Matthew, Mark, Luke & Sam?

Film: Moon

I am going to attempt to build upon on a specific aspect of the movie that I thought was quite intriguing, the naming of the He₃ Harvesters after the Synoptic Gospels found in the Biblical New Testament.  While all four gospels are eventually referenced in the film (John was mentioned much later), direct attention was made to Matthew, Mark, and Luke (time: ~16:00), which are the three books of the Bible (gospels) that comprise the “synoptic problem.” The synoptic problem basically states that the three separate texts are so similar in content that they must have shared an initial source material that all three “borrowed” accounts from.  This is very intriguing because even though it is the harvesters that are directly named, this could be viewed as a parallel to Sam Bell.  With this assumption, we can place the original Sam Bell as the source material {(un?)knowing genetic donor} for the later three clones (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) that all shared a similar fate, incineration…  Finally, the fourth Sam Bell Clone (the one we meet and ultimately dies as the scapegoat) would be assigned as the book of John (not a synoptic gospel, but considered the 4^th gospel); the book that is widely accepted to be much more complex and loving than the three gospels that preceded him in period scribed as well as textual order.  This notion can be strengthened by the fact that the 4^th Sam Bell seems to have overcome whatever issues the real Sam suffered from and is a much more complex character than the others.  Gerty also confirms this achievement and complexity (time: ~50:25).

            An additional view from a synoptic gospel standpoint is through the scope of the word itself.  Synoptic comes from the Greek syn, meaning "together", and optic, meaning "seen," which is quite interesting because we actually see two Sam Bells together…

MTG

Animals of Men

Film:  Children of Men

I am going concentrate on a few aspects of the Ark of the Arts scene (time: 19:10-~21:27).  In the preceding scenes all information that has been presented to the viewer either specifically or in the “background” has served a very specific purpose in yielding insight into the terrible future that this story is taking place within.  For instance, the date and place alone allude to a past event in history that can shed more light and information into this storyline.  November 16, London; in 1961 Great Britain limited immigration from Commonwealth countries; obviously the immigration policies are much stricter and visibly of great concern in the film, but point being, the date was chose for a specific reason and as a result the film has indirectly given us a large piece of information.  In this scene I believe the “Pink Floyd Animals Pig” floating over a smog-free Battersea Power Station is telling the viewer a lot more than just, “Hey, this collector likes giant inflatable pigs.”  The director, (or writers, whoever…) could have placed literally anything outside of that window, why the pig?  

If we indulge into the Pink Floyd Animals allusion, we c(w)ould say that the pig is a symbol of the big capitalist government and Nigel is just the human extension of that corrupt government, a pig in his own right.  Additionally within this theory Theo Faron would fill the role of the dog, a man that abandons his moral beliefs in order to climb the corporate ladder.  Wait, that’s exactly what was revealed to us already…  Hmmm, interesting.  Could this hypothesis be reinforced by the notion that dogs “like” Theo?  Well, the “attack dogs” didn’t seem very interested in him when he entered…  Shall we dig deeper?  Hell yes, the allusion doesn’t stop there!  Pink Floyd’s “Animals” is widely known to be a musical adaptation (for lack of a better word) on George Orwell’s famous literary work Animal Farm which cleverly addresses Karl Marx communism and arguably policies adopted by Vladimir Lenin.  With this in mind, the director is quite possibly giving us some insight into exactly what kind of government is operating within the “surviving Britain.”  Is this not the famous monarchy we are familiar with today, or is there a communist regime that has ultimately clenched control, hybrid of the two maybe?  Specifics are not revealed, but one could infer through observation.   Additionally, as can be deduced from this scene, there is definitely a very large monetary inequality between those positioned in high governmental roles rather than a man that holds a common position at the Ministry of Energy.

            These theories I have presented may seem unrealistic and far-fetched, but it is very common for art to allude to other works of art, who says that the allusions have to remain within the same medium. 

A 2000 Year Farse.

Film: A.I. Artificial Intelligence

There are countless ways that one can approach reading this film but I would like to focus on an aspect that may seem quite abstract, but stood out to me from the very beginning of the film.  I believe this film can be read as symptomatic statement about religion and the link between human desperation and the invention of God.  At (time: 6:45/145:50) Professor Hobby states in retort to the films main moral dilemma that “in the beginning didn’t God create Adam to love him?”  This is essentially what will link Professor Hobby as the God figure in the film since it is his company that creates the mecha boy David who we will follow for the remainder of the film. 

            As David progresses through the film there is a very important scene with Gigolo Joe wherein Joe exclaims that, “The supernatural is the hidden web that unites the universe.  Only orga believe what cannot be seen or measured.  It is that oddness that separates our species.”  (time: 91:15/145:50).  Here we are clearly given a division of one species to the other, and it is this key that unlocks my theory for the film. 

