmares. (Hint: they’re from her suppressed past life on Earth.) She has no idea who she was before her arrival on Kree, the warrior-saturated planet led by one artificially intelligent supreme leader. Indoctrinated by her commander and the honorbound, war-oriented society of the Kree, Carol believes the shape-shifting alien race, the Skrulls, are her enemies. She also mistakenly believes the Kree gave her her superheroine powers.

Her (male) commander, Yon-Rogg, is a mentor figure who preaches rational control over her emotions. He criticizes Carol for having a sense of humor, for having anger, and for using her unique super-abilities in sparring and on the field. (I also must point out that women being over-emotional is still a common and unfair criticism of women today.) His eventual reveal as an antagonist makes the journey Carol embarks on all the more poignant.

Why? Yon-Rogg was the one who abducted her from Earth, having witnessed the inciting incident that gave Carol her powers. He believed she was a key to Kree’s success in their war against Skrulls, in one way or another. Presumably tinkering with her mind, and frequently telling Carol that her own memories are nothing worth worrying about, Yon-Rogg effectively brainwashes and continually gaslights Carol to keep her playing her manufactured role in Kree’s society. Even as she rebels against his definition of her place in Kree, she is punished; the supreme leader tells her that what was given to her can be taken away, referring specifically to her super-abilities.

If Carol being forced to play a role that society arbitrarily decided for her sounds too familiar, I can’t say that wasn’t all intentional on Marvel’s side.

As Carol continues to unveil her past—working with humans on Earth who laugh, get angry, and never try to restrict her natural abilities—she reconnects with figures from her old life. (It is notable that her best friend, Maria Rambeau, is a single black mother with a bright daughter, and that Maria flew with Carol in her Air Force days.) Carol learns that the Kree have been brainwashing her, and that Yon-Rogg has been lying to her: the Skrulls are more refugees than terrorists, and the Kree are a conquering, war-hungry society that swallows planets. (It is also remarkable that the Marvel Cinematic Universe changed Carol’s idol and Kree turncoat, Mar-Vell, into a woman instead of using the original man.) Carol makes it her quest to save the Skrulls, betraying Yon-Rogg and the Kree.

This plot is important. Not only does Carol break from the mold that was forced onto her by Yon-Rogg and Kree society, she discovers her true self and true powers because of her break. She discovers that the Kree did not give her her powers; they chose to lie to her as a form of control. When Carol breaks from Kree’s role for her, she finally takes full control of her powers and becomes a truly formidable heroine.

Literally, Carol betrays the Kree, and gained preternatural abilities. Figuratively, Carol breaks free from the restrictions that society forced on her and becomes the best version of herself. In my opinion, the duality of Carol’s journey is not seen in any other Marvel film—and Carol’s journey is especially relatable for women all over the world.

One other way in which Marvel breaks norms with Captain Marvel is in one of its final confrontations. Other Marvel movies involve heroes grappling with their greatest rivals for prolonged amounts of time, bashing each other bloody or fighting until one party is dead. Carol’s final confrontation with Yon-Rogg, surely, must be similar…

But it is not. Not only does Carol display mercy and respect for even her enemies’ lives by the end of the film (at the start, she is much more disposed to the violence that Yon-Rogg and her comrades in arms display), her big fight is hardly even a fight.

Yon-Rogg taunts her by sheathing his weapons and raising his fists, yelling at Carol to “prove herself.” She could never win in her spar matches with him without using her powers, so her moment is now; can she beat him with just her fists? Carol has none of it. She blasts him with her powers and ends the fight immediately.

As she walks up to Yon-Rogg, she says she has “nothing to prove” to him, and offers him a hand. (Yes, she drags him across the desert landscape and back into his ship with a message, but she treats him first and foremost with mercy.) There is no grand, VFX-heavy fight like in all the Avengers films, and even in great solo films like Spiderman: Homecoming or Dr. Strange, no final fight is quite as rife with complex poignance. Besides offering mercy to her enemies, Carol says a lot when she states that she has “nothing to prove.” Not only does she mean that she has given up Kree’s ideals and her old life in the Starforce, she also means that anyone who tries to restrain her, or anyone who puts their expectations on her, can screw off.

And if that isn’t a resonant message with plenty of female members in the audience today, I don’t know what is.

All in all, the writing in Captain Marvel may follow a general standard for all Marvel Studios films, but there is much more in the subtext than I had ever expected it to have. The inspiring changes Carol Danvers goes through in the course of the film mean it works both as a fun, thrilling superhero movie and as a fantasy and ideal that all women watching can identify with and hope for.

Human Roles Revealed in Alien Settings: Female Presence in Sci-Fi Films (Katherine P.)

“First contact” movies – where humanity first encounters beings or intelligence from another world often contain grand themes that are intended to test the limits of what it means to be human.  In the midst of such existential themes, there are three first contact movies that also reflect upon our societal values towards women and reflect our shifting attitudes towards women in general.  Three movies, Contact, Arrival and Annihilation, not only examine fundamental themes relating to humanity’s existence, but also show the rapid evolution of the role of women in our society.  Collectively, these three movies demonstrate the ever-changing perceptions and ideals relating to what it means to be a strong, independent modern-day woman.

Prevalent male and female social forces manifest themselves in all three movies.  In Contact, released in 1997, Dr. Arroway is portrayed as a brilliant scientist, but whose efforts are constantly thwarted by men.  Her male superior (David Drumlin) kills off funding of her project in Puerto Rico, dismissing it as pseudo-science and impractical.  Drumlin later steals credit for Arroway’s discovery of the original messages and is eventually chosen as the initial Earth representative for the journey to visit the aliens who left the message.  Drumlin is chosen over Arroway primarily for political rather than merit-based reasons (because of Drumlin’s willingness to embrace a message of faith/God over Arroway’s message of science).  Another male character, Michael Kitz, the National Security Advisor, is a constant thorn at Arroway’s side, and even turns hostile as the movie ends in accusing Arroway of helping to perpetuate a hoax on the world.  Even Arroway’s love interest, Palmer Joss, turns out to be Arroway’s primary hurdle in that Joss pointed out Arroway’s lack of religious faith as a disqualifying trait to be Earth’s representative.  The main beneficial male character in Contact was a super-rich industrialist S.R. Hadden.  Hadden was the only private party willing to invest in Arroway but he eventually dies in space due to cancer, and is thus unable to help Arroway defend herself when she is eventually accused of fraudulent conduct.  Contact features a strong, intelligent and confident woman, but who is buffeted both professionally and personally by a world that is still controlled by men.  We get the sense that these male-dominated forces eventually dishearten Arroway’s spirit and it is only in the support of Arroway’s male love interest, Joss, that Arroway is able to regain a sense of purpose and resolve.

The theme of male/female conflict and control is also prevalent in Arrival (released in late 2016) but also features an evening out of the playing field.  Banks’ partner in the project (and eventually her husband) Ian Donnelly is a renowned physicist.  Donnelly makes some positive contributions to the deciphering of the alien’s language, but it is clearly Banks who is the driving force in communicating and understanding the meaning of the overall message.  Banks is the one who first approaches the communication from the basic levels and she eventually understands that the message is being communicated from a perspective where time is not relevant.  In developing an understanding of the alien language, Banks herself is able to perceive reality in way that is not entirely time-dependent, which means that she experiences flashes of the future.  This ability allows her to prevent a global and possibly inter-stellar misunderstanding which could have resulted in tremendous negative consequences for humanity.  Arrival presents Banks as not only equal to but greater than in several respects to males.  Arrival does not, however, entirely dismiss male contributions.  It is because of her romance with Donnelly that she feels more complete personally and professionally.  Banks’ daughter, Hannah, is born with Banks pre-knowledge that Hannah would die young from an incurable disease, and Banks still makes the choice to have that child with Donnelly.  Donnelly is unable to cope with the fact that his daughter will eventually die and leaves Banks and Hannah.  This illustrates the choice-driven female strength portrayed by Banks’ character, which is vastly different than the men-ruled world of Contact.

Annihilation takes the male/female dichotomy to an even greater extreme.  Lena (we are not told her last name) is initially portrayed as a doting, pining wife of Kane.  Kane has disappeared for a year, and Lena is going about her duties as a teacher/researcher.  When Kane comes back from his mysterious mission, Lena learns that the nature of Kane’s mission and that she may be one of the few who is able to solve the mysteries of the Shimmer and cure her husband.  The military has deduced that females may be more resistant to the effects of the Shimmer and organizes an all-female team to enter into Shimmer.  While each member of Lena’s team eventually succumbs to the Shimmer (which apparently acts as a way to greatly heighten and splice genetic mutations), it is only Lena who is eventually able to reach the source of the Shimmer (i.e. the lighthouse) and destroy the Shimmer (which in turn helps to restore “Kane” back to full health).  In dramatic contrast to both Contact and to a lesser extent Arrival, Annihilation (made during the MeToo heights of early 2018), males are portrayed as not just powerless, but also as essentially useless and in need of rescuing.  Kane is rescued by his wife, Lena.  However, the real Kane does not, in fact, survive the Shimmer, and only appears as a clone that has some of Kane's memories.  Females are the ones that are necessary to complete the all-important mission – and females are the ones that take on male-dominated roles.  The female team wields the high-powered military guns and kills (or attempts to kill) the monstrous mutations caused by the Shimmer.  Additionally, we see that Lena engages in an affair with her colleague Daniel before Kane decides to take on the assignment to go to the Shimmer, and we infer that it is because of Lena’s affair that Kane decides to leave for the doomed mission. This again reinforces the notion of the power of female action on the male mindset. 

All three first contact movies present humanity’s introduction to alien life in starkly different manners.  Contact, Arrival and Annihilation all present grand themes that force the careful viewer to think about some typically cherished core values.  Apart from such grandiose schemes, however, these three movies also introduce an interesting comparison and contrast to gender themes that are prevalent at their respective times.  One of the best lessons that we can gather from viewing this trio of movies is that our ability to understand the messages from the outside is best understood by examination of the dynamics and implications of the relationships that we internally hold. 

Artificial Intelligence and the Screen: Modern Depictions of the Machine in Film (Katherine P.)

