Old and the New

2013-23838

STS THY - Group 7

All the Time Reaction Paper

A Trip to the Moon would be one of the films I would be lining up to for its first screening even if it would take me hours just standing and waiting. After watching the film, I would watch it for the second time around even if I have to wait in line again. Why? The plot of the film was not the typical plot you see every day. It was futuristic. It featured a dream dreamt by many, to fly to the moon. It was a grandiose dream and the film showed a possibility of what could happen when we get on the moon. Not only the plot was interesting, but the film was comical which was impressive because it was a silent film. Another plus of the film was the showmanship of the actors and actresses, they moved extravagantly so as to compensate the non-conversational film.

Although I would have been amazed by such a film during the time it was screened, the film would probably not gain as much positive reaction from me now. The standards of film have become so much better that if I compare the films from then to now; there was no really no competition. With todays, graphics and effects, I would not want to blink during an entire film. Of course, one thing that could be highlighted from A Trip to the Moon is the plot. Since it was made a long time ago, the plot was original and something I would look forward to. Now, most plots are just replicas of old films. There is less originality. Most films now are just compensated by the effects and although there are many great actors and actresses today, some just can't pull off the characters.

Comparisons are made so we could appreciate what is good from what is great. The filmmakers of today should keep looking back to the old films and then maybe, they can still learn a thing or two. Nothing beats the original.

Forever Alone

2013-23838

STS THY - Group 7

All the Time Reaction Paper

                In one of the episodes of Twilight Zone, entitled Time Enough at Last, we have a main character whose primary interest is reading. If in our time, reading is an encouraged hobby (or probably a way of life), in his time it was not as accepted. Henry Bemis, the name of our main character, was definitely born in the wrong era. He was scolded by his boss for reading during working period. While the boss is not wrong for doing this, Henry's time for reading is only during his work because his wife does not allow him to read at home.

                Just like the kids today who are addicted in reading, Henry sneaked away from his wife by hiding in a place he could be alone. For him, he hid in their secret vault. Much to his dismay, he was definitely left alone when a nuclear bomb killed everyone else while he was safely hidden in their secret vault, reading. This was a depressing thing to happen (mind the understatement) and our main character felt this. Just when he attempted for suicide, a stroke of luck hit him. He found a library of stacks and stacks of books, and at last he finally had time to read all he wants. But alas, Henry had poor eye-sight and when he broke his glasses, it's like all the bad luck in the world ganged up on him.

                It would be interesting to make an adaptation of this story based on the present time. The story would start the same but the character would be reliant on technology and has quite an addiction for social networking. He was so addicted to social networks that he was not able to do what he needed to do and ends up using much of his time. One day, he wished he had more time but little did he know that that wish of him had a consequence-- he would be left alone. His wish came true; he had all the time in the world. He had all the time for social networking. Sadly, there was no one left to interact with him in the social networking world.

Reaction Paper: All the Time

2013-49565

THY

Reaction Paper: All the Time

“Time Enough at Last” is one of the classic episodes of The Twilight Zone. It is about Henry Bemis, a bank worker who loves to read. His adversaries are people who see his fascination with books as a consummate waste of time. His wife, his boss, his customers all sees him as a loser. They don't allow him to indulge in his favourite pastime. Henry doesn't get a minute to himself with any reading material and resorts to sneakily reading at work whenever he gets the chance. He seems like a delightful man, full of ideas, but in the world of his bank job he is merely inefficient. He uses his lunch break to go down to the bank vault and read a few precious pages. He finally has the opportunity to indulge in his heart's joy after his hometown is devastated by a nuclear blast. But the unexpected happened, he ended up having what he had always wanted – time which became useless because of his weakness, his glasses broke.

If I were to write an update or adaptation of story, I would use the obsession with Facebook. I would make Henry a teenager who is obsessed with the social networking site Facebook. He spends an excessive amount of time on Facebook, allowing the hours to wile away unnoticed, the chores to go uncompleted, and even going so far as he sometimes ignore family and friends in the actual world. His parents would always nag him about it. He then wishes upon a shooting star for them to vanish. It happened and he hurriedly checked his Facebook account. Only to find no Facebook updates since his friends and family do no longer exist.

