MikeKardec
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,157
- Location
- Los Angeles
I'm finding this mesmerizing.
Obviously, it's a re-envisioning of the 1973 Michael Crichton movie ... which I had forgotten he directed. It's a theme park, a far more than "virtual" reality environment where you can go to live out your fantasies of "history" (it's much more a place of Western Myth than reality), rebellious violence or guilt free sex.
The park is staffed with robots who are amazingly lifelike, even to the point of having enough "consciousness" to allow them to care for their own needs to a limited extent, like seeking maintenance, react in a deeply lifelike way to park guests, process complex situations and ... well, that's where the story really begins.
Stealing a concept from Jurassic Park the series takes on the premise that "life will find a way," that sterile dinosaurs will breed and that semi conscious robots self programming capabilities will eventually make them conscious. It's fascinating and heart breaking to watch pain and suffering (basically electronic PTSD) cause some sort of humanity to flicker to life
We are the masters of the matrix, it's casual gods, but our inhumanity causes their humanity to evolve. Pain makes us human. Life makes pain. Lets hope that rather than a revenge against the humans story this turns into something that also suggests that experiencing pain also creates empathy. If you've never been hurt you can never care about others hurting.
There is also a secret hidden deep in the structure of the park, something not yet revealed that only some of the robots and one of the guests ... and theoretically a few members of the staff are aware of. There are agendas within agendas; staff members experimenting with robots in ways that could be kind or supremely dangerous, a board that seems to want something other than the creator and a creator who has his own special way of controlling everything. There's a mysterious second creator, a dead man who seems to still haunt the park in an unknown way. And there is no hint of what the outside world is like except that there are still corporations and biotech and traditional families. But the technology in the park is extraordinary and it's 30 years old.
The performances are excellent, but cable TV has managed excellence pretty consistently for the last 10 years. HBO has nurtured Evan Rachel Wood since she was very young, as they have few other actors, and I have a feeling that they are going to blow the doors off with her character.
It's the commentary on entertainment, especially that the audience makes up its own story (or should be allowed to) that is very interesting. There is a great conflict in the film business over whether you should spoon feed simple stories to audiences or allow them complex worlds that they only partially understand ... and let their imaginations fill in the rest. That's a conflict within the structure of making this show as well as one in the story we are being told. How much can remain mysterious?
JJ Abrams is involved. He has always been either bad at explanations or very good at the mystery thing and second guessed by the powers that be; forced into simpler explanations than he would like to present. Think of the fascinating parallel worlds aspect of the last season of Lost vs the stupid, they were dead all the time and meet in a church to go on to heaven or whatever, ending. You have to wonder if the network didn't insist on that crud so they wouldn't get "you cheated because I didn't understand it" mail from fans. Personally, I think that a lot of that mail just shows how deeply involved people are and that, regardless of what they say, they are not unhappy with mysterious and intelligent entertainment when they can get it. I've had a fair amount of experience with fans "complaining" about elements they obviously loved ... it's just their way of expressing themselves.
We'll see what happens this time ...
Obviously, it's a re-envisioning of the 1973 Michael Crichton movie ... which I had forgotten he directed. It's a theme park, a far more than "virtual" reality environment where you can go to live out your fantasies of "history" (it's much more a place of Western Myth than reality), rebellious violence or guilt free sex.
The park is staffed with robots who are amazingly lifelike, even to the point of having enough "consciousness" to allow them to care for their own needs to a limited extent, like seeking maintenance, react in a deeply lifelike way to park guests, process complex situations and ... well, that's where the story really begins.
Stealing a concept from Jurassic Park the series takes on the premise that "life will find a way," that sterile dinosaurs will breed and that semi conscious robots self programming capabilities will eventually make them conscious. It's fascinating and heart breaking to watch pain and suffering (basically electronic PTSD) cause some sort of humanity to flicker to life
We are the masters of the matrix, it's casual gods, but our inhumanity causes their humanity to evolve. Pain makes us human. Life makes pain. Lets hope that rather than a revenge against the humans story this turns into something that also suggests that experiencing pain also creates empathy. If you've never been hurt you can never care about others hurting.
There is also a secret hidden deep in the structure of the park, something not yet revealed that only some of the robots and one of the guests ... and theoretically a few members of the staff are aware of. There are agendas within agendas; staff members experimenting with robots in ways that could be kind or supremely dangerous, a board that seems to want something other than the creator and a creator who has his own special way of controlling everything. There's a mysterious second creator, a dead man who seems to still haunt the park in an unknown way. And there is no hint of what the outside world is like except that there are still corporations and biotech and traditional families. But the technology in the park is extraordinary and it's 30 years old.
The performances are excellent, but cable TV has managed excellence pretty consistently for the last 10 years. HBO has nurtured Evan Rachel Wood since she was very young, as they have few other actors, and I have a feeling that they are going to blow the doors off with her character.
It's the commentary on entertainment, especially that the audience makes up its own story (or should be allowed to) that is very interesting. There is a great conflict in the film business over whether you should spoon feed simple stories to audiences or allow them complex worlds that they only partially understand ... and let their imaginations fill in the rest. That's a conflict within the structure of making this show as well as one in the story we are being told. How much can remain mysterious?
JJ Abrams is involved. He has always been either bad at explanations or very good at the mystery thing and second guessed by the powers that be; forced into simpler explanations than he would like to present. Think of the fascinating parallel worlds aspect of the last season of Lost vs the stupid, they were dead all the time and meet in a church to go on to heaven or whatever, ending. You have to wonder if the network didn't insist on that crud so they wouldn't get "you cheated because I didn't understand it" mail from fans. Personally, I think that a lot of that mail just shows how deeply involved people are and that, regardless of what they say, they are not unhappy with mysterious and intelligent entertainment when they can get it. I've had a fair amount of experience with fans "complaining" about elements they obviously loved ... it's just their way of expressing themselves.
We'll see what happens this time ...