    Science Fiction has been a genre in the film almost since the beginning. From Fritz Lang’s groundbreaking 1927 film, Metropolis, to the Star Wars franchise, the proliferation of movies made in this area has seen an evolution as it changes with the times.  These films typically feature advanced gadgetry or machines, but leave the human element more or less the same.  More recently however, with the current rapid growth of modern software technology, more and more films are exploring the possibility of a future or a present where there are human-like automata. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina presents an in-depth view of a singular machine, while Alex Proyas’s film I, Robot offers a view of a hypothetical where machines are omni-present in society. Even though AI is generally viewed in an unfavorable light, the way films examine it is fascinating.

    Ex Machina is a meditation of the psychology of AI and it illustrates this though a detailed account of one machine, Ava. Artificial Intelligence is described as a type of awareness that is displayed by machines rather than an organic creature such as an animal or a human. The film, through detailed and emphatically scientific test sessions, raises a couple of possibilities when it comes to dealing with an entity that has the characteristics of a human being, but it in itself is clearly not human. Ava is shown to have an objective in the film of connecting and interacting with the person who is picked to test her, Caleb, but in the end, abandons this relationship in favor of escaping the confines of the testing facility she is kept in.  The idea of AI here is to for Ava to develop independent responses that match the main objective of connecting and interacting with Caleb.  Ava, however, appears to have another goal.  Although Ava’s objective is not explicitly stated in the film, but given Ava’s ultimate actions, it appears that Ava’s objective was to simply escape. Artificial Intelligence in Ex Machina is generally presented as having a specific programmed goal in mind, and to do the most possible to execute such goal. However, unless it was programmed to do so, AI should not change anything else in the outside world that is not necessary for the purposes of completion of its intentions. If we assume Ava’s goal is to escape and to integrate into the human social system, then the actions she does to get there are both logically and intrinsically necessary, and are not in contradiction to her core AI programming.   In hindsight, that the film does not make Ava’s intentions clear is a flaw since it is imperative in creating an AI being – that is, having a true AI being means having to accept the planned outcomes of the AI’s motivations.

    In contrast, I, Robot, ventures into the idea of an AI governing multiple machines and the consequences of such a hive mindset. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics drive the robots in this film. The Laws entail that a robot may not injure a human being or allow a human being to come into harm. Additionally, the robot must obey the orders given by a human except when it violates the first rule. Lastly, as long as it does not conflict with the first or second rule, a robot must value its own existence. In I, Robot, the instigating action is the murder of a human by the hand of a robot, which directly conflicts with the Three Laws. This anomaly is only allowed to come to be as a result of human volition to program the robots to oppose the Laws, and the fact that the robots are not individually controlled, but are under the control of an AI. As a result, a question this film raises is whether these rules, which are only in place for human protection and robot preservation, are actually flawed and unnecessary. However, in the film the NS-5 robot population are programmed with these rules in mind, and eventually their implementation is overridden by the anarchic plans of the master of their connected minds.   Like in Ex Machina, this movie also explores the inherent contradiction of trying to apply rules to AI.  The very nature of AI in both movies appears to preclude the notion of universal adherence to pre-programmed rules. This speaks to how even though the Laws were set in place for robots, they do not explicitly account for the possibility of an evolving AI controlling such robots. The introduction of an AI in the equation brings about countless confounds and variables that most certainly could lead to an unforeseen circumstance. The fact that the AI controlling the NS-5s is volatile and dangerous in that the objective it sought to complete is detrimental to the human race does not paint AI in an overall hopeful light insofar as this relates to the ability of humans to control the AI.

    While both Ex Machina and I, Robot appear to portray largely pessimistic views of the future of AI, it is made evident that they dive into different aspects of the nature of AI and the possible application of such advancement into society. As technology continues to advance further and at a faster rate, such concerns and potentialities become increasingly relevant.  The contradictory nature of AI makes control of AI almost impossible.  That film is a widely consumed medium makes it the ideal outlet for the exhibition of such prospects, and the warnings that both films appear to make hopefully will be heeded by those who advance the science behind AI. 

The Perfect Electric Man (Conor)

    The fundamental question that Videodrome (1983 dir. David Cronenberg) is concerned with is a question that naturally arises from increased interaction between humans and machines: what are the limits of the human subject? Are the machines that human beings rely on effectively a part of humanity? In a world where the average American watches multiple hours of television a day is it fair to assume that the television has moved beyond simply being a source of entertainment and that it now can be considered a part of human beings no different from their own brains?

    Max Renn, the protagonist is representative of an archetypal film or television audience. His constant urge to observe reflect the voyeurism inherent in any film audience. The camera itself moves through the movie like an unseen stalker, forcing the actual audience to approach the film with the same perverted intensity that Renn does. By making the audience to respond to the film the same way Renn responds to Videodrome, Chronenberg is exploring how persuasive film and television really are.  The audience ironically considers how much of Renner’s thoughts are his own because of thoughts the film has planted in their minds.

    In this light, some of the fear that Videodrome inspires is based around the realiziation that there is no functional difference to Renn whether his thoughts are his own or not. As Jack Creley’s Brian O’Blivion himself says, “there is nothing real outside of our perception of reality”. Good science fiction should examine questions of how changing technology would affect humankind, and Cronenberg’s is no exception. He is taking a critical look at the relationships between modern media and the very idea of human identity. The TV, Cronenberg implies, may as well physically be a part of the human brain.

    The uncomfortable meshing of man and machine is expressed through the uncomfortable violation of Renn’s own body. The disgusting slit in his stomach that allows him to receive programming via VHS tapes is a physical representation of how television influences audiences.  The sometimes gratuitous special effects Cronenberg employs become physical representations of the anxiety of losing personal individuality that permeate the film. The constant deforming and violation of the human form represents the same ideological defilement that occurs when human beings allow machines to become such an integral part of their everyday lives.

    Ultimately Cronenberg’s film is both cautious and pessimistic. On one hand, he implores the audience to think critically about the effect of introducing media machines into such a large part of their lives but on the other hand he recognizes that it is pointless to attempt to differentiate the human and the machine. While the anxiety towards so drastically altering the human subject is well placed, it is pointless because there is absolutely nothing to be done to prevent the television from becoming an integral part of human thought. Videodrome is a rare film which uses the pure metaphysical pathos inherent to the medium of film to create a warning about how powerful that pathos really is.

Trains, and Where They Take Us (Jaeyoung)

 

  [SPOILERS AHEAD]

 As someone who lives somewhat far from campus, I am no stranger to long hours on public transportation. The trip between Baltimore and Massachusetts takes ten hours by bus, which is quite tedious. But it also gives me a lot of time to reflect (and nap). And every now and again, my brain asks me this question (probably primed by the fact that I’m on a moving bus): “Where am I going in life?”

 And I would respond, “I don’t know, what does that question even mean? Next question.”

 However, in the Korean films, Train to Busan and Snowpiercer, the idea of direction is crucial. Given that these films involve a train and a destination, it is not surprising that they both approach this theme. But Train to Busan is pretty blunt with this, as we already know from the title that the protagonists are trying to reach Busan… by train. Now the question this film poses is how this journey shapes the characters: their emotional direction. And if I could be perfectly honest, I don't think that's very interesting of a question.

 To be fair, I should note that Train to Busan is a zombie film; therefore, it is somewhat confined by and borrows from other movies of that genre. The behavior of the zombies is strikingly similar to that of World War Z (fast and maniacal), and it delves into the same ethical dilemma explored by The Walking Dead (who do we let survive, and who is part of our people?). But to its credit, it does break from other zombie films in that it invokes a lot of class-conflict overtones.

 Perhaps the most pertinent example of this comes from the interactions between Seok-woo, a young hedge fund manager, and Sang-hwa, a gruff but charismatic every-man. Their first encounter isn’t pleasant; as Sang-hwa is being chased by zombies, Seok-woo initially decides to sacrifice him for the safety of everyone else. There is a shot where Seok-woo looks like a heartless corporate monster. And then he has a change of heart and lets him in, only for Sang-hwa to scold, “All of you people are the same.”

 But this is exactly the trap Train to Busan falls into: generic characterization. Seok-woo is the yuppie with the heart of gold. His daughter is the innocent “eyes” through which we see a cruel world. Sang-hwa is the masculine comic relief. The list goes on, with a Romeo and Juliet-esque young couple, an unfeeling, dogmatic middle-aged man who serves as the antagonist, and many more in this cornucopia of archetypes.

 And the development of these characters builds like this; Seok-woo, who is only slightly caring in the beginning of the movie, becomes very caring by the end. The young couple, who were flirting in the beginning, die and become zombies together. The antagonist, who is mean in the beginning, becomes even meaner by the climax. Therefore, the direction of this film follows the same predictable manner the title does (and in the way most blockbuster films do). It has a Newtonian storyline, where the force manifests as zombies while objects manifest as the characters.

 In Snowpiercer, we are also led to believe that the story will follow a unidirectional story. In this film, humanity is contained in a single train that is protecting it from an icy post-apocalyptic world. The train is divided into two main parts: the upper class and the “scum” in the tail cars. The story follows Curtis Everett, who leads the tail-car-people in a revolutionary struggle to the front engine. The plot is simple enough.

 But the plot isn’t everything; as Curtis and his crew advance, each compartment is carefully observed; from the vanity of the garden to the debauchery of the dance club, every aspect of human livelihood is carefully recorded. In addition, every loss of life is significant, as Curtis places the burden on himself. Each step becomes harder and weirder as the crew encounters a crueler and wilder world.

 It is evident, then, that director Bong Joon-ho doesn’t just settle for character development. Instead, he allows their environment to change too, creating a dynamic relationship between the train and the revolutionaries.

 And, it turns out, the Snowpiercer is not unidirectional. When Curtis finally reaches the Front Engine, Minister Wilford, the creator and caretaker of the engine, subverts both Curtis’ and audience’s expectation by ceding power to him. Curtis realizes that even if he were in power, nothing about the violent system would change; order and balance is far stronger than any human emotion. And as the perpetual motion engine continues to revolve, the film reveals that Curtis hasn’t reached the finish line. He has only made a full circle, ending up in essentially the same place.

