Dollhouse 2

Oh how the story is developing! What I’ve come to understand now is that , no matter what personality that they are in, they understand the idea of a treatment. My question is do they return back to their “ignorant” state when their handler asks them if they want a treatment, or are they still at the imprinted personality.

Usually the dolls will answer  yes when their handlers ask the if  they’re ready for their tretment. In episode 6, Echo refused her treatment, which reminded  me of episode 2 (I think) when Echo was not comlying with Boyd when he told her that “everything is going to be okay. You can trust  me.”  Echo has been programmed so that when her handler say that, she can recognize and  trust that everything was going to be alright. Even thought that is what she was suppose to say, she didn’t, it’s  like she is able to sense herself outside the program and adapt to what is actually happening around her. in other words, Echo is able to break out of her imprinted personality and do what she understands to be the “right” thing. 

There are many scenes that captured my attenti on. Some quotes that I pulled up are

” Everything is not as it seemed” 

“You can trust me”

“Your life, for (your) life”

Nothing is as it seems on this show. I keep going back to previous episodes to get a better understading of some things. As it stands right now,many of these people are at Dollhouse against their will, or as a tradeback for their lives back because of conpiracy done aginst Rosssun company. 

 

DollHouse

After watching these first three episodes, I have more questions than an understanding of what is actually happening. Echo seems to understand that she requires treatment after a certain amount of time, but she also seems to have an understanding of what she does (when she’s actually Echo and not a different personality). In “DollHouse” an important idea that seems to be taking root is the power of memory.  Echo was able to fulfill her expectation of a client  from the personality traits that were imprinted, which I believe are from memories of people. Her mind and her physical abilities differ depending on what memories she receives. (I may be wrong about this). Another great example of that is Sierra. When we first saw her she was on the chair screaming from pain when Echo  walked in on her, but further into the episode she was seen as a skilled officer coming to help rescue Echo (in her personality) and the little girl that was kidnapped. Another example was when she was ridding the motorcycle in the first episode like a pro and rock climbing with the hunter in the second episode. It was really amazing for to me to see how memories can transform someone the way that it does for Sierra and Echo.

I thought that it was ironic that  the fifth episode was about believers and the idea of Faith because it kind of compares to Echo’s situation. The idea of Faith is ideal to the idea of memory. It’s so strong that it can basically make people do about anything. People believe in their memories and that it wouldn’t fault them, just like people believe in their religion (God) and that he will not fault them. Two very strong  things in motion.

Important Artifacts…

In terms of a plot, there does seem to be one. The story is of a couple in love and the events and situations that occurs in their lives while being with one another- or should I say apart from each other since he traveled so often.  Throughout the book there are many love letter and notes to one another. Sometimes the notes are notes of apologies and notes of ambiguity, which every couple kind of go through in a stage of their relationship. There sometimes seems to be a doubt in their relationship (I suppose that would amount to the climax?). I was also trying to figure out what kind of plot the author had. I don’t think it’s linear since there are so many random things, but then again, as a reader, I couldn’t tell. I think it’s more of a circular plot. Everything that’s in the pictures might be different dates and not in chronological order, but just inserted randomly in the story.  I’ve been trying o figure out the climax in the story, and I didn’t get very far.

While reading the book, at some point, I found myself looking at the pictures instead of reading the actual prints. The main thing, besides the notes and the cooking/relationship books that I noticed was the immense amount of clothing attire that’s in the book. As a reader, I expected at some point for each page to have some clothing attire.

I also noticed in the book that there are multiple book pictures and the two main topics of the books are cooking and relationship topics. Aside from that, Important Artifacts had many pieces in there that I wanted to include as being important in the making of the book. The two lots that I chose were lot 1231 (92), 1283 (110). I chose them because they show a lot about the relationship the two characters share. They always seem apart from each other and doing different things. The representation of the shirts lay in the difference of locations/places that each shirt represents. It seemed that in their relationship, they lived parallel to one another. A majority of their relationship was shared apart. The lot that interest me that most was the one with the shoes on page (92). Many shoes and clothing attire appeared many times in book. I thought it was ironic how that picture of these shoes has the woman’s pair worn out from use and the man’s pair barely worn since he is the one who travels the most. Also, in the many of pages before that picture, there are many attire and the point that Jon came up in class was the fact that there’s so many clothes, but no one seems to be in them.