Henry was never able to enjoy his passion for using Facebook without the people he's been trying so hard to get away from. Instead of books, today’s generation is a slave to social media rankings that’s why I used it for the adaptation.  Youths are more obsessed with themselves than thinking on implications for society.

Reaction Paper: Trip to the Moon

2013-49565

THY

Reaction Paper: Trip to the Moon

If I was already present during the first screening of A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage Dans la Lune) I would undoubtedly wait in line to watch the premier and support the film. And this would be my opinion on the film:

The movie was fascinating and an awe-inspiring ride of fantasy and adventure that captured us, the audience, with its wonderfully crafted visuals and its comedy. It began with a meeting of astronomers who by the order of the president bravely volunteer to travel in the capsule to the moon. As they are making their trip they land into the eye of the moon. I like the conception of space travel especially how they arrived to the Moon in their bullet-shaped spaceship (it was launched by giant cannon). The moon is mainly a dark and featureless desert, same as a view we get when looking up the sky. The scientists discover a strange, subterranean, mushroom filled environment in the cave. While searching the cave the scientists are confronted by strange, crazed aliens who live on the moon. I think this meeting of a new culture, or species in this case reflects colonialism and imperialism in the society. However, all of the scientists were rescued and brought back home.

The movie's special effects are admirable and the use of pyrotechnics, smoke effects, and frame manipulation, help it to be entertaining.  There are a number of ingenious techniques used to further the illusions, such as the smoke pouring out of the factories. It was cool to see the objects suddenly vanish or change.

The use of self-painted sets, real people along with animated figures and the placement of real faces on objects helped this draw in its audience and leave them with many astonished looks. This film allowed the inflation of imagination to look beyond what is in front and think of what technological advances can do for the future. It is impossible not to leave the cinema with one’s jaw on the floor. Très bien!

2013-41509
Section THY
Adaptation of Story of All the Time

 All the Time

If I were to write an adaptation of All the Time, an episode from Twilight Zone we had watched last time. I will make it more interesting than the episode itself. I would set it at the present time with college student who really loves playing video games in the computer alone in his room. And that he would always spend most of his time in his room and that he does not like to be disturbed when he is playing. His parents scolded him because he does not spend more time studying or doing his homework. He performed in class more poorly as days gone by. He was not interested to learn anymore. All of his professors then had a meeting regarding this issue and had agreed among themselves that they will warn this student that they would drop him if ever his performance in class would not improve.

This student just ignored what his professors just said, he did not realized how it would affect his life in the future. He did not realized that education was really important. He just continued what he really likes: playing video games in his room.

The professors were not happy about him because he was not improving in class so, they reported this to the college dean where he belongs. Upon hearing what these professors were saying, he then called the parents of this student. The dean told his parent that they will no longer accept him in school the following week. His parents was very angry about this news so they grounded him and restricted him from playing video games for a year! His parents then went to the university where he is enrolled to ask the dean if he could give their son another chance but on their way there, an accident happened. The car his parents were in collided with a big truck. They died. And when the child heard of this, he became happy because he can play video games without his parents restricting him. He played all day and all night until such time the electricity bill was sent to his house. He had no money to pay the high amount so, the electric company was forced to cut his electrical power. So, he had really experienced fun the rest of his life.

Reaction Paper: The Twilight Zone: Time Enough At Last (2013-48674)

MARQUEZ, Kristina Patriz S.
2013-48674
STS-THY
Reaction Paper: All the Time

                “Time Enough at Last”, one of the most famous episode of The Twilight Zone Series, is all about Henry, a bank teller, who loves his books and other reading materials too much. Unfortunately for Henry, nobody seems to understand his passion and everyone that surrounds him prevents him from reading. His love was too much; it has come to the point where he became anti social. At the end, he ended up having what he had always wanted – time which became useless after his glasses broke.

                For me, the message of this episode, aside from “be careful of what you wish for”, came in a form of question of solitude versus loneliness. A lesson saying we should know our priorities or the things that are really important could also be picked up from the story. The episode also gives us the message to not rely too much on technology.

