The Matrix is one of those quintessential science fiction movies and I enjoyed watching it again. The red pill is a pill of knowledge and the blue pill is a pill of ignorance. Neo chooses the red pill and for most of my life I figured if I was given the choice, I would also choose the red pill. But as I get older I think blissful ignorance would be nice sometimes. Yes, I believe knowledge is power, but not everyone wants power. I personally see the pros and cons in taking either, and that’s what makes it such a difficult question to be faced with. I like knowing things and I enjoy feeling smart when talking about topics that I know I’m knowledgeable in. I consider myself someone who’s fairly knowledgeable in things like pop culture and politics, but sometimes it would definitely be nice to know absolutely nothing. The more I learn and get involved in politics and world news, the more the world hurts and upsets me. But to take the blue pill and absolutely know nothing would be miserable I think. On the other hand, taking the red pill and knowing everything would make me feel like my own head was a prison. To take the red pill and know all the good and all the bad in the world would probably be such a heavy burden, but to take the blue and know absolutely nothing would probably be just as bad. In real life, I would not be able to choose between the two. I enjoy being someone in the middle. I’m extremely knowledgeable in some things, but not in others. This gives me the chance to learn and grow as a person every day. And I love that about life. But if I wasn’t in the position to reject both pills and I had to choose, I would also choose the red pill. Knowing everything would ultimately be better than knowing absolutely nothing. 

While I enjoyed this movie, I had a difficult time following it. Throughout the movie, Cole is plagued with questions of his own sanity. One minute he knows that he is a time-traveler from the future and the next minute he accepts how crazy that idea is. And this makes it really difficult to keep up with the movie. The concepts of predestination and free will throughout the movie were very interesting. The movie seems to mostly side with the idea of hard determinism, which means Cole’s actions (and other character’s actions) are predetermined by external forces beyond his control. However, Cole’s mad dash at the end of the movie seems to signify his defiance of fate and his power in free will. There’s also the free will he appears to have through his dreams. The dreams slightly change throughout the movie with hints that he has the ability to change the outcome of things.

The Time Machine: 

I really enjoyed the way the concept of time travel was portrayed in this story. The Time Traveler proposes that time is a fourth dimension of space and that our “consciousness moves along it.” When the Time Traveler time travels he doesn’t immediately show up in a new time and place, he travels through time in its fourth dimension. Another thing I really noticed throughout the story was the concept of evolution. In the story Wells speculates on what could happen if natural selection fails. The Eloi, who are beautiful and wealthy, are also unintelligent and lazy. Relating to theme of class struggle throughout the novel, the Eloi are the upper class and the Morlocks are the working class. 

The symbolism of the spice and the water stuck out to me in this movie. Melange is the spice that’s found on Arrakis and mined by the Fremen. Along with the imperialist allegories behind the spice mining itself, there’s also the mystical theme in the way the spice expands the human consciousness and perception. There is also the symbolism of the water and the idea of the water of life. After drinking the water of life, Paul is accepted into the Fremen and welcomed as their leader. The Fremen call blood “the body’s water.” They see water as the lifeline behind the environment and life on their planet. 

Watching this movie actually prompted me to (finally) start reading the book. I am looking forward to the release of the new movie later this year and I’m excited to see what Dennis Villeneuve decides to do differently. 

Here is the link to an interesting article that speculates how “Villeneuve’s Dune will fundamentally alter the canon of Dune”: https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/dune-2020-photos-reveal-3-villeneuve-changes-book

Arrival is probably my favorite movie of all the ones we’ve watched and I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. It has all of my favorite elements of science fiction. I really enjoyed the whole concept of the timeline. The idea of nonlinear or any kind of different timelines is so fascinating to me. During the whole movie I couldn’t stop thinking about Jeremy Bearimy, which is what the timeline for the afterlife in The Good Place is called. It’s called Jeremy Bearimy because that’s what the nonlinear line looks like its spelling. It hurts your brain to look at and conceptualize because we can’t really fathom a world where time in nonlinear. The thing that fascinated me the most was how Louise Banks essentially unlocked a nonlinear timeline on Earth by learning this universal language. It really makes you think about how we experience time. It was such an interesting thing to sit and think about after watching the movie. Is nonlinear time something we could potentially begin to experience? Is time something that just IS and exists the way it is, or is linear time something we could unlearn as our minds expand and we become smarter? We’ve come to conceptualize time as a physical reality that moves at a fixed speed, but when you think of multiple universes and timelines, time becomes an insufficient measure of reality. So what other possibilities are really out there? 

Here is an explanation of Jeremy Bearimy if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/RFm9ClqlGuo

I really enjoyed reading this story. I think the way Asimov releases information throughout the story was crucial to maintaining the suspense. It felt like as soon as I felt like I knew something, something else came up that made me feel uncertain. You find out the planet has six suns, but there’s only one still visible and you don’t know why. The story was short but it kept me on my toes the whole time, making it really suspenseful. After finding out that only one sun was left, Beta, I assumed the world was going to end because everyone was going to freeze. At this point Aton had only said that civilization was coming to an end, but he never explained how. When Sheerin came into the Observatory he says “It’s freezing outside…Beta doesn’t seem to give off any heat at all, at the distance it is,” I realized that extreme cold probably wasn’t going to be the way the world ended because they would’ve been better prepared for the cold if they were planning to have to withstand it. After that Sheerin explained about the worldwide Darkness being the cause of the world ending. Another thing I felt added to the suspense of the story was the back and forth between the beliefs of the Cultists, scientists, and general public. I wasn’t sure what to believe or who was right about what was going to happen after the Eclipse. 

This story reminded me of Y2K, with there being a worldwide panic over the possible technological glitches. With the possibility of impending chaos, many American were scared and filled with uncertainty. It also reminded me of the 2012 phenomenon, where many people believed that the Mayans had predicted a worldwide doomsday on December 21^st of 2012. 

My story takes place in the late 2050s. A group of scientists, funded by private government agencies, have managed to figure out time travel. They decide to send secret agents and a group of doctors back through time to try to eradicate specific diseases. They feel that they’re doing a successful job and have managed to fly under the radar of the general public for about 10 years. Until someone visits the “time travel facility” from decades in the future and explains what has happened because of them meddling with time. 

The key ideas of my story are time travel and genetic mutation. Like most stories about genetic mutation/engineering, while the majority of the characters believe they are doing a good thing for the world, they later learn that every action has repercussions. 

In Bulgakov’s Fatal Eggs, Professor Persikov’s happens upon a strange discovery. Professor Persikov discovers that a light ray can accelerate growth and reproduction in living beings. At the same time a chicken plague is sweeping the country. One of the things that stuck with me the most about this story was on the last page when it’s explained how the “red ray” was never discovered again after Professor Persikov dies. “The ray itself was never again captured, although the elegant gentleman and now full professor, Peter Stepanovich Ivanov, had occasionally made attempts.” Even after the disastrous events that happened, Ivanov still wanted to recreate the red ray.

While this is a regular occurrence in stories about genetic mutation, this specifically reminded me of a quote form Jurassic Park when Dr. Malcolm says, “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Fatal Eggs and Jurassic Park have a similar story line in the way scientific experiments involving genetic mutation/engineering end up going wrong and causing chaos, I think this is just the way most genetic mutation/engineering stories end up going. Genetic modifications dates back centuries and I think it’s just because of the nature of humans. We’re curious, but we never seem to understand that there are consequences to our actions. 

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

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