Books…Films…

Memento- New Media

The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination – Elizabeth Hardwick

Should movies (like Memento) be regarded differently because it’s seen as a film instead of a novel? The way I see it is at the end of the film audience still has to analyze elements and conclusion of the story.  If the intentions of the viewer are to analyze a critical work, the option of choosing a novel or a film should weigh about the same.

Now what tip the scale is the preference of the audience- do they prefer the seclusion of a good book, or the inclusion of a group watching a movie, but then again there are people who choose to join book clubs to enjoy reading as a group.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness – Helen Keller

There’s learning in reading a good book. Books hold education. It’s a way to increase one’s vocabulary, increase imagination and create imagery with words provided.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go – Dr. Seuss

Books have wonderful characters, settings, plot, language that readers can choose to read over and over. When a chararcter is created through words, the reader get to visually create that character. Intrestingly  enough, the way that I may imagine a character may be different than the way my roommate my imagine a character. Ex: the way that I may imagine Edward Cullen to look like may be different than the way a fourteen year old may imagine him to be.

If you read a lot of books you are considered well read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you’re not considered well viewed – Lily Tomlin

The movie like the book is a form of art. There are many aspects of the movie as well. The movie has set angles that it is shot in, characters and setting… (Etc).  All the angles that the director uses to show a scene are open to interpretation. The characters are visually presented before you, so you won’t have to wonder what the character might possibly look like since the movie has it portrayed. Also, viewers can by pass dull pages that makes it hard to grip the essence of the book. Movies has special effects, music and action sequences that makes audience awe. Some books come to life on screen than in pages.

In terms of advancement:

Think back to high school days, when people think of books, they use to aassociate them with “nerds”

I think the the older generation has more an appreciation for books. The newer generation read mostly for school, so it has been engrained in us as a source of education versus a source of entertainment.

Easy is the way of the new. Everything that is upgraded is made to make life faster and easier, but advancements doesn’t necessarily mean better; just different. Better is open to interpretation.  Instead of reading a book for 2 days, people would rather watch the movie for 2 hours to gain an idea of the book.

“Time is of the essence – I read a lot and I read fast but if I were to spend my entire weekend doing nothing but reading I’d be pushing to finish three novels (admittedly I read fantasy and they tend to be huge but still).  If I spend the entire weekend watching movies (unless I’m watching Lord of the Rings or something equally epic) I can probably knock over about twelve movies.  Movies skip out a lot of detail that appears in books, plus they don’t need to describe scenes to you, they just flash a picture and move on.  They are quicker in conveying the story.” (Cassandra Jade)

What are we loosing: Most importantly- Imagination, language, use of words.

(The reason why I included so many quotes is to show different views on film and books.)

Memories Can Be Distorted

“They’re Memories just an interpretation, they’re not a record, and they’re irrelevant if you have the facts.” (Leonard)

This video makes the audience doubt anything that Leonard says, so in the end of it all, he’s just another character that no one can trust. Everything that happens in this movie is open to interpretation, especially since the main character questions his own memories and talk about the possible “distorting” of memories. Every flashback that he does is open to theory. How can the audience be sure that the memories that he shares happened the way he said the happened. Everything still remains a web of lies. Now I’m left to wonder which memories are real and which are “distorted”