 However, Snowpiercer presents yet another direction with Namgoong Minsu (a security expert) and his daughter, Yona are presented. Namgoong continually reminds Yona to be aware of the outside world, what lies outside the window. While everyone else is focused on what’s happening inside the train, Namgoong has the acuity to see that the world is becoming habitable. Since the train completely derails by the end, destroying the microcosm everyone has been so obsessed about, Namgoong’s prescience prevails. If anybody “wins” in this movie, it is those who (literally) think outside the box. Perhaps this could be a lesson for other filmmakers.

 Now let me ask myself the question I posed in the beginning of this entry: “Where am I going in life?”

 My current answer: “Forward, and then some.”

The Line Between Fiction and Reality Was Overrated Anyway (Treva)

I have discovered a new favorite niche genre: paranormal mockumentary. Or whatever Mermaids: The Body Found can be defined as. Because this film, aired on Animal Planet in May 2012 and The Discovery Channel three weeks later, isn’t funny per se. There is no joke, no “mock” in sight. All 90 minutes are presented as an entirely straightforward, scientifically factual documentary on how mermaids exist—having branched off from human evolution some seven million years ago—and the US Navy is engaged in a vast conspiracy to conceal this from the public so they can continue testing SONAR weapons in the ocean.

I could make this up if I tried, which is why Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel should really hire me to write and direct a similar film on dragons—which they’ve made before, in Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, but that took the coward’s way out and admitted that dragons do not, in fact, exist today. Mermaids: The Body Found does not for a moment admit to being fiction. In fact, it over and over includes just enough factual data to leave the viewer wondering, just briefly, “could this be real?”

Because there really has been debate about the Navy testing SONAR weapons and how those may or may not have a harmful affect on marine mammals. The “aquatic ape” hypothesis has been proposed twice, independently, in 1942 and 1960. Christopher Columbus really did claim to have seen mermaids on his way to the “New World”, there really are people in Brazil who partner with dolphins to fish, and there really is a cave in Egypt, in the desert by what used to be a shore, with primitive paintings of what anthropologists think are humans swimming.

Mind you, the people in the paintings don’t have tails, as Mermaids depicts. And historians are fairly sure Columbus saw manatees—he certainly didn’t describe them as having “pale, speckled bellies, dark blue backs, and paddle-shaped tails.” There was never a mass whale beaching in Washington in April 2004, and the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis has been discredited and disproved every time it’s been suggested.

Yet the film stands in fascinating contrast to something like What We Do in the Shadows, a 2014 mockumentary in which, per the explanation provided in text at the start, “each crew member wore a crucifix and was granted protection by the subjects of the film.” Yes, that’s right: it followed vampires around in their nightly lives.

In Wellington, New Zealand.

What We Do in the Shadows has all the mock. It parodies the sort of documentary that explores subcultures by presenting a subculture that obviously does not exist. It makes fun of vampires (and werewolves, zombies, witches…) by continuously playing with the incongruity between the darkness, terror, and perhaps even erotic intrigue the audience is led to expect from legends like Dracula and Nosferatu and the mundane details of living in a flat in Wellington, NZ. They bicker over the chore roster. Viago (Taika Waititi) puts down towels before he kills people, so the blood doesn’t get everywhere. And, my favorite (SPOILERS AHEAD): the romantic intrigue does enter with the Dracula-like character of Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), who once tyrannically ruled a small chunk of Eastern Europe before he was defeated in epic battle by his arch-nemesis “the Beast.” In classic documentary style, manuscripts and artwork of the battle are shown while Vladislav narrates his tragic story.

…Only for it to later be revealed that “the Beast” is his name for his ex-girlfriend, Pauline, who refers to him as “Asshole.”

Mermaids, however, has none of that. Even one of the most potentially incongruous moments, the one and only time a live mermaid appears onscreen in the modern day (rather than in the openly CGI segments set millions of years in the past) is absolutely serious. In Shadows, the head-height, handheld camera removes a great deal of grandeur from the occasional fights—as does the fact that the vampires look anything but elegant when they take to the air or hiss at each other like angry cats. It’s amateurish and ridiculous. Whereas the brief attack of two boys by a SONAR-wounded merman, shot with a shaky cameraphone from 2004, is amateur in a way that evokes true terror, not to mention unofficialism. That is, this is what the government doesn’t want you to see. The merman, too, hisses, as it lunges sideways into the narrow frame (who knows what else could be beyond the viewer’s field of vision…) But where the vampires, grown men is costumes from the 1700s and before, seem absurd, the mermaid is fierce and animalistic.

And terrified, and hurt. It’s already been established at that point that the other beached beings—whales—were literally bleeding from their ears, and had been something like physically bombarded by subsonic SONAR. They had blunt force trauma. It’s easy to see the merman’s distress as human, too. When the vampires in Shadows are humanized, they are made petty and amusing, with chore charts and ex-girlfriends—normal problems. The mermaids, on the other hand, are humanized with emotion, such as in the segment set 1.6 million years ago, in which one sacrifices himself to distract a megalodon shark away from the rest of his migrating pod. Though the voiceover calls the group of mermaids a “pod”, as if they were dolphins, rather than something more human like “clan” or “tribe”, the emotion in the merman’s eyes is as real as CGI can make it, and the music swells with piping sorrow as he awaits the megalodon’s jaws.

Yet the narration is dehumanizing, and it is the only words spoken in these part of the film in which the story of the NOAA scientists investigating mermaids in the modern day is punctuated with the same sort of flashback one would expect to see in any documentary on some animal’s evolution. The mermaids don’t speak a recognizable language, but the narrator has the same sort of deep, serious voice that always narrates nature documentaries. And we have all seen tragic nature documentaries, with death-by-predator and soaring, tragic pipes in the soundtrack. The conceit here is simply that instead of CGIing ancient mammoths or crocodiles or whatever, the teams at Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel have simulated mermaids. With just as much factual data as they would the mammoths and crocodiles.

I want more. I’m an imaginative woman; I can go along, laughing, with the conceit that there are awkward vampires living in Wellington. I’m perfectly to accept that as reality, just for fun. But it’s even better that every varyingly-accurate “fact” cited in this article was something I actually paused Mermaids: The Body Found in order to google, because I wasn’t sure whether to believe them or not. The film was entirely scientific, no magic in sight, but that only made it easier for my logic-conditioned mind to accept that the world might really be more magical than I had thought. That’s a gift.

So yes, I’d like one on dragons next, and then fairies—I know there’s a blurry photo of them somewhere from late 19^th century England or so. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that on the internet. Then maybe unicorns? Bigfoot? The Loch Ness Monster? I’m sure those already exist, but not professionally, by people actively making things up to support the theory. Yes, it might be confusing—but what’s wrong with looking up half a dozen different scientific and historical facts in an hour and a half? I learned things! And if you can’t be bothered to hit the search bar, well, the line between fiction and reality is overrated anyway

Help! I'm in Love with a Horrible Movie (Rachel)

Over the years, less and less people have been asking me The Question. “Rachel, what’s your favorite movie?” I’m sure it’s because word’s gotten around about how difficult The Question is for film majors to choose just one, but I guess it’s also because I stopped answering with my actual favorite film. It is true that I’ve always found answering The Question difficult, but it’s more so because my favorite film, Sunshine (2007) is not your usual answer. I get strange looks, even from my fellow film-majors, because who doesn’t answer with the expected, Citizen Kane, or War-Kong Wai’s In the Mood for Love? And absolutely no one, not even my closest friends, had seen Sunshine before I made them watch it. So even if I do answer the question truthfully, I get a second question-- Well what is it about? And quite simply, I can never do the movie justice.

I first watched Sunshine my senior year in highschool. I was in the Advanced Creative writing class and for the last unit, my teacher decided to introduce us to writing for Film. He showed us a number of greats, Fargo and No Country for Old Men, just to name a few, but the last film we watched was Sunshine. Though I don’t remember what my final script project was for the class, I remember every moment of watching that movie. It was raining outside, so the room was dark and cozy like a movie theater. Some of my classmates were doing homework, but others, like me, settled in our seats as our professor introduced the film.

“This is a movie,” He said. “Watch it.”

The film begins with a basic premise: In the year 2057, our sun is dying. The earth, due to the lack of heat, has frozen over into a second ice age, and humanity is slowly succumbing to it. A team of scientists embark on a mission, the second of its kind, to place a nuclear bomb in the center of the sun in order to jump start it. Simple right? Basic sci-fi premise, apocalypse scenario. You’ve probably heard a similar story a thousand times. The beginning of the film is likewise standard, with the crewmembers of the Icarus II, their gigantic, sun-reflecting spaceship, discussing the importance of their mission, and how they can succeed when the previous mission, Icarus I, failed. The previous mission had lost contact with earth seven years prior, and the fate of the crew is unknown-- but the sun was still dying, so Earth knew that Icarus I had failed.

Everything goes well for a time in the Icarus II. The crew have a fully functioning bio-center which produces the oxygen needed for their long journey to the sun, they have plenty of food, and for the most part, the crew gets along with one another. When they happen upon the floating corpse of the Icarus I, however, everything goes downhill, fast. I held my breath as they chose to explore the abandoned ship-- partly because of the suspense, and partly because of the immense amount of white, floating dust present on every surface. I wondered what could have caused this dust to aggregate on an empty space ship if all the crew were dead… and then the realization hit me. It was the crew.

A lot of the film is like this. It twists and winds along unknown paths, but you feel led to every development through subtle clues. It shocks you with realizations that you knew deep down, but didn’t want to admit to yourself. A big part of the film is surprisingly focused around religion-- or more specifically the question of humanity's place in the universe. The theme of dust makes this particularly evangelical, as one of the characters states, “At the end of time, a moment will come when just one man remains. Then the moment will pass. Man will be gone. There will be nothing to show that we were ever here... but stardust.” Sounds familiar, right? Along the lines of “For you are dust, And to dust you shall return,” from the Bible. Now I’m not saying that Sunshine is the most original movie, but it’s certainly effective.

