Marco Polo Perez HON 255

     Michael and I had decided to work on The Iron Giant , not only because it was Michael's childhood favorite movie, but because the movie was symbolic to encompass a tale for anti-gun violence, as well as to illustrate the negative prejudice we--as a society--have towards AI, robots and technology. The Iron Giant , inspired by Ted Hughes's book-- The Iron Man-- is also a story that illustrates societal integration on the lens of a machine/robot who's trying to become humanized and disregard the nature behind its destructive logistics. Brad Bird, who directed the movie, designed The Iron Giant based on the following question: "What if a gun had a soul and didn't want to be a gun?", which for me, truly encompasses David's characterization in AI  about how he was just a robot, but didn't just want to be a robot, since he wanted to become a real boy. In this sense, not only The Iron Giant becomes a symbol of breaking the negative prejudice behind destru...

      I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and realism behind the state of gaming , where I found Virtual Reality to be quite an enjoyable experience, despite its dystopian nature within the film's universe. VR is the present and the future that will impact many people's lives (people use VR chat and sometimes talk to bots so that they won't feel alone), which I think has its positive and negative aspects in the long run.     For this project, Michael and I decided to play Call of Duty: Warzone and talk to players. It took us about 4-6 hours to finally interact with a good, unselfish player, such as Joseph (alias GrilledCheez923), who is a young streamer based in Florida who wishes to enlist in the military when he graduates from high school. He had told me, through a consensual interview, that he wanted to be what he saw on the screen: a soldier, a man who can take care of his country and defend it. The experience to get an interview was long, since many people eithe...

      The movie overall was a bit corny and bad (for my taste), but Milla Jovocich performance, as well as the design of the  Mondoshawans and the sequence of the opera scene were outstanding in my opinion. Luc Besson's cinéma du look  is very clear with the fashion behind the designs of the characters' outfits, which illustrate a certain hierarchy within the film's universe and character relationships (clerics, mercenaries, politicians, the rich, the underground, etc.).     For this assignment, my group and I had to create a couple of fashion designs (upcycle or through recycled materials) that were influenced for the movie. As soon as this was tasked to us, we came with the idea of seeing what materials people had in order for our outfits to be cohesive and follow a cohesive theme. I knew who my model was going to be, as my professor had already predicted, which was my girlfriend. She had a purple Taylor Swift swimming outfit that glowed, and it remi...

 This class has had amazing movies throughout the semester (one of my personal favorites being Ghost in The Shell ), and I'm so glad I could finally watch Christopher Nolan's Interstellar . Its main theme, composed by the great Hans Zimmer, is one I've heard for years without even getting a single gist of the movie's themes (such as time travel, survival, extinction, space exploration, etc.) For this class's assignment, we had to do a short 3 minutes video about an interaction with someone that came from the future--as long as we're basing our story in a reddit/quora conspiracy/tales about time travel. As soon as I read the instructions, I started to look on reddit, and found many interesting comments. For example, one said that he had come from the ear 2345, and other ones mentioned the urban legend of John Titor. John Titor was a man--who through his many world hypothesis--claimed that there was going to be a five way civil war in America in 2005, which eviden...

AI & Pinocchio; Intertwined            When watching AI and reading the original story of Pinocchio, I mainly took into consideration the first sequence of the film, which focuses on the monologue about a robot being able to love and feel loved by a human. However, when David’s prototype was proposed (a.k.a the robot child), one of the board members asked Professor Allen Hobby if a human can truly love a robot back, in which the latter simply replied with the following statement: “Did God create Adam to love him?”, meaning that the robot is only created to serve the needs of a human, whereas the human isn’t necessarily supposed to pay its service/love back. This statement alone is a recurring factor seen in most sci-fi movies where such creations (ex: David, The Replicants, etc.) strive to get that connection from their human counterparts (fathers/masters, etc.) but due to their nature, humans won’t care to satisfy their own needs. However, this st...

 As an anime enjoyer, I always wanted to watch Ghost in The Shell , and I'm glad we got to watch it in this class (and get it out of m wish list). The Ost for this movie is amazing, since it immerses us into its sci-fi dystopian universe, where it's futuristic concepts aren't too far from reality itself. For this class's paper, I mentioned other sci-fi works--such as Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Cyberpunk 2077-- since they align with the visual narrative design of this exceptional anime. For example, on one hand, in BOIII , the concept of Direct Neural Interface is introduced to us (the player), as a mechanism that would allow us, not only to generate simulations in our minds (like the Matrix), but also interact with technology/chips in seconds (like in Mortal Shell, through their ghosts).  On the other hand, I chose to talk about  Cyberpunk 2077  due to the similarities it has with Ghost in The Shell --both visually and thematically--since both protagonists adapt...

