...And More Research!

Hi again! So me and Bella met up today at Starbucks to do more in-depth research on our genre selection. We decided that instead of researching more important elements of our genre like my last post, it’d be better to look at case studies as to further our research. We decided upon two movies which we would closely examine, those two movies were Inception(2010) and The Matrix(1999).

So the first movie that we chose was The Matrix, which portrays a dystopian future where people are in a simulated reality known as “The Matrix.” This simulated reality is created by sentient machines in order to control the human population, while their bodies’ heat and other electrical activity are used as sources of energy. The protagonist is Thomas Anderson, also known as “Neo,” who is a computer programmer living a double life. He believes something is wrong with reality and is constantly taunted by online encounters with a cryptic message reading, “The Matrix.” Trinity, who is an infamous hacker, reaches out to him saying that a man named Morpheus can explain the matrix. Neo then meets with Morpheus, who presents him with a set of pills. He first offers him a red pill that allows him to find out the truth behind the matrix, and then offers him a blue pill that will return him to his old life, leaving Neo to determine his own future. This film is considered to be a Sci-Fi thriller due to the fact that there is an alternate reality, use of technology, setting in a type of futuristic world, and a presence of good and evil.

The second film that we chose, Inception, depicts extractors, who perform corporate espionage, using experimental military technology on their targets and remove certain information deemed as valuable through a shared dream world. Their latest target Saito, a Japanese businessman, reveals that he arranged their mission himself, as a kind of test, planting an idea into one's subconscious, or "inception." This film is considered to be a science fiction due to the main concept of dream sharing, which connects different peoples’ subconscious, so that subjects can experience the exact same dream space, and even build their dream space themselves, by visualizing a specific location.

I’m really hoping we learned a few things from this research and that we’ll be able to apply the knowledge that we gained from these case studies to our film project. One thing Bella and I noticed almost immediately about these great sci-fi movies, is that they each have a very unique and original plot that makes them stand out from the rest by avoiding cliches. We also realized that there’s usually a psychological element within them to mess with the audience's mind and give the film more depth. With these case studies now at our disposal, we have a more concrete idea of what direction we want our plot to go in, and I’m pretty excited, so keep an eye out for my next few blogs!

--Blogger Buitano

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Inception: Genre." Shmoop. Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

"Inception (2010)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.

"Why Is Matrix a Sci-fi Movie?" Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Unknown. The Matrix. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Unknown. Inception. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.