One of my favorite parts of the film does appear until nearly the end. The “monster” or “alien” that infects the spaceship in fact, is never clearly seen. Though I won’t spoil exactly what this monster is, he is shown as being a liminal creature, never quite existing in the physical world, but certainly physical enough to start picking off the crew members one by one. The way the camera moves around him is both terrifying and unique, with a lens-baby like wetness that makes it feel as if you are in a nightmare, unable to open your eyes fully. Though much of the film is filled with beautiful, wide-landscaped shots of the Icarus I and space, it is these close, intimate, and disturbing close-calls with this monster that truly make the film different from any other sci-fi flick.

So why is Sunshine my favorite? Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’s one of the reasons I became interested in film in the first place. In the rainy-darkness of that classroom in highschool, I watched a film that incorporated both a mind-blowing story, with incredible visuals, and a monster that you don’t even have to see to be afraid of.

After watching this film a hundred times, of course I saw it flaws-- but every film student finds flaws in film, even their favorite ones, and still loves them all the same. Though Sunshine has a 76% on rotten tomatoes, and all my film friends give me funny looks when I mention it, this movie will always have a special place in my heart. So don’t be afraid to like horrible movies. If you love it, go ahead and love it, and say proudly it’s your favorite. Because loving a horrible movie doesn’t mean you have bad taste in film, it just means you love it’s flaws just as much as you love what is good about it…and you learn from that. So love your film’s flaws. Love it’s cheesy one-liners and predictable plot, and never worry about answering The Question ever again. 

And it might just make you love film more.

From Homewood to CERN and Back Again: Search for the Higgs Boson in "Particle Fever" (Helen)

 

3D view of an event recorded with the CMS detector in 2012 at a proton-proton centre of mass energy of 8 TeV

 

Johns Hopkins University's very own theoretical physicist, Professor David E. Kaplan, and director Mark Levinson’s first collaborative documentary Particle Fever (2013) hit the national film circuit this past month. It is first feature length film chronicling the four major experiments of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the five-year quest for the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Although Particle Fever had a relatively slow start at the box office, this film is as much of an achievement in aesthetics as it is in documenting one of the biggest scientific events in recent history.  Assisted by such film titans as editor Walter Murch and composer Robert Miller, Levinson follows David Kaplan and his academic contemporaries through the ups and downs of the largest particle accelerator ever constructed. 

I attended the sold out debut at the Charles Theater last Sunday with the entire graduate physics department. David Kaplan also attended the screening, introducing the film to an audience composed entirely of Hopkins PhD students, and one undergraduate film major. To further my anticipatory anxiety, my only academic exposure to basic physics concepts ended sophomore year and I haven’t looked back since. While particle physics may seem a little intimidating to the average viewer, Kaplan’s scientific explanations in the film provided just the right amount of information to help me understand as well as receiving the approving nods of the more qualified audience members. Beyond that, the passion and excitement beaming from the cast of scientists involved in the LHC appeared to be contagious, as I found myself actually sitting up at the edge of my seat.

Besides recording one of the most important scientific events in my lifetime from the ground floor, Particle Fever piqued my curiosity by functioning as a human-interest piece on the top particle physicists in the world. What is perhaps more impressive, is that a group of people operating on such a high level of a subject I knew very little about were so incredibly relatable. Very early on in the film, Kaplan interviews his mentor Dr. Savas Dimopoulos, who explains his motivation behind his work in theoretical particle physics as something between art and science. He explains the process in which he chooses his next research endeavor as such; to put it simply he looks for questions that are intellectually fascinating but also reflect an artistic creativity that sets him apart from other scientists in his field. The film also follows Kaplan’s peers such as Nima Arkani-Hamed, one of the most famous particle physicists not only of his age group but also on a global scale. Levinson manages to capture the finesse and skill of Nima’s chalkboard equations in a way that resembles Leonardo da Vinci and his sketchbook to a particle physicist. My favorite character within the film however, was first year CERN post-doc student Monica Dunford. The film contained many of her own video logs as well as a variety of interviews at her work and home spanning the entire five year journey of the ATLAS project, the most publicized experiment at the LHC. As an experimental particle physicist, she explained the distinction, or really delightfully trash talked, the theoretical side of her field. Playfully begrudged, she admitted the symbiotic relationship between the dreamers and the doers, with a slight bias towards the experimental side.

In addition to inspiring an academic passion I didn’t anticipate, the film also resonated with me as human being who has admired the night sky and wondered about the vast interworkings of the universe. The crux of the film, finding the Higgs Boson, now had a much greater significance than when I originally read about it in the fall of 2012. It wasn’t just another particle discovery; the existence of the Higgs had the entire field of physics hinging on it. Everything we knew up to this point about our world and the infinite space surrounding it was supported by two basic particle theories, “Super Symmetry” and “Macroverse”. Both required the Higgs discovery to be possible, but also, data from the experiment could potentially confirm which theory was correct. The mass of the Higgs Boson particle was the deciding factor. It was projected to be around one of two masses: a lighter ~115 GeV and a heavy ~140 GeV corresponding to “Super Symmetry” and “Macroverse” theory respectively. While this is treading into esoteric territory, the simplified version is that “Super Symmetry” supported the existence of more particles that created a stable and balanced universe. “Macroverse” on the other hand, negated the possibility for the discovery of new particles and perhaps the notion that our universe is unstable and unfortunately temporary. Not only was this a dramatic climax in any ficitional sense, the fact that this was a reality was both exciting and terrifying. To summarize, space is as fascinating as it is potentially lethal and particle physics is 'much' cooler than it sounds.

 

The Cronenberg Body Horror (Bedram)

There is arguably no bigger name in body horror than David Cronenberg. The Canadian is often credited as one of the originators of the genre, with his notable works including Rabid, Scanners, and The Fly. One of his best explorations into the genre was the 1983 film, Videodrome. While his earlier work, Rabid for example, displayed scientists experimenting on human bodies and the subsequent effects on societal order, Videodrome focuses more on the effects on the individual, though the individual in question can be viewed as representative of the masses.

The film revolves around Max Renn, the president of a television station, who is looking for new material. He is introduced to Videodrome by the man who runs the station’s pirate satellite dish, a show displaying the torture and murder of random strangers. When he asks what the plot is, he is told that there is no plot. The mutilation and murder just goes on for an hour. “Absolutely brilliant” is his response.  He becomes increasingly obsessed with the show, even watching it with his date. She becomes sexually aroused, and the two have sex with it on.

On the surface, one might think that the film is arguing that exposure to sex and violence leads to desensitization. The film does not seem so interested in tackling this issue, however, focusing more on showing that television is a weapon itself rather than the contents that appear onscreen. Max eventually uncovers the secrets around Videodrome, which involves a shady organization (Spectacular Optical) wanting to use the broadcast to manipulate the masses. The head of the organization, Barry Convex, tells him that the violence in the show affects the nervous system, “opening receptors in the brain and the spine” which allows the signal to sink into people, permitting them to be turned into drones. This establishes the idea of television affecting the body, taking it to the extreme and having it go all the way down to our organs and nerves. Max himself becomes a drone, carrying out the will of the organization. If the theme of media being able to influence individuals was not clear enough, Cronenberg includes a scene in which Max has a videotape shoved inside him by Convex, allowing Spectacular Optical to program Max’s mind and control his life. While over-the-top, it gets its message across: television (mass media in particular) programs its viewers.

The film ends with Max taking directions from a television, one that seduces and even shows him how to kill himself. The television is a manipulative object, and once again Cronenberg takes it to the extreme. While sex and violence were the trigger of this entire conflict, they were only a means to a greater end, a vehicle to spread a message. As Max is told, “…it [Videodrome] has something that you don’t have, Max. It has a philosophy, and that is what makes it dangerous.”

David Cronenberg’s foray into body horror is widely believed to have ended with his 1999 film, eXistenZ. His son, Brandon Cronenberg, however, has started from where his father left off. His directing debut, the 2012 film Antiviral, tackled the genre that his father had explored numerous times, taking a social and cultural issue (the power of celebrity culture) and exaggerating it to make a point.

Unlike his father’s films, Antiviral is clearly set in the future, one characterized as extremely sterile. Walls, chairs, clothes, and so forth are almost always stark white, adding to the biologically driven story. While some of David Cronenberg’s films were set in the near feature, they often felt like the present. The future in Antiviral does not feel that way, but at the same time, it does not appear too far away.

In this future, the celebrity-obsessed culture has escalated to unprecedented heights. In order to feel closer to the celebrities they love, people buy the viruses that plagued them, having it injected into their bodies. Syd March, the protagonist of the film, works for one of the companies that acquires and sells the viruses. To make extra money he pirates the illnesses, which involves injecting himself with it, his body serving as an incubator. The obsession over celebrities even carries over to an odd form of cannibalism, in which people can buy meat cultivated from the cells of certain celebrities.  

By combining celebrity culture with something as bodily as viruses, Cronenberg is able to explore the theme of celebrities as ideas and contrast it with the human beings behind those constructs. Syd injects himself with a virus from superstar Hannah Geist, but finds out soon after that she had died from that very disease. Syd is eventually contacted by Hannah’s family, and he learns that Hannah is not yet dead, though she is dying. Syd gets to meet her, and this is one of the very few times she is shown in person. She is simply a sick human being, bedridden and constantly coughing up blood. Her face is drained of its color, bearing no resemblance to the divine, pervading figure plastered on the news and ads across the city. Even when she is finally shown in person, she is emphatically human and not-human due to her ghostly figure.

Both Videodrome and Antiviral use the body horror genre to dissect a part of our culture, taking something already present in our society and exaggerating it. Videodrome is increasingly regarded as having been a couple decades ahead of its time, foreseeing the increasing impact of technology and media, especially with today’s Internet. As for Antiviral, it’s not difficult to imagine that celebrity obsession will continue. At times it appears that celebrity news already takes precedence over more pressing current events. Brandon Cronenberg does take a similar approach to satirical prediction as his father did in Videodrome, but despite his father’s rather grand status in the body horror genre, he manages to display his own unique vision. 

