8. In Time

                Of all the ways I’ve looked at of modifying humans I think the most interesting, and least likely to happen is the technology of In Time. In this universe people stop aging once they’re 25. On their 25^th birthday a clock on their arm starts ticking down from 10 years. When your clock hits all zeros, you die. Time has replaced money as currency. That’s the only way to live past that decade. Now you are literally working to keep your health, and paying with your health to get anything.

                What this has also done is create a social divide. The poor live very short lives because they can never get much time to extend their clocks. The rich are able to live basically forever. They’ve built up millennia of time. They’re gaining time faster than they can use it.

                This brings up the big question of the film. Should people be allowed to live forever? More than any other system this one keeps you the most human. The only thing that has changed really is the aging process. If you’ve earned the right to live forever by hard work and gaining that time should you keep it? We see this in the beginning as Henry, a man with centuries of time decides he’s lived long enough and gives all his time to Will, who lives in the ghetto. Will then uses that time to try to make things right and becomes basically a time-bandit version of Robin Hood.

Henry’s speech to Will (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDCWEJK5r6k) sums up the problem with this new society. “For a few to be immortal, many must die.” Humans have evolved to the point that very few actually care about others, they’ve lost that part of themselves. All they care about now is themselves. Which is why the few and the privileged have built barriers to keep the meek and poor out. This way the poor dies so they don’t take up precious space.

Overpopulation really does threaten to be a large problem, not just in this movie, but also in real life. The population may be growing, but the world itself isn’t. The world can only sustain so many people. That is the problem with immortality. You may be immortal, but resources aren’t. Also, as Henry says, eventually you’ve just seen it all and are ready to die. It’s something that’s inevitable.

Works cited

movieclips "In Time #4 Movie CLIP - Cost of Living (2011) HD" Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 22 Nov. 2011. 

Niccol, Andrew, dir. In Time. CD-ROM.

7. i,Robot

The concept of having real robots that display human characteristics is slightly frightening. I,Robot does a great job at illustrating the concept of robots integrating with society. Could that be where society is heading? Could robots be a part of society?

I think the most interesting part of I,Robot is the three laws. First, a robot must never harm a human, or allow harm to come to a human. Second, a robot must obey human commands unless it violates the first law. Third, a robot must protect itself unless that violates the first or second law. These laws show that someone must have programmed them to install these laws. More so they programmed them to attempt to keep humans on top. I also find it interesting that the rules have a hierarchy. The first law overrules everything. The second law overrules everything besides the first law. It shows where importance is placed. The robot is only allowed to save itself if it can guarantee that no human will be harmed first. By only having those three laws it does allow for a range of possibilities for the robot to operate under since nothing was clearly laid out.

The scary thing becomes what if something happened to those three laws? What if a robot didn’t have to obey them? This theory gets tested when the main character Mel meets Sonny, a robot who belonged to the creator of robots before his death. Sonny ends up being friendly, but the central intelligence is not. It becomes sentient and wants to take over the humans. This brings up the scary conclusion that humans created the machine that tried to overthrow them. Does this mean we have too much power? I think it’s more that we’ve gone too far in technology. It’s scary to think that one day we could in effect be our own downfall.

I think this can connect back to the idea of at what point is something still considered a machine? These robots are capable of making decisions based on circumstances to determine if they’re in accordance with the three laws. They’re capable of thought and conversation. It’s as if they’re closer to being human than to being machine.

We also once again see the concept of a sympathetic main character. A year prior to the events in the movie Del lost his arm saving a little girl. They replaced it with a robotic arm. Robotic body parts have a lot of potential even today as a form of prosthetics. It raises the question though of how much of you has to be human to still be human? If someone lost both of their legs and an arm and had them replaced with robotic limbs, are they still human? I think so since those arms and legs may be mechanical, but the soul is still real. Robot parts aren’t something to define someone; it’s something to assist someone.

