Blade Runner Assignment

The 1982 Blade Runner heavily emphasizes both the similarity and difference between humans and machine. Before the movie begins, there is a text explaining the history of the Replicants, which were used for dangerous tasks and slave labor. When they rebelled and were labelled kill on sight, it was described as “retirement” rather than execution, hinting that their only purpose is to serve humans, and now that they rebelled they no longer have a purpose or job. As the movie starts we see a Replicant, which looks exactly like a normal human adult, undergoing a test with a nervous, agitated look. We learn Replicants were designed to copy humans in every way except emotions, but were expected to develop their own emotions over time, thus their 4 year lifespan to keep them chained. There are experiments like Rachel in which the Replicant doesn’t realize that they’re a machine and think they’re human. Tyrell describes the concept of implementing memories into Replicants to manipulate them. When she does find out she is a replicant and her “memories” are those of Tyrell’s niece, she starts tearing up, proof of her emotions and attachment to humanity. Replicants are also shown to either have stronger bodies or lack a sense of pain, shown when two rebels interrogate a scientist in a cold laboratory.

The whole concept of Replicants seemed sort of odd; the scientists used them for dangerous/unpleasant tasks and slave labor, so why design them to look exactly like humans? Especially when they had fears of Replicants gaining emotions and thus cutting their lifespan to 4 years. The inability to physically and visually discern human from replicant causes the need for replicant tests to determine if they’re human or replicant, but the whole system would be so much easier if they just added one defining difference such as eye color or hair color between humans and replicants.

We see the rebel replicants wanting to live longer, like other humans. They also express emotions like love and sorrow, or at least can fake them like when Pris first met Sebastian. In a disturbing scene Deckard had to force emotions out of Rachel by physically forcing her to kiss him to make her realize love. He treats her like a human, saying he wouldn’t kill her because she saved his life, instead of acting like that was normal or replicants were below humans and supposed to serve them. The terrifying concept of replicants looking exactly human yet treated as slaves and a separate species causes a lot of questioning of morals: how could the humans really look at replicants and send them to their deaths and treat them like objects? Give them a brain and heart, a designed mind, and have them suffer and live in fear?

Pris spent her last moments like a doll. Disguising herself as a toy in Sebastian’s home when Deckard enters, she attempts to kill him but is shot to death, twitching and seizing and screaming on the ground like a cursed, broken doll before she’s gone, a creepy death that didn’t seem human.

Roy, while seeming the most unemotional of the rebels, shows fervor in searching for a way to extend his life, shows sorrow at the loss of his comrades, and shows love and grief for Pris. When he starts confronting Deckard, he beings to turn animalistic; he tears off all his clothes and chases Deckard in his underwear, howls and hunches over like a feral wolf, and plays with his food, like some sort of predator. The hunt portrays him as becoming neither human nor machine, but a creature.

While teasing Deckard he says “Go to heaven or go to hell,” which interesting enough, we see Deckard running upwards the entire chase. Through the ceiling, out the window, and onto the roof.

Both Leon and Roy taunt Deckard about living in fear, to which Roy adds “That’s what it means to be a slave.” We always knew that Replicants were treated as tools, but we finally see one personally open up and open Deckard’s eyes. Yes, the rebels that almost killed Deckard made him fear for his life, but they spent their entire lives fearing for theirs. About to fall to his death like some lion king scene, Deckard is saved at the last moment by Roy who lifts him back onto the roof and just chats with him, describing some of the things he’s seen in his life. Becoming sad, Roy quotes like a poet “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” His motive for wanting to live longer is finally hinted at: obviously he wants to live longer because there are probably things he still wants to do and experience, or maybe he wants to be more equal and human, but we see here that he is afraid of dying, of all the memories and moments he’s experienced to disappear with him to be forgotten. A famous quote by Mark Twain goes “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who fully lives is prepared to die at any time.” Roy lived in fear, had a limited 4 year lifespan, and feared death.  However, despite his ambition in extending his life to even go and kill his creator and father, he finally accepts his death peacefully and quietly, which Deckard watching wordlessly. The white dove he had trapped in his grasp finally escapes and flies off, a symbol of peace and love.

At the end, officer Gaff arrives and mentions to Deckard “It’s a shame she won’t live, but then again, who does?” Immediately we know he is referring to Rachel, and the fact that her lifespan is limited. He eludes to the fact that everybody dies at one point, some just sooner than others. We find out that Gaff had entered Deckard’s apartment while he was gone and left a little origami unicorn, referencing a weird vision Deckard had previously, behind, but chose not to kill Rachel despite her retirement order after she ran away when she found out she wasn’t human. Either it was Deckard’s reward for taking down the rebels, or maybe Gaff had a bit of sympathy in him. Or maybe, seeing his odd eyes and awkward limp, Gaff wasn’t completely human either? Or even worse, maybe Deckard was the replicant all along? Rachel asks if he ever took the replicant test himself but he fell asleep so we never got an answer. And how could Gaff had known about the unicorn? Unless, like how Deckard knew Rachel’s implanted memories, Gaff knew about Deckard’s. And letting both of them live together was an act of sympathy and kindness from someone who was assigned to watch Deckard closely from the beginning.

The concept of humans and machines become similar and indiscernible is a growing concern in today's society. Humans have created machines and androids that can think and act for themselves, and with a bit of dressing up can be made to look eerily human. Humans depend on technology for everyday life, but is it possible we will get to the point in the movie where we recreate sub-humans to serve our purposes?