Dystopian Love Stories: Heartbreak in the Digital Age (Helen)

I usually find romantic film to be a subject that’s all too sugary-sweet, but the sub genre that has been building steam in recent years provides a refreshing, albeit somewhat terrifying, discussion on human intimacy with the ever-evolving technology of convenience. In the same way, generations adapted to telephones, Internet access, and smart phones, these fictional characters must tackle the paradox between having complete access to world from their fingertips and the strange sense of alienation from never having to leave their home to do so. These films ask the question, is such a thing as too much access? Too much information? Is contentment possible when there seem to be infinite options? Is the technology that is made to assist us, perhaps stunting us?

 

Spike Jonze’s most recent film, Her (2013), looks into these questions with a slightly different spin in what I would consider to be a fairly convincing realistic look at artificial intelligence and the moral ambiguity of developing a personal assistance technology that is capable of independent thoughts and feelings.  The story follows a recently divorced introvert named Theodore Twombly in the year 2025. The ethical questions raised in this film revolve mostly around his developing romantic relationship with his OS “Samantha”. Although, it is worth noting that there are a lot of interesting moral quandaries for the viewer to consider within the background of the main storyline. For example, Theodore works at a company that ghostwrites romantic letters to the customer’s significant other under the assumption that it was written by their spouse and of course, not contracted out to a stranger. Although this deceit seems to be with the best intentions, that ethical grey area is the crux of the film. Both his career and the OS provide parallel examples of modern services meant to make life simpler that seem to instead desensitize an over stimulated population. Although this film shows the delight and feverish highs of Theodore’s relationship with “Samantha” through beautiful cinematography, it is clear from the start that his love will end in tragedy.

 

One of the most striking scenes in the film is when Theodore goes on a blind date set up by his coworker Amy. The woman he meets, who is never given a name, is played by the stunning actress Olivia Wilde. Although she is awkward at first, the close camerawork is intimate rather than suffocating. Their interaction is slow to spark, but develops into a romantic chemistry. However, when she asks him about permanence and commitment he hesitates and recedes. After his failed date he speaks at lengths to “Samantha” about it. It is a subtle reminder than Theordore is retreating from life itself, comforted by the convenience of technology. As time passes, it becomes clear that more people have begun dating their OS, including his only close friend, Amy who is also struggling with her “human” relationship. Towards the end of the film, Theodore descends down the stairs to the subway, with his blue tooth in ear speaking to “Samantha”. As the camera follows him, the same blue tooth can be seen on the various strangers passing him by. This film is less of a cautionary tale, and more of a discourse on the complexity of human intimacy and desire being swept away in the changing tides of modern advancements.

 

Michel Gondry’s film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) offers another perspective on the romantic drama with a science fiction twist. This film however, begins with the end of a relationship and shows the lengths to which someone will go to forget and suppress their former flame. While the technology in this film is entirely familiar with the exception of the memory-erasing machine from the fictional company, Lacuna Inc. Gondry mixes aspects of life that are entirely relatable into this science fiction story. The film opens completely unremarkably with Joel Barish waking up and commuting to the Long Island Railroad on a Valentines Day like any other, so he thinks. In reality, most of the film is presumed to be Joel’s memories running through his head as he is having them erased. Much of the film is shot in montage with Joel’s narration over top, similarly to how memory is perceived. The non-linear timeline forces to viewer to recall and reorder the scenes to piece together the story just as Joel does.

 

Although the story mostly works backwards through a relationship retroactively, the flashbacks recall moments of genuine tenderness and pain for Joel and the object of his affections, Clementine. However, just as in Her (2013), the technology meant to soothe proves to be harmful for Joel. The oversimplified solution to a breakup is too permanent for fickle human desire. The film raises other ethical dilemmas through the various relationships in addition to Joel and Clementine’s. For example, Patrick, the Lacuna employee that erases Clementine’s memories falls in love with her and begins dating her. He uses Joel’s journal to relive his experiences with Clementine in order to manipulate her affections, knowing she won’t remember them with Joel. Lacuna’s receptionist Mary, also learns that she had an affair with the married doctor that runs the company, but had all of this memory erased. Even though she had her memories erased, the attraction she had for her boss developed again. Proving, that the system is not only traumatic but also ineffective. Learning of their own pasts, Joel and Clementine decided to try their relationship again, with a somewhat optimistic ending. Although, the greater implication is that their relationship is likely doomed to fail again.

 

Both of these films and the subgenre of science fiction romantic dramas address an anxiety between technology simultaneously simplifying our lives, but also making things much more complicated, especially in how we interact with one another. I'm not sure how things will be in ten or twenty years, or if these fever dream ideas will ever be realized, but it's something to keep you up at night. To put it simply in the immortal words of 1986 one hit wonder, Timbuk3, "the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades".

 

 

Attack On Titan: The Preservation and Destruction of Social Order (Yasmine)

A society is typically formed by a group of individuals interconnected by shared values, norms, and culture.  Members of a society maintain social order by reinforcing established customs to keep its members in check and ensure stability.  In the emotionally charged Japanese anime, Attack on Titan, humanity struggles to keep its society in tact as humanoid giants called Titans relentlessly devour humans, forcing mankind to hide behind fifty-meter walls to save themselves from extinction. In the beginning of the series, the idealistic protagonist, Eren Yeager dreams of a free life outside the walls, contradicting the mores of his society which prefers a life of containment to certain death.  The barriers which humans have erected to escape annihilation become both a sanctuary and a prison for the kingdom, signifying society’s propensity toward social constraint and fear of that which disrupts social order.

The three walls: Wall Maria, Rose, and Sina exemplify the way in which societies rely on social structure for stability and containment of its members. The story’s narrator explains that since its creation not a single Titan has been able to infiltrate Wall Maria, thus inspiring social tranquility.  With its immense height and enduring structure made of solid stone, the one-hundred-year-old wall epitomizes permanence and security. An aerial view of the Zhiganshina District enclosed in Wall Maria reveals a somewhat medieval society with an organized collection of homes and markets.  The carefree social interactions amongst the townspeople, the trading of goods in the market, presence of families, children playing, and a laid back police force give evidence to the sense of peace and stability humanity experiences within the walls.  In contrast, the outside world and the Titans who rampage in it are equated with chaos and cultural genocide.

The Titans’ place on the fringe of society, their incomprehensibly monstrous behavior, as well as their unorthodox appearance makes them the antithesis of civilization and societal control. Though the Titans resemble bipedal humanoids, their gargantuan size, nudity, and deformity immediately sets them apart from the civilized humans inside the walls. Despite shambling about aimlessly in groups, the Titans do not conform to any preconception of a uniformly functioning community. The Titans’ zeal for devouring people and wiping out humanity for no discernable reason makes them a hideous blight on human progress and a potential disruption of social order. Since Titans do not need to consume people to sustain their own existence, humanity assumes the Titans’ singular motivation is the eradication of human life and culture. With Titans possessing neither a complex language system, nor a means of governing themselves their actions are unpredictable and symbolically anarchistic. In this sense Titans are more than just a threat to human lives; the terror they instill jeopardizes the social glue that keeps society from falling apart.  The Titans’ resemblance to humans makes their murderous actions more disturbing, suggesting that without social control and stability the illusion of peace would falter and humanity would succumb to an existence of endless conflict and violence amongst its own members. To spare society from the Titans’ negative influence, humanity heavily guards what is left of its customs, placing an exaggerated emphasis on the necessity for containment within the walls to keep curious members from the lawless world beyond.

Although the three walls surrounding this human civilization safeguard the communities from the uncivilized outside world, they also imprison them, limiting their perceptions. The dynamics of the insular kingdom demonstrate how the walls are heavily embedded within the social structure of humanity’s sequestered survivors. A priest travels the districts of Wall Rose shouting praises and personifying the wall as though it were a savior and a god, exhibiting the wall’s influence on the citizens’ religious and cultural life. It becomes evident that any mention of life beyond the wall is considered culturally taboo when Eren’s friend Armin expresses a desire for humanity to explore territories outside the wall and is consequently harassed by a group who accuses him of heresy. This shaming ritual and other methods of social correction: such as ridicule and shunning perpetuate an isolationist mentality, a fear of change, and a dangerously irrational optimism. As Eren says, humanity’s fear of the outside world has made it like “ignorant cattle” merely “surviving” but unable to live or control the terms of its existence.  Like cattle the inhabitants of Wall Maria were unprepared for the slaughter.

The sudden appearance of the first 60-meter “Colossal Titan” looming menacingly over the wall literally paralyzes society, as citizens of Wall Maria stand still and helpless beneath the Titan’s powerful gaze.  With a mighty kick, the Colossal Titan breaks the barrier, instantly mangling the carefully constructed society. As citizens scramble to escape the horde of Titans, homes, families, and social order are destroyed as Wall Maria crumbles. This indicates humanity's lack of control, the inevitability of change, and society’s need to adapt to it. Once again humans must flee the Titans; the “humiliation of being kept in a cage” intensifies as they retreat to the more confining inner walls, desperately seeking structure which, like Wall Maria, has fallen apart almost beyond repair. In order to save themselves, the people must learn to accept and face the threat of the Titans head on if they ever hope to reclaim what they have lost. 

Why I Stopped Watching Doctor Who (Sam)

I have a confession to make: I hate Doctor Who as it is being run by Steven Moffat. I have loved it in the past, and because of the nature of the show, I'm sure I will love it again some day. But when Moffat became showrunner, Doctor Who lost not only the heart of what made it an interesting show, it forgot how to simply tell a good story at all.

Let me give some background for the uninformed: Doctor Who is a BBC scifi show with a long history. It's a show about an alien called the Doctor, and a human companion or two, who travel in his ship called the TARDIS, a British police call box which can disappear and reappear at any point in time and space. It first aired in 1963 and ran continuously until 1989. In 2005 it was rebooted. The reason for its longevity is simple: there is a canonical reason to replace the actor who plays the Doctor whenever the current one retires. He dies, then regenerates. He is immortal, ever-changing, ever gaining new energy. And if the show stagnates, it has the potential to regenerate as well.