Works Cited

Proyas, Alex, dir. i, Robot. CD-ROM.

6. Minority Report

                How far is too far when it comes to technology? This is one of the major questions that Minority Report asks. In 2054 Washington D.C. has what is called a PreCrime police force. They can detect murders and arrest people before they even happen. They do this by using three people who have been trained to see the future. Their memories are then saved and uploaded onto the computer where Captain John Anderton and his team use plenty of futuristic gizmos and gadgets to analyze the memory and determine where and when the murder is going to happen.

                This means though that basically the government can always see what we’re doing, before were even going to do it. The main theme of the movie is fate versus free will. Free will is a trait that defines us as humans. We have the ability to make choices. Yes, we have to live with the consequences, but we have the choice. The government now has a machine though that can see what choices we make before we make them. Are we still in control then? Or is big brother really in control?

                The deeper problem is when you find out what your future is. Are you still making the choice if you’ve been told already you’re going to make that choice? Is there any way to change that future? This is what John has to deal with when one day a vision comes up of him committing a murder.

                I think this is where things get taken too far. Free will is important. The future should be left unknown. If you know the future that ruins the journey to lead us there. It could even alter that journey if you know too much. Plus should we as society allow the police and the government to creep that far into our lives that they know things about us that even we don’t? No one knows us better than ourselves. If that isn’t true anymore than we don’t have anything to call ours. Everything about us is out there for everyone to know. That sense of having something about you that is inherently yours is important.

Works Cited

Spielberg, Steven, dir. Minority Report. CD-ROM.

5. 28 Days Later

                28 Days Later is another look at the idea of how the human race could end. In this scenario humans are no longer humans, but are now zombies. For now the outbreak has been contained to England. This movie is all about how humans survive when they are no longer on top.

                The scariest part of this movie isn’t the zombies though. It’s what the survivors do. Any women that the survivors find are captured. They’re then forced into basically sex slavery as a way to repopulate the country. Anyone who objects is instantly killed. Also one of the soldiers has been infected by the virus. Instead of doing the humane thing and killing the guy to put him out of his misery and to protect him from spreading it, they chain him up out back to study him. The movie is about zombies but I think the virus also infects those who aren’t zombies. It infects them by turning them into a darker version of themselves.

                Zombies in general are interesting from this point of view. Society has moved away from the Night of the Living Dead type of zombies lately. Gone are the days of slow walking zombies just wanting brains. No more do zombies come out of the ground as undead, reanimated corpses. In this movie the zombies are still alive. They could be considered human still. Technically they are human, just infected with a very strong and fast acting virus. They still have a brain and strong motor functions because deep down they’re still human. This has been the new trend in movies. Make zombies evolve from viruses rather than from magic.

                The most interesting part is where do you draw the line at still being human? These zombies are humans still. They’re just infected. Sick humans are usually considered still humans. These humans are so sick though that the virus has taken complete control of them. It’s almost as if the virus has become the active personality and the human, while still technically alive, is now dormant. If that human part is dormant are they still human? Or has the virus evolved them to a posthuman stage of rage zombie?

               

Works Cited

Boyle, Danny, dir. 28 Days Later. CD-ROM. 

4. Daybreakers

                Daybreakers is another movie that deals with altering humans physically. The main reason is in this universe posthumanism for 95% of the world’s population is vampirism. These vampires have most the normal “rules” for vampires, just with twists. They can’t be exposed to light. A stake through the heart is death. Most importantly, they need blood. The problem is supply and demand. When things start its estimated that only 5% of the population is still human. If vampires go too long without blood they degenerate from their human-like state to a savage man-bat creature called a “subsider.” This has led the vampires to experiement with ideas such as human farming and creating a blood substitute. None of these things are working though. The main character, Ed, is the head hematologist at one of the world’s major blood suppliers. He’s in charge of many of these experiments.