  When reading Harari's Homo Deus , I didn't know what to expect. When reaching to page 29, I feel like a part of me changed, especially when reading about 9/11 and the metaphor of terrorists being like a fly trying to attract a bull to take care and destroy a Chinese shop. It was perhaps one of the best explanations about terrorism, fear, and the war of the Middle East that I've ever read in my entire life. Aside of that small passage, the historical background of how humans have failed against diseases and how we've succumbed to war due to the trickery of others determines why men have failed to become immortal. Harari claims that we should all achieve immortality as to show human superiority, kind of like if men conquered Nature and became Nature (I'm capitalizing the n in Nature because I'm referencing Baruch Spinoza's argument that Nature is God).  As for my personal beliefs, I think that immortality could be a beautiful reality, especially if we're...

                      I'm very glad we've been able to watch Star Trek this semester, it changed my mind over the series! I think I was biased prior to watching the movie, due to the fact that I've always been (and always will be) a Star Wars fan (only for its first 6 movies and Clone Wars TV series). For some reason when I was young, I thought that Star Trek was boring and just about politics, oh boy, I was wrong. Look, even if the movie is a cheesy one at best (with a normal plot and not the greatest acting), when doing research about its origins and creation, I was taken aback by how fascinating and influential these series were and are in today's date, especially on the cultural and societal aspect around the world, and how illustrative was the showcasing of an optimistic diversity, followed by tolerance, and of course: technology! I was amazed to discover that most engineers and space operators at NASA were inspired b...

            When I first started my research on this following question: "Are we living in a simulation?", the first article that showed up was Nick Bostrom's titled  article "Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? ", where he explores scientific and philosophical arguments around the idea that we live in a virtual simulation. In this article, Bostrom proposes that advanced civilizations could create simulations so realistic that inhabitants within them would be unaware of their artificial nature, and that we may, in fact, live in such simulations as we speak at this very moment (Bostrom, 2003). Throughout this discussion, Bostrom mentions a race of posthumans, which are simulated beings--people--that are capable of being conscious entities amongst this simulated reality (like Neo, from The Matrix ). However, such hypothesis is counterargued after asking the question: "if there were a substantial chance that our civilization will get to the post...

  Collage + Reflection: Themes: Life is about feeling pain, otherwise worthless Idea of Collaboration I didn't ask to be created(slaves) Sacrifice of our way of life through urbanization (trash) and AI development Peace can be achieved but in the end it could be rotten(wings and trash in bottom) Tears represent memories dying Ideas for collage: The background is space with Orion constellations to represent the hunter Box with wings on the side Eyes in the middle with on the bottom arms connecting with nail going through it Tears with the wings Flowers on the wings   We wanted the project to have 3 different posters with the one in the middle attaching the other two sides. So we bought poster board paper and some glue. I then made some AI images for the eyes which we put on the middle poster board and Michael printed out wings attached to the side poster paper. The eye is supposed to represent the eye of Roy, the villainous replicant, and how it is different from the eyes of a ...

            A good and trustworthy friend of mine had recommended this movie to me a long time ago, describing it as "the best movie he's ever seen" and "one of the most influential movies ever." When finally watching it, I couldn't agree more with his statements. The cinematography (especially the opening shot, the images of the desert, Hal 9000 watching and placed in the background as both protagonists plot against the computer, etc.), soundtrack and special effects were definitely avant-garde and spectacular, despite the fact that the movie was published in 1968! Just seeing the movie's opening shot with the iconic soundtrack of  "Thus Spake Zarathustra"  and how influential it became for all other movies (like the beginning of Barbie ) and commercials including an image of the moon and an astronaut is simply astonishing! It's quite fascinating to see the source of inspiration for all the other movies of the same genre that came afterwar...

          For this blog, I'm going to write about Zima Blue,  and how its story reflects the mind of a human artist through the lens of a humanoid robot. Zima Blue  was one of my favorite episodes from L+D+R, since the animation was exquisite, the paintings from Zima Blue himself were extraordinary, and the characterization and backstory of Zima Blue was interesting and formidably well written (good plot twist too). Even so, what stood out to me in  Zima Blue  was its existentialist approach: a piece that makes us reflect about purpose and desire, which is non-other than a desire to find ourselves, to leave our mark and to make an impact in life through the concept of free will. This existential aspect is well exposed after Zima Blue himself hints his backstory. While speaking in the third person about himself being that robot that cleaned swimming pools, we see that bit by bit, he becomes more human. His story is representative of what ...

           Metropolis  is an avant-garde movie that addresses several themes such as slavery, revolution, hierarchy, ethics surrounding machinery and robotics and marginalization. After doing some research on Fritz Lang, who was a pioneer of German Expressionism, he was inspired in the city of New York when he had visited it in 1924, describing it as a city of the future (which was mainly due to the presence of the skyscrapers). Fritz Lang was an architect, which gave him an advantage when designing his mesmerizing sets, such as the ones we see when watching Metropolis .       During the period the movie was shot, both Mexico and Russia were marked by their respective revolutions: The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and the Russian Revolution (1917). In 1917, specifically during the Mexican Revolution, a new constitution was brought where they addressed land reforms, labor rights and the separation of the church and state, which...