Ever since its reboot, it has gained an ever-growing, rabid fanbase in the States. I counted myself one of its fans during New Who's first four seasons, while Russel T. Davies was its showrunner. The show was endlessly engaging and dynamic. Time, place, and genre could be different episode to episode. One week it could be a murder mystery, the next, a horror story set on another planet, and the next a historical drama. At the heart of the show's interest was the Doctor, with a little Sherlock Holmes, a little James Bond, and a little of his own idiosyncratic quirks – the most important of those being his love for humans and his abhorrence of violence. One of the main themes of New Who was the idea that the Doctor was a being with the power of a god and who sometimes let that get to his head – and that, in the end, it was always his human companions who kept him in check, who brought him down to earth. Both the Doctor and his companions were always better off with each other. They brought out the best in each other. And when the companions inevitably left him, the Doctor always lost something.

It seems to me that the Doctor's most valuable companion was Russel T. Davies himself, because he certainly lost something after Davies' departure. Unlike previous Doctors, the eleventh Doctor is never challenged. His genius, his ego, and most importantly, his moral superiority, are never questioned – they're taken for granted both by his companions and, by extension, the audience itself. It is telling that, for instance, the eleventh Doctor is far more violent than his predecessors, who were pacifist to a fault. Steven Moffat's run seems to have forgotten the themes of the past show and abandoned them for hero worship. So, pretty much the opposite of what the show was before. 

But I actually think this is a symptom of a larger problem, which is Steven Moffat's and his current writing team's poor understanding of what makes for an interesting story. They rely far too heavily on the Doctor's quirkiness and wittiness. Granted, he is witty, and it's fun to watch him run around the TARDIS and manically explain his solutions to various problems in time and space – so that makes for an effective crutch, at least for a while. But this doesn't make for interesting stories. Nor does throwing together a bunch of random, disconnected, "cool" ideas into one episode. The season 6 finale features a universe where all of time has collapsed into a single moment, so cars fly attached to helium balloons, Winston Churchill is Holy Roman Emperor, and a high-tech lab of sorts called Area 52 is housed inside a pyramid, where everybody wears eye patches. The episode certainly pretends to have a plot, but feels more like an excuse to have all of these things at once because it would be cool. None of it means anything. The emotion is completely unearned and all consequences are completely abstract and impersonal, or rest on clichés. 

After the second season under Moffat's helm, I'd had enough. Doctor Who is currently mid-Season 7, but I haven't seen any of it. 

Dark City - A Science Fiction Spin on Noir (Sophie)

Dark City is both a science fiction film and a neo-noir. The film, directed and co-written by Alex Proyas, uses its science fictive breaks from reality to create a kind of genre commentary, placing a new spin and plot importance on long standing tropes of the noir tradition. In using a science fiction setting, the film can create a reality in which the metaphorical corruptions and convolutions of the world of the noir become literal. A man waking up with no memory, trying to piece his life together itself becomes a clue in a larger mystery of how this world works. Amnesia is not at all uncommon in noir, but in Dark City, amnesia and confusion of identity become actively malicious, controlled actions of the antagonists, the “Strangers,” who possess godlike powers to stop time and alter reality. Thus, the iconic labyrinthine cities of LA or Chicago give way to a city that is a literal maze that is twisted anew each night and designed purposefully without an exit. One scene, to drive home the metaphor, even depicts such a maze, designed for rats – as the residence of this city serve as subjects of experimentation for these “Strangers.”

The question of fate, of what makes a person who they are, that lurks at the center of many films of the genre is the one that these sinister experimenters are seeking to solve. They seek to understand memory and what drives a person to be the unique agent that they become. To this end, they arrange a classic plot – a betrayed husband, mad with jealousy, turns into a killer of prostitutes. Given the memories of a killer, they wondered, would he continue to kill? But the process fails and the man is left without an identity, framed for crimes he not only did not commit, but most of which never happened in the first place. The detectives who are staged to play their part come onto the scene, walking through dimly lit corridors in an old motel, giving the movie the classic feel – but they too are pawns, and the one detective who has seen the truth is driven mad. By assigning everyone's identities, these puppet masters create a truly noir world of corruption, where there is no secrecy, no innocence, and no place left untouched by a nefarious system. It becomes a world where nothing is as it seems, where no social bond is genuine, and where everything is as tenuous as the will of these unseen powers.

Our protagonist, assuming the assigned name of John Murdoch, is pursued by the Strangers, beings that, they reveal, literally assume the identities of the dead by wearing their skins. John is special – he possesses the same reality warping abilities as the Strangers, and begins to understand the truth – that there is no world beyond the city, that all of their lives are manufactured falsehoods. Much of what he notices fall into the tropes of noir. To convince the detective that the world, rather than he, is insane he says, “Daylight. When was the last time you remember seeing it? I'm not talking about a distant, half-forgotten childhood memory. I mean, like, yesterday. Last week? When? Do you have a single memory? You don't, do you? I don't think the sun even exists in this place.” The Strangers, though they have implanted everyone with the memory of the sun, are hurt by the strong light, and have created a world of perpetual darkness.

The plot is a bit convoluted and at points the artist choices come off as unintentionally comic, but the movie succeeds spectacularly in creating a world and feel with powerful aesthetics and strong philosophical themes.

Bernard Herrmann's Sonic Influence on Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) (Anthony)

(Russian inventor Leon Theremin, with his invention, the "theremin")

This semester I will be focusing on 3 movies with music by Bernard Herrmann. The first one I will be focusing on is The Day the Earth Stood Still, a 1951 science fiction classic, directed by Robert Wise, based in 1950s contemporary America about an alien named Klaatu that landed in Washington D.C., in a flying saucer, on a mission to warn the humans on earth about their newly found destructive capabilities (atomic energy), and to offer them a choice to either (1) use their technology wisely or (2) to give up their planet and the existence of everything on it.

In his score for Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, we get to see a very tasteful, aural display of Herrmann’s talent. A believer in the fact that movie scores aught not be a constant wall of sound in the movie-goer’s ears, Herrmann shows in Wise’s film how important silence and sparseness of music are and how music in film can very much be a creative element, as opposed to just background, ambient noise like the chatter and the clinking of glasses at a party or the creaking of chairs in a conference room.

A wall of sound eventually becomes ignored by the brain, and once it is ignored, it serves no great purpose. So, understanding this, Herrmann liked to step back and take the minimalist approach when composing his scores. Anne Cranny-Francis in her article “Mapping Cultural Auracy: The Sonic Politics of The Day the Earth Stood Still”, quotes composer and Theorist John Morgan on the subject, who writes, “… too often music is considered wallpaper rather than a creative element in movies” (Luchs 1988, online)

In addition to being called a minimalist composer, Bernard Herrmann has also been deemed a “master at the creation of suspense” (Cranny-Francis, 2007) Psycho is the obvious display of this skill, but Herrmann did not stop short of making people jump, lean forward, and shift in their seats in The Day the Earth Stood Still. As matter of fact, he was already beginning to toy with people the second the film in the projector room started rolling.

Not many people notice it enough to say anything, but the theme to the 20^th Century Fox studios animation before the opening credits on the first reel is raised a half-step to B major from its usual Bb key. I had to play it against the rerecorded 1935 and more recent versions (which are used all over the place now, including at the end of every single Simpsons episode) to confirm it, but it’s true, and for people that hear that song enough (as many of the moviegoers in 1951 likely were, given the influence of 20^th Century Fox), changing the tune even half a step has the potential to confuse one’s ear. And I’m not talking about musicians. These kinds of changes go for everyone. It all depends on your memory and familiarity. If you’ve heard any song many times you’ll recognize it on the street, on stage, or in a film. And if it is changed, no matter if you’re a musician or not, you’ll more often than not notice that something’s “a little bit off.”

Another, more impressive addition to the score of the film was the use of a special analog instrument called the Theremin, the 1919 forerunner to the Moog synthesizer. The theremin is the machine that makes the alien-like, high-pitched vibrato sound in the beginning of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Also commonly used in other extraterrestrial movies of the cold war era because of it’s eerie, unnatural sound, the theremin was very useful for composers who were looking for giving their listeners a new, unique musical experience. In this film, the theremin was used primarily to convey the common extraterrestrial and advanced-technology feeling of science fiction movies of the time. The theremin was also used as an intro to the title theme of the film.

On the subject of themes, Herrmann’s score of the film contains many. Themes, in simple terms, are the songs composed to set the tone for films, heighten emotional events in films, and even announce the presence of a certain character. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, there is a title theme that plays during the title scene and opening credits, there are various themes that enhance the stress of the film, like that during the scene after Klaatu escapes from the hospital, and there are also separate themes for the characters Klaatu and Gort.

Gort, the robot that came with Klaatu to earth is one of the protectors of the peace of the universe that were built by Klaatu’s people. He is an indestructible machine that can demolish anything in its path, and is the iron hammer of reason in the universe of the film. As such, Gort’s theme consists of a booming bass. The lower tones implicitly suggest threat and danger and are also thus connected with dominance. This works in parallel with operas that typically designate the high, tenor as the hero, and the bass to the villain.

Klaatu’s theme, which comes before Gort’s first one is very different, relying more on softer, middle voiced horns and the ethereal higher-pitched sounds of the theremin than the dominant bass tones. The combined effect of the higher pitch and the softer volume make Klaatu’s character seem more delicate and much less threatening.

The tonal focus of Herrmann’s composition often depends on which of these characters is present in a scene or where the focus is directed. For the scenes in which Gort destroys the tank in the beginning of the movie and Gort knocks out the soldiers guarding the flying saucer, Gort’s theme of destruction and impending doom is present. On the other hand, when Klaatu sneaks out of the house at night and when he is in the flying saucer before the power outage, the musical theme is dominantly higher-pitched and closer to Klaatu’s first theme in the beginning of the film.

The tonal focus also depends on the emotions of the moment. For example, after the intro credits when the camera opens onto an open ocean Herrmann uses a fast-paced piano arpeggio with some theremin to enhance the anxiety that first scene during which the military officials cannot figure out what to do about the unidentified flying object. 18 minutes and an hour later when Klaatu escapes from the hospital, and after Klaatu is broken out of jail by Gort, Herrmann uses the music again to outline the paranoia of those scenes. What makes the paranoid sections more powerful though are Herrmann’s uses of silence. A majority of the film has no actual background music at all.