                If I am going to write an adaptation of the story, I will, first, make sure that the adaptation will convey all the messages said above though I could add some lessons in the adaptation. I would make Henry as someone who has no job, more probably a spoiled out-of-school teen, and someone who love his gadgets. He can never be separated from his gadgets and he isolates himself from others almost all of the time. His parents are too busy and have neglected him in terms of his true needs. When they have time, all they do is giving him what he wants or letting him do what he wants to do. He’ll then wake up one day and find out that he no longer needs to rest and eat and all he has are his gadgets. However, the electricity is gone. He enjoyed using his battery-powered gadgets until every single one of them has empty batteries. He had all the time yet he had nothing to do.

                I chose a teen protagonist since teens are usually carefree and most teenagers do not know what to prioritize and are social network, text, video game, and/or computer addicts, etc. Also, a teen would most probably choose to be alone with his gadgets than be with his family. I replaced books with gadgets because gadgets are everywhere right now. It’s what everyone wants and what everyone thinks they need, from children and adults, poor and rich. We are relying too much on them. What would happen to us if one day electricity and the power of batteries would be gone?

                

Reaction Paper: Trip to the Moon (2013-48674)

MARQUEZ, Kristina Patriz S.
2013-48674
STS-THY
Reaction Paper: Trip to the Moon

                Being born in this generation, I am used to the talking characters, fascinating settings, great plots, soundtracks and sound effects, and such. To simplify things, I am used to how the movies are right now, which is far from what this film looks like. This is why I laughed, “What the hell is this film? Wait, I can’t even consider it a film.” I, honestly, didn't understand some scenes, especially the first few minutes or seconds of the film, until I read the plot summary. Still, it was pretty ridiculous to me.

                That was just how I viewed the film “A Trip to the Moon” until I learned that it was released in 1902. The fact that it was released more than a century ago (a hundred and twelve years to be exact) really wowed me. Why? The film was full of the maker’s imagination on how the moon looks like and what are in there. The maker’s imagination was pretty fascinating. How did all those concepts of going to the moon and of the moon get into the maker’s mind considering the technology present by that time? By 1902, travelling to the moon would seem so dreamy, using a bullet-shaped space capsule and huge cannon to travel to the moon would sound fascinating, being on the moon would be full of adventure, seeing unfamiliar objects would be interesting, and discovering and fighting unknown creatures would be frightening and thrilling.

                If watching it right now, wowed me, what more if I were present during the first screening of the film? Before the film’s first screening, I would probably not have imagined how the moon was or how could men go to the moon. Maybe, not even a tiny idea of the moon and of spacecrafts and unknown creatures and objects would have bumped into my head. Especially since, the technology then is way far from how the technology is right now: no spacecrafts, no images of the moon’s surface and definitely no robots to explore the moon. It would be my first time to see men go to the moon and fight unfamiliar creatures or what we now call aliens. I would definitely laugh at its humor, be impressed on the concept and production and give it a two-thumbs-up while standing ovation.

2013-41509
Section THY
Reaction on A Trip to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon

From the title itself, the movie was about a group of astronomers planning to travel to the moon. These astronomers created a capsule-shaped spacecraft and that was the spacecraft they had used to travel.

If I was present during the first screening of the film, A Trip to the Moon, I think I would believe all the things that were shown on the film. This is because spacecraft was not yet invented that time and that people back was not really knowledgeable of what is really in the moon. The first ever spacecraft, the Sputnik 1, was developed on the year 1957 and the movie was first shown on the year 1902. So this might explain how the movie depicted the moon so different from that of reality and that there are creatures that dwells on the moon. The astronomers who went to the moon used a canon to fire the spacecraft they were using to the moon. We all know that during that time, their technology is not capable of creating a canon that can fire a spacecraft to the moon. Even until now, such canon does not exist. When they went outside the planet, they were not using oxygen to breathe. They were still not knowledgeable that when we go outside this planet, we will surely die because we need oxygen to survive. And at the last part of the movie, it was impossible for the spacecraft to land on earth just because it fell from a cliff. They had not used the idea of gravity.

