The Matrix (1999)

At the peak of the 20th century Warner Bros. released the Neo-classical sci-fi-action film The Matrix. The movie is about a dystopian planet where robots control eveything. The main characters of the movie are Neo (Keanu Reeves), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss). The movie was about humans who were trying to save their current burnt-out planet in the 22nd century or so. Apperently people are brought up in this matrix were its a fake world in which the robots keep their "batteries" to live out their short-lived lives.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie and how it shows what happens to the earth if humans let robots make decisions for them, which could result in them taking over the world. I give this movie a 4 and a half out of 5. Mainly because its wicked awesome.

Brazil (1985) Not The Country Either

1985's Brazil showed a completely dystopian vision of the future with a bureaucratic government. The movie is about a government worker by the name of Sam Lowry and his many misfortunes throughout his journey to save a woman by the name of Jill Layton.

Personally to me, this movie was a mirror of current-day America. The reason for this was because of how the people lived, not the standpoints of the government and their bureaucratic views. The reason for the people is with the older females in the movie. The two eldest women, Ida Lowry and Alma Terrain, are obsessed with their looks so they result to expensive and dangerous plastic surgery. This mirrors current-day America because of the way that women are objectified in the media and made to feel uncomfortable in their own skin in which they result to risky surgery to fix their supposed problems. Another reason is the way the government woulkd torure the accused until they pled guilty. This makes me think of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the US prison that accused terrorists are held in.

Overall this movie paints a clear picture and even though it dragged out it had a thorough meaning which made up for the wild storyline. I give this movie a 3 and a half out of five on a overall level and a perfect 5 on the meaning of the movie and how it relates to today.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

2001's futuristic film Artificial Intelligence shows a dystopian, post-global warming version of the world. In this world people create robots to elongate their supply of the limited necessities left on the planet earth. Along with creatin human-like mature robots, one of the creators decides to make a child-like robot named David. David has both the mindset and body of an 11 year-old. The movie shows the emotional journey of David as he attempts to be turned into a real boy.

This movie brings up the question of what makes us human. David continuosly shows these human-like emotions and starts to become human on the inside with his mindset instead of just outside with his appearence.

Blade Runner (1982)

1982's Blade Runner (starring Harrison Ford) is considered to be a cult classic. The reason for this is unknown to me. I personally thought the movie was an up and down roller coaster with a non-climactic ending that leaves the viewer confused. The reason I say this is for one reason and one reason only, in the end it was just some "wolf man" running around in his underwear howling like a crazy man. Plus the whole super-human adroid thing was way to cliche for me to fully enjoy this movie.

The plot of the movie was different, I will admit, but it was more up and down with me. Overall i enjoyed it in more of a comical sense than in a serious way. So on a scale of 10 I would rate it a 5 and a half of a half.

Soylent Green (1973)

1978's Soylent Green shows the consequences of human actions and what will happen to the earth if we continue to drain its resources. Overall the movie was okay at best, I mean the whole story line was alright but it didn't really make me believe that that was the world we would be living in in the 2020's. Also the ending was kinda of a letdown. You expect to be this epic ending where he reveals this shpocking secret to the world. and it ends up being this lame ending which I'll reveal later. So don't continue to read this unless you wanna know how it ends without watching it. But, the main plot of this movie was showing a dystopian vision of the future. Anyway, about that ending. It ended with the most random line that I will yell in every awkward or silence situatution or whenever possible. That line is; "Soylent Green Is People!!!!"

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

1968's Planet of the Apes has a running theme of oppression. This theme can tie back to racism or sexism in the US throughout history. But there was a striking difference between the futuristic ape culture and the present human culture. With the apes they had no battles between each other, all practiced one religion and were all equal to each other. With the present human culture we have wars all the time, we have a countless amount of religions and we have an odd social ladder full of superiors and inferiors.

The movie starts with a spaceship and its crew crash landing on a planet "500 Light Years Away From Earth". The men travel through desert and mountainous terrain for three days. They then come across signs of life on this seemingly deserted planet in the form of a waterfall in a rain forest-like area. As they swim around one of the men discover a footprint on the ground. Suddenly, they discover than unknown life forms are stealing their clothes and items they brought with them off the ship. They follow the people into a crop field where they are given clothes and food to eat. Then, these gorillas mounted on horses and they start to capture the humans and bring them back to their little civilization.

During the whole capture scene the main character, George Taylor, gets shot in the neck and needs to be operated on. Because of this he is unable to speak whatsoever. This forces him to not be able to communicate with the apes, who just happen to apeak english. So, they see him as an inferior mute human like all the other humans on the planet.

The rest of the movie is just his journey to escape from the afformentioned "Damned Planet" with his newly aquired girlfriend, Nova. Throughout the movie, Taylor is repeatedly treated as an animal, put in leashes and sprayed with fire hoses.