Two important silent parts worth paying attention to are when Klaatu (Mr. Carpenter) brings Bobby to the spaceship, and after Klaatu makes his ultimatum offer at the end of the film. The fact that there is no music during the first of these two scenes is evidence that the spaceship itself is not what is important. It is Klaatu’s knowledge that is important. And in the final scene, the silent pan around the different races of the crowd allows the viewer to fully appreciate the weight of Klaatu’s knowledge and his final question.

- Anthony D. Collins

The Future Is Now: Pivotal Visions of Tomorrow (John)

Since the beginning of cinema, filmmakers have been fascinated with the future.  The medium has the ability to showcase tomorrow in a way no other art form can.  Directors have utilized the fantastic possibilities of the mise-en-scene as backdrops for what are often abstract or introspective conflicts.  To suit the needs of the story, these visions of what lies ahead often contrast each other starkly, and more often build upon the visions seen in other films. 

Georges Méliès’ Trip to the Moon, the first science fiction film, made in 1902, is impossible to ignore because of its importance to the genre. However, it is not certain whether or not the world that the film exists in is actually the future.  The astronomers who go to the moon are dressed in archaic robes and the rooftops that they launch the bullet-like rocket ship from do not suggest anything exceptionally futuristic.  It is perhaps more acceptable to postulate that the film has no time period in relation to the present and therefore can be considered neither the past nor the future.

This brings us to an important, if somewhat implicit, point about all the futures this article pertains to.  They all potentially exist in relation to the time period in which the films were made; they are projections of reality in years to come.

Now, if Trip to the Moon is the father of the science fiction film, than Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece Metropolis is the more popular and successful son.  Heavily influenced by German expressionism and Art Deco, Fritz Lang and his team of set designers crafted one of the most influential visions in cinema.  The sprawling, cold, and sterile cityscape of Metropolis became the blueprint upon most directors built their futures. The film is infamous for the fantastic city shots created with miniatures, often aided by the Schüfftan Process with spectacular results.  However, Lang is not so much interested in the city, as much as the man’s relationship to it.  Metropolis is all about dehumanization; blurring the line between man and machine.  Fritz Lang’s future is a place where workers are virtually fed to the machines in order to keep the city moving.  It is the perfect setting for the class struggle that the movie catalogs.

Production photo of the stop motion process used in Metropolis. Creative Commons¹

In the 1950s, science fiction was ruled largely by what would be considered campy, pulp stories set against worlds that seem to be made exclusively of cardboard and Christmas lights.  However, there was an important shift in science fiction: the idea of space became an obsession.  Space and the idea of terrifying, dangerous, new civilizations; a lot of this stemming from paranoia spawned by the cold war.  This period was not, however, devoid of good pictures; the 1950 film Destination Moon dealt with the realistic problems that occur during space travel.  More fantastic, and perhaps more captivating, is the 1956 adaption of Shakespeare’s The Tempest: Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet, the film famous for it’s iconic Robby the Robot.  This vision of the future is indicative of the era; it is showy and false looking, ironic since the most fascinating aspect of the film is the exploration of the invisible and terrifying power of the human id.

The beloved Robby the Robot set a new standard for awesome robot buddies. Creative Commons²

This phase of science fiction was wiped away in 1968 when Stanley Kubrick created his science fiction epic about exploration and evolution: 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Kubrick and his director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth created some of the greatest in-camera effects, meaning done practically and without blue screens or mattes, ever attempted.  2001 exists in a sterile, white, delicate future, not completely unlike Metropolis.  However, unlike Fritz Lang, Kubrick is not interested in the workers; man and machine work seamlessly together for the majority of the picture in a visually arresting ballet of technology.  It is not until HAL 9000 begins to terminate the crew of the Jupiter Mission that man must prove his mastery of all this machinery.  2001: A Space Odyssey has one of the most influential visions of the future that has been emulated countless times, but never replicated with the same majesty. 

In 1979, one filmmaker finally rejected the sterility of this future and created an equally captivating, but completely different view of the future.  Ridley Scott’s Alien takes place almost entirely aboard the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo, a dirty, rundown, clunky, and massive piece of industrial metal.  If Scott’s future ever looked like Kubrick’s, it was a hundred years of grime and rust ago.  Everything is heavily used in the world of Alien; Scott liked the idea of truckers in space.  When the alien quite literally bursts into the film, the dark, dripping, steaming, endless corridors contribute the primary source of tension that runs through the rest of the film.  This was an important transition to a more accessible, and arguably more human future.

With Alien, Ridley Scott turned space from the beautiful stage it was in 2001 into a nightmarish sea of dirty blackness.  In 1982, he created his own endless city in Blade Runner.  The film depicts Los Angeles in the year 2019; it’s what the slums of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis might like if you turned the lights out and caked it in endless rain.  With Blade Runner, Scott fused together the science fiction and noir genres, creating a hard-boiled detective story that takes place in a masterfully created tomorrow.  Yet, for all its visual splendor, the film is remarkably introspective, posing questions that call the nature of humanity into doubt.  This helpless, inescapable, and eerily convincing future impacted the science fiction films of the last thirty years to an incalculable degree.

Concept drawing for the city of Los Angeles 2019. Creative Commons³ 

All science fiction films attempt to put their own stamp on the future; no vision is completely the same.  Most make liberties in order to accommodate the plot, because if the films didn’t deal with things unique to their future, what would be the point of creating them?  A film that takes place in a future simply replicated from aspects of other films is an opportunity wasted.  It is, however, almost impossible to watch most sci-fi movies without seeing a stamp of at least one of the four films discussed.

Visions of the future are constantly in flux.  As technology, social interests, trends, and political climates change, so do filmmaker’s movies.  The fascinating thing about science fiction is the films’ source material.  I have attempted to pinpoint four archetypes of the genre, and they were absolutely influential.  However, the true foundation of the genre will always be reality, and as the world we live in continues to change, filmmakers’ dreams of tomorrow will too.  

Photo Credits

1. Photo from Foxtongue (Flikr)

2. Photo from Wikipedia Commons

3. Photo from Topgold (Flikr)

"Fun and Games:" A Further Look At "The Outer Limits" (Colin)

Note: To Mr. Gorn who kindly commented upon the first part of my introduction to The Outer Limits: here at last is the second part of my behemoth of a blog post. I hope that it was worth the wait.

Comparing The Outer Limits to the vastly more optimistic Star Trek is naturally more difficult – an ironic fact, as the two actually share one thing in common: a story. In June 1944, the science-fiction magazine Astounding Stories published “Arena,” by Frederic Brown, a story about a man and an alien who are forced by another alien of a superiorly-evolved species to fight a duel to the death in order to determine whether the race of humanity or the enemy alien’s race will ultimately be annihilated by this higher species. In 1967, Star Trek featured an episode with the same title based upon this story, an episode that would later become one of the best loved of the show’s first season. However, Gene Roddenberry was not the first to come up with the idea of adapting Brown’s tale. It has long been conjectured that the Outer Limits episode “Fun and Games,” which aired in March 1964, draws upon Brown’s “Arena” as well for inspiration, though this is not explicitly stated.

Like Brown’s story, the Star Trek version of the tale dwells upon the idea of a dispassionate, god-like extra-terrestrial arbiter who, perceiving the foolishness of  warring humanity and its alien enemy, decides to settle the conflict once and for all for the good of one species and the final downfall of the other. In Star Trek, the optimism of Brown’s tale (in which humanity triumphs) is heightened still more when Captain Kirk philanthropically chooses not to dispatch his rival, opting for peace rather than genocide. Their superiorly-evolved arbiter, impressed by this act of mercy, remarks rather sententiously, “You are still savage, but there is hope.” The episode suggests that in order for the human species to survive, peace and the ability to coexist are not only necessary but possible: an optimistic idea for an obvious Cold War allegory.

Yet the interpretation of Brown’s tale could not be more different when in the hands of The Outer Limits’ screenwriters. The highly-evolved alien arbiter in “Fun and Games” is still a superior life-form, but he is no longer the peacemaker: rather, he is the Senator of a race of aliens called the Anderians for whom he collects the denizens of different planets in order to pit them as dueling gladiators against each other, solely for the amusement of the Anderian citizenry. All the qualities of dispassionate justice are thus taken from his character and he is relegated from a coldly god-like status to a gloatingly devil-like force of implacable power. His character is suitably modified as well: whilst the toga-attired arbiter in Star Trek is coolly distant to the point of an almost milquetoast apathy, the Senator is a force of relentless, sardonic energy. Brilliantly voiced by Robert Johnson with a melodrama that positively drips with its genteel English accent and cruel jollity (it is easy to see why the Anderians chose him as their game host), the Senator is not only presented to us as a villain but an arbitrarily-minded one as well, possessing none of the ennobling motivations of his Brown-engendered predecessor or later Trekkian descendant.

In a similar fashion, the personalities of the protagonists are significantly altered as well. The heroic, readily likable Captain Kirk in Star Trek is replaced with two characters who could easily have fit the requirements for a ninety-minute 1940’s noir: Mike Benson (Nick Adams), a small-time hoodlum and ex-boxer, and Laura Hanley (Nancy Malone), a woman suffering from a troubled marriage. Both are deeply flawed and yet deeply sympathetic human beings, tormented as much by their own psychological makeup as by their cruel environment. The spaces that they inhabit on Earth are constrained in the 50-minute episode to dark, cramped apartment rooms, narrow staircases, and gambling rooms lit only by a single light suspended from the ceiling. The nightmarish surrealism of the atmosphere is enhanced by the tortuous wide-angle lenses often employed in the film’s opening sequences, most notably during a gambling game when the camera, positioned close to the center of the card players’ table, slowly pans to focus upon each gambler whilst grotesquely magnifying the size of their card-holding hands to emphasize their grasping, greedy nature. When the game takes a nasty turn and culminates in a shootout and murder, it is almost a relief when Mike – fleeing the scene of the crime in order to escape the police – is ‘electro-ported’ to the Senator’s chamber along with innocent bystander and total stranger Laura.

The Senator delightedly informs his two victims of the “wonderful, terrible game” for which they have been chosen, introduces them to their reptilian gladiatorial rivals, and then explains that the sole reward of winning the game will be the safety of Earth, the home planet of the losing side being obliterated by the Anderians upon conclusion of the game. “Will it be quick?” Mike asks.