Every aspect of Memento is a challenge. After multiple views, everything still puzzles me, and I still find myself going around in circle. After my third viewing, I did not find it easier to come up with a better conclusion to his story. Is Sammy really Leonard? Was Teddy who he says he was? At some point, I did realize that the conclusion that the viewers made were different according to the individual. I watched it with my roommate and she was convinced that Leonard was interpreting his memories that way he wanted to. His interpretation of his memories is what has him so unhappy. He kept relieving it so often that they are becoming distorted, whether Leonard is doing it intentionally is up to debate. My roommate, however believes that Leonard is intentionally distorting his memories of his wife  because he doesn’t want to believe that the Insulin shock is what killed his wife, he wants someone else to be responsible, hence why the police reports were messed around with and why he keeps chasing the John G.  That is also why he forced the memory of Teddy being a liar, and why he choose a name so popular like John G. to hunt down. He knows that there are multiple people he can hunt down for the murder of his wife with such a popular name. In the end, my roommate concluded that Leonard was a serial killer. (Good Laugh)

What I took notice is that Leonard was right in putting down don’t believe his lies, under Teddy’s picture because Teddy sets Leonard up to kill Jimmy in order to rob him of drug money. Since many ideas can be formed about the movie, it is hard to come up with a concise conclusion, which I think was the writer’s intentions. Memento is a puzzle that cannot be solved, hence why my roommate and I both had our own theories and conclusion for Memento.

Memento

As much as I dislike Memento, I like it as well. Why you ask? Well, the characters drove me crazy. I was really trying to convince myself that Teddy was the good guy, which is not farfetched. He was the one the character that seemed to have known Lenny for a long period of time. I know that time wasn’t something that was counted for in the movie, since the main character didn’t have any essence of time, but just the repeated times that he was in the scenes and the way that he spoke to Leonard, it was as if he had been with him for a long period of time (Even though he did say he was with him for about a year, the audience had that kind of understanding, even before he mentioned time, that Leonard had known him for a while.)

While we were discussing the idea of truths and lies in class- notes, characterization of Lenny, and Natalie were some ideas we had under truth. After thinking about it a little more, I actually don’t think there’s any real truth in this movie. Everything is set up so that the audience ends up asking more questions. Lenny himself, in the last scene, admits that he would lie to himself in order to bring happiness to his lonely life. Nathalie was using him, Teddy was trying to get the money from his car, and the hotel clerk was charging him for two rooms. His handwriting couldn’t be trusted either since he himself lie to himself. His own memories couldn’t be trusted since he distorted them. Everything is entangled in a web of lies. It is at a point where it would be close to impossible to get out.

Everyone was looking out for their own selves, driven by motivation to obtain what they must- through manipulation. The audience was left to assumption on a majority of the story. Since memory could not be trusted, there was no way to validate any ideas or situation that occurred in the story. It was made worse since everyone seemed to have a reason to justify their actions. Everyone wanted to be the truth, but no one seemed to present a real identity.

Galatea Game: Interactive Fiction

Galatea Game

Galatea Final

In the final pages of Galatea, I was able to better understand many aspects from the beginning of the book. I think that even though it wasn’t too significant, the change in Richard as a character from the beginning of the story to the ending of the story is present. Richard use to have this detachment from his world mentally and emotionally. He used his writing as a way to hide from the physical world. I think that it was that kind of detachment that made him and C. so miserable to be together. Even with C. there was some kind of detachment. Richard used his literary talents to hide from the world.  When Diana came into the picture, it was still noticeable that Richard had a detachment, from her. It was a if he was incapable of letting her in to his world. I think that the fact that Diana had a family made him feel even more disconnected from the world because he felt himself unable to be with his own family. Diana had kids to love and take care of, while he lost C., his first love, and Taylor, the man he considered to be like a father figure to him. The only moments in the book that Richard seemed connected to the world was when he was with Helen. Helen was his “child”. There was a care for her that Richard used as his way to attach himself into the world. Also, throughout the novel, Richard seemed ambiguous about his life. After being with Helen there was progress. Richard went from this sense of ambiguity to ability to want to do more with himself.

I also picked up on the idea of Obsession of Lents with Helen, which goes well with the idea of “Galatea” Obsession with Helen- because of Audrey