                Eventually Ed (who despite being a vampire is a human sympathizer) ends up in league with a colony of humans. One of these humans is Elvis, who used to be a vampire. He’s discovered that just the right amount of sunlight will actually reverse the vampire process turning a vampire into a human. It’s also discovered that if a vampire feeds on someone who has been cured they will become cured as well. Unfortunately by the time this is discovered Ed’s employers finish a recipe for synthetic blood. If these other cures get out then there’s no profit in synthetic blood so a war between the vampires and humans is sparked.

                I found this movie interesting from a posthuman point of view because it not only shows humans becoming something more than humans, but it also shows that humans do not maintain the top spot on the food chain once that happens. In most things the humans are considered the main part of society while those who are different are outcast. In this case those who are different are so much more that it’s actually humans in this case that are considered the separate lesser society. We also see the main character, even though he is part of the new normal society, sympathizes with the outcasts. He’s already post human, but he leads a revolution to reverse that posthuman process and create another new society which was a new once again human led society.

 I think it’s also interest to look at that until this point everything I’ve looked at that modified humans was done through a technological process. This time humans are altered due to a simple virus. It’s not humans that are purposefully altering humans. It’s a virus that happened to get into society that changed humans into vampires. Humans had no control over this. It shows just how little we as humans have control over. We’ve seen viruses have devastating effects throughout history. One devastating virus and humanity could be put in a very bad postion.

Works Cited

Spierig, Michael, and Peter Spierig, dir. Daybreakers. CD-ROM.

3. Repo Men

After reading the first section of Never Let Me Go this movie combined with the mention of “donors” is what made me already believe there was something going on that involved organ donation. I didn’t see the clone part coming though. The concept of the movie is that a corporation called “The Union” has perfected artificial organs of all kinds. They then sell these organs to those who need them at extravagant prices yielding massive profits ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSca1EnBNJA).  If a patient falls too far behind repo men are sent in to extract the organ, which almost always leads to death. Something goes wrong on a repossession though and Remy, one of the top repo men in the business has to have an artificial heart implanted. Eventually he becomes unable to pay and goes on the run. The hunter now becomes the hunted.

There are many interesting posthuman concepts in the movie. The biggest of which are the artificial organs. We already have these now, just not at the mass production levels as in the movie. That only seems like the next step in reality though. We have these abilities now. Now we just need to perfect them, then we can mass produce them. This is a great idea because it could save many lives and heavily simplify the organ transfer process. All it takes though is one person who sees the dollar signs and suddenly we’re on the road to a society like this one.

Eventually Remy meets Beth. Beth is on the run for having multiple overdue organs. She has 27 organs and body parts that have been replaced. This brings up the question if such a large percent of her is artificial, is she still even human? Is being artificial the next step in the post human process? Alice doesn’t believe so as the one thing she emphasizes is her lips are all her’s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ-_UsEBT5E&list=PLD8C811FCC6C93B1E).

Unfortunately most of the Union doesn’t agree with her. It’s how they rationalize killing people to take their organs back. Remy’s partner, Jake, views it as a consequence of signing a contract (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPeqoWzZE5I&list=PLD8C811FCC6C93B1E). Originally Remy sympathizes with this view. He has no problem killing someone to rip out an organ. After he gets his artificial heart he begins to sympathize with everyone who has artificial parts and can’t kill them anymore. Basically the receivers have become a separate sect of society that isn’t even viewed as human anymore due to their artificial implants.

One other thing I noticed is a continuance of the concept of alternate realities within the universe of the movie. About halfway through the movie Jake is assigned to repo Remy’s heart. A big fight ensues and Jake hits Remy on the head with a steel hook. Eventually Remy wakes up and the plot continues to completion. At the end Remy is on a beach when the background starts flickering. He then wakes up from this reality that he’s been living in for the second half of the movie. When he was hit on the head he sustained major brain damage. He was alive but in bad shape. He was placed on The Union’s newest product, the “Neural Net.” This product allowed for the wearer to drift off into an alternate reality. Due to his brain damage Remy was confined to this net for basically the rest of his life, but at least he can live it in happiness. This is one way that alternate realities could be a positive. If someone physically isn’t able to function in reality due to some major problem like heavy brain damage, at least a product like this would allow them some happiness. In this case, escaping from reality may actually be a good thing.