“In your reading of time, the entire display will take approximately five years. For us, it will be as a firecracker in a black summer sky,” the Senator replies with his usual grandiose relish. Refusal to play the game would result in the automatic destruction of Earth, since their reptilian opponents would thus win by default.

However, Mike has few qualms about abandoning Earth to its fate. “Five years,” he remarks. “Long enough to enjoy just about all there is to enjoy in the world.” Laura, far more idealistic than the embittered ex-boxer, pleads with him to change his mind but he ignores her, demanding that he be sent back to Earth. “What do you owe the human race?” he counters viciously when Laura again attempts to change his mind. The Senator chooses to compromise, saying that he will send them back and allow them twenty-four hours to decide whether they will participate in the game or not – at the end of which, if Mike still has not changed his mind, Earth’s doom will have been sealed. 

In another departure from Frederic Brown and Star Trek’s “Arena,” Mike does not change his mind due to any sense of responsibility but because of his overwhelming fear of prison – a fear that has followed him ever since childhood when he had been locked in a cage by his rambunctious playmates, resulting in a phobia of enclosed spaces. When a policeman knocks on his door, Mike is instantly jolted out of his callous indifference and the camera’s uncomfortable close-ups of his terrified face forces the viewer to participate fully in his psychological torment. At that moment, perceiving Mike’s desire for any escape, the Senator electro-ports both him and Laura once again to Anderus and, to avoid the prospect of cooling his heels in a cell, Mike accepts the Senator’s offer, choosing to fight alongside Laura against the two reptilian gladiators.

“Your opponents are already on the planet we call the arena,” the Senator genially informs them. “They’re waiting. Good luck, Ms. Hanley, Mr. Benson. May the best team win. As I told you, the unpleasant planet that we call “the Arena” is somewhat similar to the planet Earth – I should amend, of course: Earth as it was a million years ago.” The arena’s identification with an earlier, mythic Earth and the visual nature of the set – a world of shadowy fronds, boiling rivers, and drifting, humid vapors – both create an eerie blend of a prehistoric Eden and a sweltering Hades. It is an appropriate enough environment for two characters who – while confronting their reptilian nemesis – must also confront the more dangerous flaws within their own souls. For Mike, it is his childhood horror that cramps his ability to have courage and faith in himself and the world. For Laura, however, the root of the problem is subtler and thus more difficult to confront. And that is when the character of the Senator re-enters the plot – but in a significantly altered fashion.

When the two protagonists discover that their supply of food will only last for six days, Laura chooses to run away from Mike, hoping to sacrifice herself so that he will survive long enough to kill their alien opponent and save humanity. Unsurprisingly, the alien manages to track her down – but just as he raises his weapon to slay her, the Senator intervenes, saying apologetically, “Oh, I can’t let you kill her just yet. She hasn’t begun to suffer.” Then, speaking to her over some mysterious, invisible transmission, he says, “Miss Hanley, wasn’t it our understanding that you and Mr. Benson were a team? You’ve run away again, haven’t you? Why have you run away from him, Miss Hanley? So that he can eat all the food? So that he can do all the fighting? Your heart is a bottomless box of virtuous motives, isn’t it? Whatever you do, you do for someone else’s good, don’t you? Your husband didn’t want you to mother him, Miss Hanley. He wanted you to help him. It hurts to admit that you’re afraid that you can’t help someone, doesn’t it?”

There is a frightening indictment in the languid mockery of the Senator’s questions: the central flaw in Laura’s idealism is her inability to fight the good fight herself without fleeing at the first sign of possible defeat. This is the subliminal reason she has fled Mike and this is also the cankerworm at the heart of her troubled marriage. But in the process of addressing Laura, the Senator calls our attention to his own role within the narrative, that is, the jarring shift from sadistic demon to sardonic judge. Previously his presence seemed yet another tormenting device to inflict pain upon the tortured principal characters; after this dialogue, however, his character seems far more ambivalent – far more in keeping with the hitherto rejected model of the god-like, moral arbiter in Frederic Brown and Star Trek’s versions.

This ambivalence is further exploited when – as the battle between Laura, Mike, and their opponents progresses – the Senator, in a voice-over, urges his unseen Anderian audience to observe the actions of the gladiators closely. The shock behind this sudden remark stems from the fact that – because we are never shown the Anderian audience – his remark seems directed toward us: we are, at that moment, equated with the Anderians themselves, voyeuristically watching the physical and psychological travails and struggles of the two principals to satisfy our own “passions,” as the Senator earlier put it. This is enhanced by the manner in which the combat is frequently filmed with the camera observing the action through the projection screen that the Senator has set up in his chamber.

But if we are relegated to the status of the Anderian voyeurs, then we are also very close to Laura by the end of the episode when she asks the Senator whether she shall have to remember all that has taken place within the arena. “Only those memories which might be helpful to you and perhaps to your marriage,” he replies, rather tersely summing up the goal of every cautionary tale: to entertain the audience and to leave them with a moral that they shall never forget as long as they live.

At this point in the episode, the Senator’s character seems, in our mind, significantly transformed: if he is indeed cruel and arbitrary, then he is also a redemptive force, offering both Laura and Mike changed perspectives of themselves and their world and allowing them to escape the psychological cages that they have welded for themselves. They return as less flawed beings to their equally flawed world. As such The Outer Limits eschews the sunny Star Trek resolution. The Senator’s show for the Anderians, like Stefano’s show for us mortals, jolts us with its unrelenting darkness and its portrayal of human desperation, but the darkness and the desperation are not without a didactic purpose. And the lesson – once learned – will not easily be forgotten by those fortunate enough to encounter this or any other episode of The Outer Limits. 

Note: Both seasons of The Outer Limits are available on DVD from both Amazon.com and Netflix.  

The Darker Side of Science Fiction: An Introduction to "The Outer Limits" (Colin)

A pilot episode entitled “The Galaxy Being” premiered on American national television on September 16^th, 1963, heralding a science fiction/noir series that would run for a total of only two seasons but would leave behind an impression that still lingers powerfully in contemporary audiences’ imaginations. “The best program of its type ever to run on network TV,” Stephen King would later say of it. The Outer Limits, though never as popular as Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, was the brainchild of producer and screenwriter Joseph Stefano – and, like Serling, he had a taste for the macabre as well as the fantastic in fiction: a taste that is evident throughout his Serling-esque series. Stefano, who had adapted Robert Bloch’s sensationally chilling novel Psycho for Hitchcock’s eponymous film, was peculiarly suited to cross-mixing genres. In Psycho, he had worked on a noir/horror/ psychological melodrama; for The Outer Limits, a show in which his screenwriting capabilities are evident time and again, he let that peculiarity run rampant, blending the elements of science fiction and horror with expressionist film noir a full two decades before Ridley Scott directed the neo-noir Blade Runner.

But the time of noir had passed; the sixties, no longer quite as preoccupied with the internal corruptions of capitalist government and suburban life, now focused upon the imminent crises of nuclear conflict and Communist expansion. Consequently, the destruction of the world, the misuse of technology, and the loss of individuality in a mechanized, totalitarian society – rather than brutal street life melodramas and police procedurals – occupied much of the darker cinema of the decade. Cinematic style had changed as well: more and more directors were filming their projects in dazzling Technicolor and though the black-and-white film had not yet died, it was certainly on its way out. As a result, the deep chiaroscuro shadowing and German Expressionist sets so prevalent in the noir – and in the art design of The Outer Limits – was on its way out as well.

Yet if The Outer Limits was uncharacteristic of the sixties in style, its thematic obsessions were every bit a product of its time. Cold War paranoia, the quest for an identity and loss of individuality, sci-fi technology’s uses (and, of course, misuses) dominate many of Stefano’s relentlessly dark episodes alongside the more traditionally noir themes of existential alienation and surrealism. As stated before, Stefano’s genius lay in his ability to take the traditional atmosphere and dramatis personae of the noir and update them with the bells and whistles of science fiction and the Cold War concerns of the sixties. The result was a very dark – oftentimes horrific – but nonetheless fascinating television series that, in addition to featuring Stefano’s talents, would often make use of other accomplished writers such as Harlan Ellison, Robert Towne (of Chinatown fame), and Jerry Sohl.

When watching The Outer Limits – or any science fiction show of the period, for that matter – one inevitably compares it to the more well-known Star Trek and Twilight Zone. The latter, as I already mentioned, was very similar thematically to Stefano’s show; yet the mood of Serling’s Twilight Zone in spite of its occasional expressionist and surrealist touches, is warmer by worlds than The Outer Limits. While Serling’s plots, in the main, focus upon an unsympathetic anti-hero and the rightful judgment visited upon him or her, Stefano’s tend to focus more often upon the anguish visited upon flawed but nonetheless sympathetic characters who live out their lives in a cold, harsh, and unjust world. This is not to suggest that while Serling seeks to be more conventionally moral, Stefano means to portray the cold, harsh truth of ‘reality.’ Both shows are at heart morality plays that seek to point out the flaws in mankind and society. However, while Serling enjoys introducing the concept of a just and implacable Fate that awaits each of his unsavoury protagonists and serves them appropriately ironic ends, Stefano prefers to allow his more sympathetic anti-heroes to struggle in a surreal and oftentimes alienating world with a knowledge of what is morally right and morally reprehensible and a power to act upon those principles, even if their fate may be ultimately and undeservedly dark. Or, to put it in more apocalyptic terms, if Serling with his dry wit and sense of poetic justice is the Inferno’s cheerful usher visiting judgment on the odd malefactor in an otherwise decent society then Stefano is Purgatory’s gloomier apologist (or, perhaps more fittingly for both Serling and Stefano, dis-apologist) for a society in need of a systemic overhaul, one overburdened individual at a time. That happy day must await the hereafter, perhaps. Until then, from The Outer Limits perspective, i.e., Stefano's, – whether on Earth or in one of her neighboring galaxies – one is on one’s own. And -- whether utilizing the motifs of horror, science fiction, or horror -- the uniqueness of this perspective is made manifest in each episode, both defining and separating the show within and apart from the mere constraints of genre.