Video Games

Virtual reality, alternate reality, and time travel are all really interesting subjects to me. All three contain elements of the uncanny. I feel that we frequently create alternate realities for many different instances--many 'what if'scenarios. These realities have the same laws as our own world, but we decide the outcome rather than living it and letting the reality create the outcome for us. The film, Primer, is a good example of this along with time travel.

The two main characters go back in time to create their alternate realities and make life play to how they want it to. For the viewers, everything is so confusing and jumbled up, we have a lot of difficulty following the film. It gives us an uncomfortable feeling of not really understanding what is going on, yet everything is changing due to these alternate timelines. After we see the doubles for the first time, that uneasiness really begins to settle in ourselves. The film pushes that uneasiness even further when we discover that the main characters are physically subduing their doubles in order to create their alternate realities.

We see these other-worlds in video games as well. With Limbo, everything looks familiar--trees and run down buildings exist along with people and bugs. However, there are massive spiders, angry people, and terrifying natural dangers which try to kill us. There is also an unsettling lack of ambient sounds in the game. There is almost no music. It is as if the game is trying to tell us that we are alone and that we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves.

Limbo

The video game, Limbo, developed by a company called PLAYDEAD is an extremely eerie and atmospheric video game. Right off the bat, you aren't instructed with any directions nor controls. It gives the sense that the player determines wether or not they would play or not play the game, seeing how there are no time limits/restrictions. Once you get the little boy to rise, it's well thought out to have him rise, as though rising from a grave (or the dead/final resting place). He is nameless, faceless, and has no voice, however you feel a sense of attachment to him because you become apart of this virtual avatar that is now you. In addition, I noticed that the sounds in gameplay are ambient, and some sounds are a lot louder than others. This atmosphere it creates, gives the gameplay a suspenseful nature, and leaves the player in wonder and in uneasy unknown. Overall, I think Limbo is extremely well thought out and put together, tying elements of suspense, eerie and a supernatural characteristic that goes beyond our natural state of reality. And by supernatural I mean that in the gameplay, you have no lives, and your death is a big trail and error experience, on top of the puzzle-like game. I believe this game really relates to the supernatural in it's nobel characteristics.

Primer: An Exploration in Virtual Reality

After the surreal and mind-bending experience that is called Primer, I couldn't help but wonder what it actually all meant. Personally, as someone who watches too much science fiction television shows for their own good, I felt a desperate need to solve the puzzle the plot line presented me with. The only catch was that it was purposely written to be difficult for the audience to understand. Thus, when immediately confronted with highly technical jargon and seemingly random plot twists, I was left overwhelmed by the amount of information I received and was denied of. In fact, I was so confused by the plot that I first gained the impression that the film was about cloning as a result of radioactive from technological manipulation. That theory, of course, became futile as soon as we saw both the doubles and the original characters (Aaron and Abe) within the same frame but performing through different timelines. This is not to say that manipulation of technology does not play it's role in it all because it really does. But Primer was more about self-discovery (as predictable as that may seem) between two friends and their own personalities. The farther the film explores their story, the more complicated it becomes. The audience is ensnared along the way, entranced by the complexities of time travel and victimized by the hopeless consequences of the main characters suffer through. It is this sense of virtual reality that near makes us feel as though we suffer with them as we witness the plot go awry.

Primer

Primer, left me confused as to what was going on, but had a general concept of the film. Primer disrupts the natural boundaries of the world by traveling back in time. The film plays around with the fantastic and the uncanny with the main characters as we see the fantastic implemented as both characters time travel, breaking the natural laws. Following the film, it becomes apparent that with each time travel or time traveling in general, a clone is created. It creates this uncanny affect for the main characters seeing a projection of  themselves, coming together with over all them of human ethics and technology. This particular film reminds me of inception, where the audience had to really think about what they just watched in the film. Like most reactions to thinking about it, many went to re-watch inception, getting a better gist of what the director and writer were trying to convey. But it seems in Primer, that was the whole premise of the film, trying to get the audience to go beyond just film and make them fill in the gaps. Overall the film was just okay for me as a viewer. I did not hate, but did like as other films.

