"The Walking Dead"

The Walking Dead is a brand new apocalyptic zombie show on AMC that premiered on Halloween. My friend, Mike, is a huge zombie fan and asked if I wanted to watch it with him. The show begins almost exactly like the movie 28 Days Later. The protagonist, Rick, is a police man who is shot in the back by a criminal and he passes out, he wakes up in the hospital, but something isn't right. He looks around the room from his hospital bed and notices a vase full of dead flowers, the clock in his room has stopped, none of the hospital equipment was on, and there are no nurses running to his call. He painfully gets out of the bed and walks around the hospital, the halls are trashed and there are dead bodies every where. As Rick tries to find his way out of the hospital he notices a door with "DO NOT OPEN" painted on it.

They had finally done it, a super computer with enough brains to kill us all. The Generic Life-form and Disc Operating System, aka GLaDOS, was created by a group of scientists to work with them on their newest project, portal technology. GLaDOS had to power to control anything electronic, iPods were strangling people with their headphones, cellphones were exploding in pocket's, heavy machinery was destroying buildings with no driver, everything that was created to help us, was now destroying us.

My future compared to Ridley Scott's. My future's apocalypse was caused by technology turning against man, Scott's was caused by war. Scott's future world is fairly technologically advanced, while in my future no technology of the sort could be used, it would simply kill you.

The dialogue in the Deckard meets Rachel scene really stands out. I notice that Rachel's voice and grammar are very proper, almost "robotic." Deckard is much more casual with his words, and Tyrell seems excited. The next thing noticed was the lighting, the scene is very dark, it's hard to see anything at all really. The costume's worn were the next thing I noticed, Rachel's was very slimming, dark, and fairly formal. Deckard was dressed in his usual outfit, trench coat hardass. Tyrell's was harder to make out because of the lighting. This scene is important to the film because this is where the viewer learns that Rachel is an android, this is also were Deckard meets Rachel and their "romance" begins.

The dialogue, sound, and music are soft and faint in this scene, they are used to make the viewer feel sympathetic for Roy. The audience has been looking at Roy as a villain, but now he's next to Rick, both of them in an injured state. This is done to juxtapose Rick and Roy one last time before Roy dies. Deckard cannot cry, because he's a badass. Seriously though, I don't think that Rick is crying, he is just listening to Roy's speech and I think after hearing this, something about Rachel clicks and he realizes it doesn't matter that she's an android, he wants to be with her anyway.

Rick and Rachel leave from Rick's apartment, they know they are being chased so they get out of there and head to an off world colony. They find a man, Gordon Freeman, who can fix Rachel's life span problem, but he wants a very rare gem in return. Rick and Rachel set out to find this gem on their new off world colony, after months of searching they find one. Rick and Rachel return to Gordon, but he's broken his arm and can't preform the surgery. Rick gets infuriated and asks Gordon to walk him through the surgery. Gordon refuses because he doesn't think Rachel will survive without skilled hands. Rachel insists that it doesn't matter to her, she will die soon anyway. Deckard begins the surgery with Gordon over his shoulder, everything goes well...

My research about biofuels as an alternative to gasoline is going well. I've learned that biofuels are, as you may have imagined, more environmentally friendly and can be created from renewable resources, unlike the current standard, which is bad for mother earth and is created from expensive non renewable resources. The creation of biofuel as a new standard looks promising, it does however have it downfalls, which I haven't gotten into yet.

A Boy and His Dog Update!

As I stated in my first post, I was totally shocked as I watched this film. First off, the viewer is thrown straight into the plot, it's not hard to figure out what has happened, some sort of apocalypse. The first big surprise occurs when the dog starts talking to Vic. After you've finally settled with the idea that the dog talks, he sniffs out a girl that Vic then rapes. At this point I'm was just trying to figure out what was going on, the girl seemed to take the whole "rape" thing pretty well..a little too well. This is when I turned the bullshit meter up on the girl, something wasn't right. So, back to the plot, the girl mentions "the underground" where she lives, and that she wants Vic to come back there with her. Vic leaves Blood, the dog, behind and follows the girl. Vic discovers this underground society, the rules are very strict and everyone has white face paint with big red dots on their cheeks. Vic is captured by several of these odd clown faces and has his semen pumped from him to impregnate the society's stagnant gene pool, a result of being underground. The plan is to kill him after the deed is done, but the girl he raped in the beginning comes back for him and asks him to kill the "Council" so she can be the leader. Vic tells her to go to hell, and she pretends she loves him so she can leave with him because she knows she screwed with her society anyway. Now for my favorite part...Vic returns to the surface where a sick and wounded Blood is waiting...Vic and Blood roast the girl over a fire and eat her...Complete and total shock...

Objectified Response

This was an interesting film, very well done. There were a lot of ideas presented that I'd never thought of before. The idea that what you own and how to use and change it is for an audience, and that audience is yourself, because in reality, no one really cares. I also really liked the bit about design that gets better with age, there are a few products that get better the longer they are used, it's very interesting to think that someone designed a product that way. Lastly, it's interesting to learn that most designers actually design a prototype, and then remove the unnecessary parts until what is left is the final product, sort of the opposite of how one might think it would work.

A Boy and His Dog Response

All I can say is wow...The film begins with almost no information, the viewer is just thrown straight into the film. This was not a very good film in my personal opinion. Blood was a great character, I really enjoyed his part, Vic was a little too "I do whatever I want" for me. The girl, who's name I have no idea how to spell, is just straight crazy, doing whatever she can for herself, stepping on whoever she has to to get ahead. The end...wow, talk about a twist. A little too out there. The movie went from lonely kid and his dog finding women and raping them, to a creepy semen pumping underground society, and finally cannibalism. Wow.

Blade Runner Scene Analysis

I really enjoyed the ending scene, with Roy and Rick battling it out. The juxtaposition of the two is so interesting, the ending scene really shows some similarities. The scene also shows who Roy really is, we also get a sense for the kind of guy Rick is in the following scene. I enjoyed the movie as a whole, the setting especially, it fit so well with Rick's 'bad cop' character. The film reminded me a lot of "The Spirit,"a movie about a superhero protecting his tired city, while struggling with how he or his enemies came to be. Rick struggles with the identities of the androids, and to a certain level, a struggle with who he is himself. That's why I enjoyed the ending scene so much, it sort of ties loose ends together, the unicorn is a very nice touch by the director, sort of a "spinning totem" (an allusion to Inception) right at the end to make the viewer really question what they're thinking.

THE CLIMAX?!?!?!?!?!

I've enjoyed the book so far, however, the climax was a little disappointing, a little too predictable. Mercer being an android was way too easy to pick up, especially when juxtaposed with the TV and radio personality, they both seemed "too good to be true." I'm very curious to see how the book is going to end and how Rick ends up. I'm also very curious about Rachel, is she going to die at the end? Will she end up with Rick?!

Rick Deckard, Phil Resch, and Garland

The scene when Rick and Phil are held up in the fake police station with Garland is an interesting and important scene. Phil's entire "human hood" is questioned, Rick is very confused by all of it, and finally, Garland is killed. When his acting stops working, because Phil is going to test him, Garland admits his true identity to Rick, but also spills about the entire police station, saying that even Phil is an android. This is a major twist in the novel, it makes the reader wonder about Phil's personality, and question what an android is supposed to be like, a very nice plot twist in the novel.

A question I have about the novel is "Is Phil actually an android? Or just a human that likes to kill?"