This confirms my theory about the movie that it shows how humans treat others in the form of differences with inferiors and superiors.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey shows the decline of emotion in man as we make technological improvements/ progress. The movie starts out in the beginning of the planet with primates in their natural culture. As the sun rises they discover a huge monolith in a crater. The monkeys continuously inch closer to the monolith they get more and more frightened of this unknown discovery. The chimps touch the monolith in awe and the movie immediately cuts to one of the chimps smashing a skeleton of an animal with a bone. This may not seem significant but then it cuts to two sets of chimps getting into an altercation. But the difference between the two groups is that one set of monkeys is using bones as a weapon. In the end, the monkeys using weapons end up beating one of the other chimps to death (I suppose).

The movie then jumps to the late 19th/ early 20th century and shows a man by the name of Dr. Halloway Floyd traveling to the moon. as they get to the moon they find a similar monolith than from earlier in the movie. They then find out that the monolith sends radiowaves to a monolith on Jupiter (confusing, I know).

The movie then jumps once more to 18 months into the future on a space ship's mission to Jupiter. Along with the crew of five (2 awake, 3 in hibernation) is the ships Super-Computer HAL-9000 or Hal. Things go wrong as Hal goes rouge and murders the 3 hibernating astronauts and 1 of the men as they are outside of the ship.

Throughout this entire movie the humans hardly talk and show hardly any emotion. But, Hal shows the most emotion of anyone in the movie, and he's a computer. This shows that with technological improvement, us as humans become less emotionally involved in life.

Battle Of 1951: The Thing From Another World vs. The Day The Earth Stood Still

Both The Thing From Another World and The Day The Earth Stood Still were made in 1951 around the cold war. And both instill the same theme of paranoia amongst americans at the time. Yet both of thes movies could not be more different.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is about an alien named Klaatu who comes to earth to warn them of the consequences of their actions. Klaatu lands in the nations capital in his space ship with his robot-giant, Gort (both pictured to the right). As Klaatu walks towards the US Army with an unknown object, a trigger-happy soldier fires at Klaatu and hits him. After Glort destroys all the armies weapons without harming anyone else, Klaatu explains that it was just a gift. This already shows this state of paranoia that the country had, where the slightest bit of change frightened them. This movie is more of a anti-military and pro-science, in the sense that the military freaked out and when on a man hunt to kill Klaatu as where a scientist was actually listening to him and the warning he was giving him.

The Thing From Another World was the exact opposite from The Day the Earth Stood Still. In The Day the Earth Stood Still the protagonist was the alien, Klaatu. But, in The Thing From Another Universe the "Thing" or alien, was the antagonist. The Thing was about a group of military personnel stationed in the North Pole. As the men arrive they find out that a supposed "plane" had crash landed aprroximately 50 miles from where they were stationed. As they arrive the see that it was in fact too big to be an American plane. This shows that paranoia as they believe that is in fact a USSR military aircraft. After examining the outline of it, they realize that it is in fact a UFO. After failing to retrieve the UFO from under the ice by exploding it with thermite, they discover a body encased in ice nearbye. The Thing (pictured to the right) defrosts and wreaks havoc among the base. This movie is a pro-military movie and makes science seem kind of unnecessary. This is because the scientist in the movie is obsessed with studying this "thing".

Both movies were great and made around the same time period but made with two completely different views. Both sharing the same theme, yet both completely different. To me, this battle was a tie.

Frankenstein

The 1931 film Frankenstein is based on the 1831 novel written by British author Mary Shelley. The book is also known as The Modern Prometheus. The story of Prometheus is a story of rebellion. Prometheus was a Titan(immortals) in greek mythology. Prometheus would decieve the gods for the better of life on earth. This deception put him in direct conflict whit the greek god Zeus. As a part of his punishment, Zeus sent Pandora(the first woman) down to earth to ruin the lives of the civilians on earth. He the bound Prometheus to a rock and cut him open leaving his guts exposed. Prometheus was then forced to watch as an eagle ate away at his intestine for all eternity.
This movie is about a scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who decides to push the limit on life and revive a man from death to life. As a result of this he brings to life what we all know as Frankenstein's Monster(pictured to right). But unknown to Dr. Frankenstein, his assistant, Igor, grabs a faulty brain and they insert into the body of the monster. At first everything is goin well as the creation of Dr. Frankenstein seems to be obedient and is understand what other people say to him(or it). Suddenly, everything goes awry as Igor scares the creature with a torch. The delicate marvelous invention snaps and is suddenly a monster. strangling people to within an inch of their life.
A softer side of the monster is shown after he escapes the castle in which he was created. After escaping into the outskirts of town he meets a little girl by the name of Maria. Maria's father had just left her to work and she was alone with her cat. Maria had sat down beside a lake and started picking flowers as the creature emerged from the bushes. Not aware of what this creature was capable of she asked if he would sit beside her as she picked flowers. She then offered him flowers and the through them into the lake next to them. Once the creature was out of flowers he decided it would be a good idea to throw the little girl into the lake. Unwillingly, the little girl was thrown into the lake and drowned.

In the end this movie really didn't correspond to my personal vision of either the present or the future. Most likely, the main reason for this is because it was made in the early 30'. Which, in that case it might correspond to my visions of the future. But as for right now, this seems nothing like how I imagine the future and has no comparison to the present.