Limbo and War of Worlds broacast

When the game first started I was very confused because there were no instructions provided. At first I just started at the screen assuming the game was loading then before figuring out that I had to press buttons which made the character come to life. At first I assumed that the character was just a little zombie and perhaps we were to aid him in a mission to come back to life, however, after researching the definition of limbo I found out that refers to infants who died before being baptized, after learning the definition I felt as though I was able to have more insight on the character’s story.

Although there were some gruesome and unexpected deaths of the character which at times made me suspicious of the surrounds, as though my character might always be in danger; overall the game was extremely fun to play.

After hearing the War of Worlds broadcast I thought that the reaction the public had back then was incredible since the broadcast was only about an hour long. I actually saw a video about the operators who worked the phones that night and one woman call a about a man was willing to shoot his entire family before the Martians got to them.

Both Limbo and the War of Worlds broadcast I believe dealt with the way in which we can immerse ourselves into the virtual forms of alternate realities and believe them as if they were real.

 

 

Primer

To start off, the movie "Primer" offers a lot of deep interconnected story lines that are not evident until after more of the plot has been revealed. An example is when we see that Aaron's wife is complaining about "rats" in the attic, and the relaxed reaction of Abe and Aaron barely acknowledging her and saying it couldn't be rats. At first view this seems like a scene that serves only to show some personal normal events in the lives of our two main characters. However, once we find out that the doubles have been hidden in the attic, we suddenly realize the meaning behind the scene of the "rats" in the attic. This event tells us a lot about the characters because at this point of the story it is obvious that the two friends are trying to work on their own and are not letting anyone close to them in despite the fact that telling Aaron's wife had been discussed. I'm sure that if I were to watch this film for a second time I would see many more connections such as this that I had missed.

This film is also interesting because the small details are what give the story its real meaning. For example, on the surface this film seems to be simply a story about time travel that is told in a really confusing manner. It is easy to skip over the fact that the main characters are slowly deteriorating the more they time travel and just disregard it as a standard consequence of messing with technology. However, it can be seen that this is happening in correlation with the number of doubles that are running around society. The more time the original character is split, the more terrible their handwriting becomes and the more their ears bleed. With this interoperation, this film is commenting on the unnaturalness of being more than one person and how trying to "split" your personality and be two people at once, as many people try to do when they lead double lives, you are being detrimental to yourself.

Primer: A Geek's Delight

        After watching it last Tuesday, Primer instantly became one of my favorite movies. As soon as I got home, I started researching about the film, reading all I could and figuring out the charts. I watched the movie twice more that same day, once with English subtitles and once with a fan audio commentary. All of this until I could finally get a somewhat clear picture of what happens in the film. I doubt there are more than a fistful of films right now that allow the audience to be such an active participant of the viewing experience. Primer is unique in that sense. In only 1 hour and 13 minutes, the film manages to create a super condensed, fascinating plot that invites the audience to re-watch, to speculate, to think.

        I love time travelling films. Back to the Future is one of my all time favorite movies. In Back to the Future, however, the way time travel is depicted is fairly easy to follow. You get two characters, the smart one -Doc Brown- and one with average intelligence -Marty McFly-, and no matter how complicated things are, Doc Brown always takes the time to explain Marty (and the audience along with him) how everything works. In Primer, we get two amplified versions of Doc Brown and no Marty. Furthermore, we only get to partially listen to our Docs talking to each other. Nowhere in the movie we get a sense that something is there for the sake of the audience. As a result, after watching Back to the Future you go home feeling contempt because everything was laid out in front of you, clean and clear, ready to be understood and, thus, your viewing experience ends as soon as the movie does. But with Primer, having so many questions and guesses and holes in the story, the end of the movie is only the beginning of the experience.

        Primer is made to be re-watched. It's made to be analyzed and picked apart and pondered upon. For anyone who gets easily obsessed with puzzles and paradoxes, Primer is the perfect movie to watch.