Black Mirror Assignment

Playtest is a 50 minute episode in the series Black Mirror narrating the journey of a man named Cooper who finds himself beta testing a game that distorts and adds layers of reality to his own. In the beginning we see him running away from home, and a short scene on the plane in which he is asked to turn off his electronic devices to avoid interference with the plane. On his trip around the world, he never picks up phone calls from his mom, who we later find out he abandoned by herself without a goodbye after his father died. For him, he was afraid and didn’t know how to interact with her so he ran, but he seemed to have never thought about her, who lost her husband and then her son and she calls everyday but he never picks up. Sonja tells him to call his mom, but even when his credit card was hacked, he called Sonja instead of his mom because he was afraid. The job he picks up from SaitoGemu revolves implanting a small device on the back of his neck which allows them to enter him into a new layer of reality which he can see things that they cannot. Before they started the medical procedure, Katie had turned off Cooper’s phone, but he turned it back on to take a picture for Sonja while Katie was gone.  As they started the download of the game reality, a phone call from Cooper’s mom comes through his phone. After the test demo, Katie invites Cooper to meet Shou and test the full game in a model of a haunted house, to which he starts seeing and hearing visual hallucinations which is part of the test game. Then, suddenly Katie’s voice on the earpiece malfunctions and Sonja appears at the door and while she insists he is in danger but he thinks she is a part of the game until he realizes he can physically touch her and feel her warmth. He still believes she is part of the game test as an actor until she turns around and stabs him and her face melts into a bloody skull, taunting him and saying he should’ve called his mom. Cooper kills her and the wound and knife disappear and Katie’s voice returns to which she said that she had been talking the entire time. When Cooper tries explaining that he felt Sonja and the knife wound and Katie said that wasn’t possible, we see the turn in the story where the game reality is becoming physical reality, which further warps when he is led by Katie’s voice to an “access point” and then taunted and observed to lose his mind as the supposed real SaitoGemu staff appear and try to stop the game but are unable to. Then it appears that the whole game experience was just a “dream” and it was only 1 second in which they started up the game program. They send him home to America with an apology, to which he finds his mom trying to call Cooper even though he is in front of her and she can’t recognize him. He screams out mom and suddenly the scene changes to him back at the first room after they first did the medical procedure and were downloading the test demo game. The interference of the phone signal from his mom’s phone call interrupted the medical procedure and killed Cooper.  

The whole time, we see that Cooper is rather dependent on his cell phone. The whole time his mother is calling him, and he takes photos on his trip, finds Sonja through a dating app, finds SaitoGemu’s job offer through a job app, and even during the game test he was unused to not having his phone. The SaitoGemu’s virtual reality game brought a new layer of reality and horror to the experience. However, in our current world today, the closest virtual reality we have are headsets, which are already pretty terrifying. However, we know for sure that nothing can physically harm us and when we take off the headset we are safe and the game isn’t real. In Cooper’s gaming experience however, he is still in the real world but with an added layer of reality that only he can see and hear. This messes with his sense of real and not real, starting from Sonja’s appearance to Katie’s voice to the game overwriting his memories. In the end, we find out it all never happened and Cooper died through interference of his mom’s phone call, which links back to the first plane scene and the rule of turning off electronic devices that might interfere with the plane during take off and landing, a rule Cooper disobeyed to take pictures of the medical tools for Sonja, who said in the beginning that calling back his mom would solve everything; but he never did and that cost him his life.

Matrix (in class) assignment

“Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.”

When we first hear about the Matrix, we don’t learn exactly what it is. With the limited references to it in the beginning of the movie, we begin to think it is some secret virtual world, as both Neo and Trinity are hackers. However, we learn from Morpheus that the Matrix is in fact the world we thought was reality; the one Neo was living as Mr. Anderson, living a normal 1999 life. With Neo unplugged and in the real world, Morpheus reveals to him the true reality; a world where machines grow and use humans like cattle or crops. As he stated, humans had always relied on machines to survive. And now, it is the opposite. Machines have taken over and are “growing” humans in tubes/pods for the sole purpose of energy, furthermore liquified to feed more humans for energy to survive. The irony is in that humans created machines to serve humans, but now humans are grown and used to feed machines.  Furthermore, while machines and AI are linked to digital and virtual worlds, in the reality machines live the real world and humans live in a dream world: the Matrix. The playful and calm tone in which Morpheus explains the twisted reality’s irony as if narrating a book or movie to Neo is contrary to the true atmosphere and feelings which both the characters and viewer experience towards the state of Earth in 2199.  

Though not directly related, the concept of the word “fate” itself has a huge meaning in the movie. The main character, Neo, doesn’t believe in fate. He hates the thought of not being in control of his own life, which Morpheus agrees with. However, Morpheus “unplugged” Neo because he believed in fate, in the role that Neo was born to play. Neo spends the whole movie being told and being believed to be “the chosen one”, much to his doubt. Morpheus fully believed in Neo, whilst the rest of his crew stood on the edge of wanting to believe. Trinity did her job as told, never stating fully her opinion. Tank was especially enthusiastic to Neo, expressing his excitement in the event that Neo was indeed the one. Cypher, the traitor, seemed envious and doubtful of Neo, possibly from his disdain for being unplugged and that Trinity showed more affection to Neo than to him. Mouse and Tank’s brother and Apoc never really expressed whether or not they believed that Neo was the one. Throughout his experience as a rebel, Neo went along with everything but still seemed hesitant on his supposed role that Morpheus was so sure of. When he is finally told by the Oracle, the person with supposedly the most authority or credibility, that he is in fact not the one, he throws himself back in danger to save Morpheus and comes back out alive because he started believing; by the end of the movie, he was, as fate has it, the one to save the world.