            Once David has reached Manhattan and has endured his disturbing encounter with his creator he becomes very vulnerable and emotional.  It is at this point that arguably he has achieved his most humanistic reality.  He has already made multiple choices based on emotion rather than logic and he is so distraught about his newfound “mecha brothers" on the assembly line that he is ready to commit suicide rather than press on.  In his failed suicide attempt he gets a glimpse into the deep waters and sees the blue fairy.  It is then in these frozen waters that he spends 2000 years praying to the supernatural in effort to become real. Now we know from before that only orga believe in the supernatural, so the fact that David has abandoned his logical reasoning and put his “faith” in something that wasn’t real is entirely human.  It shows that it is out of lack of logic, self motivated greed, and humanistic desperation that the most human aspect of David turned to the supernatural, or God, for help.  So, how does this conclude that humans invented God.  The worth of divinity only has value when humans place value (faith) into it.  David did just this with the blue fairy; nobody else believed the blue fairy to have supernatural powers but him.  He placed his faith in the supernatural at his most desperate hour, essentially inventing his own personal God.

            But wait, I though Professor Hobby was the God figure..?  He is, the role he has assumed is God the creator who towers above the earth in glory like no other, and the mythical fairy has assumed the role of Christ – the miracle worker who came into Earthly existence and who, no matter how close you can get to him, you can never actually encounter him physically.  The 2000 years that David spends suspended in time, living in a dream state, only to awaken and realize that his supernatural being is in fact a man-made farce that shatters right before him is a statement about humanity spending 2000 years in a haze worshiping a Christ figure that was deemed divine by HUMANS to then witness the Church essentially begin to crumble under the weight of constantly surmounting scandals… 

          I also think the film makes a clear cut statement about love.  The mother wants to fill a void left by her son, so she attempts to fill that void with David’s love.  BUT…  David loves her in a way that NO one can, but he is not real, therefore his love is not real.  So does this suggest that love is in fact not real..?  Maybe humans desire (require?) something emotionally that can never be filled.  Maybe that emotional hole is another reason humans turn to the supernatural in times of desperation…

"It's too bad she won't live.., but then again who does!?"

Film: Blade Runner - The Final Cut

Where should I start?  Blade Runner has been beat to death with countless conspiracy theories and different analyses so I will attempt to not beat the dead horse - (err, uh unicorn...) -  here, but since this film is over 30 years old my efforts may be in vain...  What does it really mean to be alive?  Who really "lives" anyways?  I suppose to answer these questions we must first define what "LIFE" actually is.  There was a time when human life was thought to begin when a baby takes in its first breath, but now many people identify human life much earlier in the stages of fetal development.  Some groups define life so early that the undeveloped human fetus is nothing more than a cluster of replicating cells; so I must ask, how does replication of the most simple form of life constitute human existence, and additionally what does it mean to be human? These questions are the underlying foundation of the entire film even though the specific statement by Gaff , "It's too bad she wont live, but then again who does?" isn't posed until the final frames of the film. -  (time: 108:52/117:28) and then again when Deckard remembers - (time: 112:07/117:28) and ultimately realizes that he too is a Replicant... (I will provide some proofs later)  The Replicants are almost genetically identical to the humans but yet they are treated less than human, and ultimately feared and hunted down because they constitute a direct threat to what it "means" to be a human. 
Let us take a step to the side and think about something briefly; when the world first witnessed the successful cloning of "Dolly" the sheep, we didn't all of a sudden label it something different because it had been "created by man" rather than "naturally by nature," we simply acknowledged the fact that it was an astounding scientific achievement and moved on to how this new technology could eventually help humanity; but ultimately the debate of cloning humans entered the picture and many people were extremely outraged, therefore it was (in many parts of the world) deemed illegal to do so.  Now this may seem like a far tangent from the Replicants in the film but essentially they were the exact same thing - genetic clones of humans (not exact clones of a specific individual but still organic creatures none the less) created to do the menial labors of the day. Once the threat to humanity was acknowledged, or even proposed for that matter, the Replicants became illegal and the eradication of the species ensued.  The main difference is we, probably for matters linked to religion rather than the welfare of humanity or the advancement of science, determined cloning to be a threat to humanity before we ever successfully cloned a human.

Deckard IS a Replicant:

1)  Watch for his eyes, they do the "glow" briefly in one of the apartment scenes with Rachel. (time: 66:34-66:40 EXACTLY)
2)  When Deckard is escaping from Roy he pulls himself up onto the building (his entire body weight) with the use of only 2 fingers on a hand that is broken!!!  (time: 102:40/117:28)
3)   When Roy saves Deckards life he says "kinship"  (time: 105:34/117:28)
4)  The Deckard unicorn daydream that is revealed to have been known by Gaff because of the origami unicorn.  Essentially this says "hey, I read your file bro.., I know what's on (in) your mind."  (the single biggest give away...)

MTG