I think that people before were really curious about the heavens so they wanted to go outside the earth that is why they had come up with an idea of spacecraft. I think that they really expected that they would see the heavens when they are up there.

Science Fiction, the Future, and Technological Apathy: Futurama Reaction Paper

2013-14710

BACONGUIS, Liana Isabelle T.

STS-THY GROUP 7

Futurama Reaction Paper

Science Fiction, the Future, and Technological Apathy 

Futurama is many things – comedy, science-fiction, occasionally drama – but at the very center of it all is pizza delivery boy Fry, who finds himself cryogenically frozen on December 31, 1999 and wakes up one thousand years later, later encountering a cast of fantastic characters. The future he finds is much like ours, except with aliens and fantastical inventions they consider mundane: efficient public transport through tubes, easily accessible spaceships, and talking, walking robots that are considered run-of-the-mill when today they are technological marvels.

Fry, in a sense, experiences time travel in that he finds himself in one time and wakes up to find himself in another. But it’s not true time travel as Fry traveled through the millennial difference like we would – linearly – except in his case he was just cryogenically frozen and unable to feel much of it. But he does experience what could be called the fish-out-of-water experience: he is a time traveler in the sense that his mindset from the past has to take in the newer, much more advanced future. And he embraces this future, because he has nothing left for him in 1999.

Fry is our audience surrogate. His loser, underachiever personality is supposed to be something we can project on, and so we see the futuristic world from his eyes and relate to how he feels about things. We share his amazement at all the technological wonders. Scientifically speaking, the show is telling us we have nowhere to go but up at this point – civilization will further flourish with the help of technology.

Yet at the same time, we share Fry’s disgust at the futuristic society’s blatant disregard for the potential of human life – peoples’ “roles” in society are assigned to them and they have no choice but to accept them; suicide is apparently common enough that whoever’s running the place keeps suicide booths on the streets and makes no attempt to try and save these people. Robots that could be human (because they are sentient and feel) are tossed aside simply because they aren’t needed anymore. It seems that having so much science and technology on their hands has made their people apathetic and uncaring.

Futurama is an amazing show that, while primarily comedy at Fry and Bender’s expense, has managed to bring an undercurrent of social commentary to it. While amazing, their future is not an ideal place to live in, and it is our responsibility as future scientists to make sure our future will be.

Reaction Paper: Futurama (2013-48674)

MARQUEZ, Kristina Patriz S.
2013-48674
STS-THY
Reaction Paper: Futurama

                Futurama, for me, is one of the best sci-fi cartoons (I consider cartoons as animated series different from anime :P). As a usual sci-fi cartoon, Futurama portrayed one of the most common form of science fiction, time travelling and the futuristic setting from its maker’s mind. It started with its very first episode, the Space Pilot 3000, where Fry froze in a cryogenic tube and was defrosted a thousand years later.

                This is actually the first time I’ve really pondered about this episode of Futurama, especially it’s “time travelling” concept. Was it really time travelling? Yes, Futurama dealt with time-travelling within its general plot but for me, time travelling was not portrayed in this episode rather it was mixed cryogenics and biotechnology. In this episode, this mixed fields of science lead to the futuristic technology of preserving bodies “and lives” of organisms for a long period of time, and in this episode, a thousand years.  This technology is definitely different from what we believe to be time travelling, which is moving between different points in time, to the past or to the future or warping time.

                The technology portrayed in this episode is known as the cryopreservation. This technology is actually being used right now, mostly in the field of medicine. Cryopreservation of our time, though, is still not as advance as portrayed in the pilot episode. Right now, we could only preserve some tissues or cell types.

                The futuristic setting of Futurama proved futuristic science and technology was involved. It has always been fascinating to the little me how the creators viewed future. In this case, Matt Groening viewed future as having us live in an extremely advanced / futuristic metropolis (New New York’s setting) with robots / androids, aliens, animals and fellow humans, advanced science and technology portrayed in the flying vehicles, spaceships, mutated animals, Bender, means of transportation, architecture of the buildings and such.