Works Cited

movieclips."Repo Men #2 Movie CLIP - A Slick Salesman (2009) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2011.

movieclips."Repo Men #5 Movie CLIP - Enforcement of Rules (2009) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2011.

movieclips. "Repo Men #6 Movie CLIP - Lips...Are All Me (2009) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2011.

Sapochnik, Miguel, dir. Repo Men. CD-ROM.

1. The Matrix

                This is the first movie I thought of when I thought of posthuman and film. Yes, there were ones that were before it, but from a historical perspective I feel like this is the movie that opened the floodgates to movies that deal with posthuman related topics.

                One of the most famous scenes from the movie deals with multiple important topics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE7PKRjrid4).  Morpheus explains to Neo that the Matrix is everywhere. He calls it “The world that has been pulled over your eyes that blinds you from the truth.” This shows that society has lost their individualism as their blindly going about, ignorant to what is really going on. As we later discover this is because almost all of society is plugged in to the Matrix.

                Being plugged into the Matrix has both physical and metaphorical representations. Physically it is possible to see that one day we may be actually plugged into a computer. In the film’s case it’s to create an alternate reality, which is plausible in today’s world. It can also be taken as a metaphor that we are already plugged in. No, we’re not physically attached to machines that connect to our mind, but our use of technology has redefined the term “plugged in.” Today plugged in more has to do with wall outlets. People can’t go long without something that is plugged in. I’m writing on my laptop which must always be plugged in because its battery needs replaced. Next to me is my cell phone which is plugged in to the other outlet because it’s so old its battery can’t hold a charge either. Basically I use my cell phone and computer (which are almost always plugged in somewhere) so much that it’s almost as if I’m plugged in.

                Later on in that same scene Morpheus offers Neo a choice. He can take the red pill and unplug and discover the truth about the Matrix. Or he can take the blue pill and go back to his reality in the Matrix and remember none of this. This brings up the concepts of different realities and your choices of them. Neo is forced to decide should he go back to the real world or stay inside this artificially created reality. The concept of multiple realities is a big deal and in my opinion a scary thought. People can see it as an escape. It’s a way to live another life different, if not better than the one they have. I view this as humanity throwing in the towel though. Each of us was put here for a reason and the lives we have, have purposes. By losing yourself in another reality it’s an admission of giving up on that purpose. It’s like you’re taking the easy way out by living this artificial life instead of taking the hard way of making your life better. I think this is part of the reason that Neo takes the red pill. He doesn’t want to go back to a fake life. He wants to know what his real life is like.

                In the end what makes the difference is being conscious of these separate realities. Once Neo knows the Matrix is a separate reality his demeanor towards everything changes. It affects how he is inside of the Matrix. Now he’s just a download away from being able to do whatever he wants, like learn kung fu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4yuhvccQog).  Its Neo’s ability to control the Matrix, rather than let it control him that ends up saving everyone. Once he realizes that he’s in control he becomes a lot stronger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMx-Az5Da4M).  This shows that to keep our humanity we mustn’t let our lives be dominated by machines. We need to control our lives and the machines, not let our use of them control our lives.

Works Cited

movieclips. "Blue Pill or Red Pill - The Matrix (2/9) Movie CLIP (1999) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 26 May 2011.

movieclips. "Virtual Combat - The Matrix (4/9) Movie CLIP (1999) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 26 May 2011.

movieclips. "The Matrix (8/9) Movie CLIP - Subway Fight (1999) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 26 May 2011.

Wachowski, Andy, and Lana Wachowski, dir. The Matrix. CD-ROM.