Primer

   The movie, Primer, has a fast moving storyline that is about time travel.  To me, the first 15-20 minutes were extremely confusing because I had no idea what was going on, they talked about Physics which I do not know much about. The characters do not exactly tell what they are doing or what they will do next and it ends suddenly without letting the audience feel any relief toward what just happened.   This film was different than other time travel movies because the others always seem to what to change the past and fix the mistakes that people made before. The role of having doubles was new to be because in most films they don’t have such things.  

Limbo

   Primer was an interesting game.  The setting was Gothic and dark and I was waiting for something to happen. At first, I was confused because the character just came up on the screen and was just standing there. I pressed random buttons to see if he would move.  There were absolutely no instructions on how to begin and play the game so my initial response was me wondering why. The setting was suspenseful and creepy; the sounds get louder and soften out and it was a strange sound which made me feel very isolated. There were also unlimited lives to continue on with the game, which I found different than normal videogames. The only light in the game was the character’s eyes which represent his life. As the light from his eyes fade, the game starts all over.

Primer

I didn't really understand Primer and am relying on lecture today to fill me in. I understood that the two main characters built a time machine (and that they had doubles because of their going backwards and forwards in time). But what caused the Aaron to run away in the end to France and the other to stay? Did it get to a point where it was just too much for them to handle? Or is the Aaron in France the double, with the original Aaron, oblivious to time traveling, stayed back and resumed his normal life? 

I am aware that Abe used a fail-safe "box" to go backwards in time to before he even told Aaron of hm what he's found... But something seems to have backfired because Aaron is still aware of the machine's capabilities. As said above, I'm relying on lecture to fill in the missing gaps... 

Time travel is always in interesting concept to explore, and I think the director/writer's deliberate use of diction and frame shooting (although confusing) works very well with the content and message of his film. 

Primer

The movie, Primer, is a fast-paced science fiction film about time travel. This movie is hard to follow along with, due to its vague and unexplained scenes. Rather than answering questions that the audience may have throughout the story, the movie keeps moving forward rapidly; this movie ends without answering questions or clarifying the storyline. Contrary to other time travel stories, where the focus is usually on changing the past to make a character's life better or trying to ensure that the world isn't impacted by a small task that had been done, Primer focused more on the conflict between "doubles". Many time-travel films tend to disregard the idea of "doubles" and the concept of overlap in the timeline of the characters. Primer is definitely a refreshing film that changes up the stereotypical time-travel story. Additionally, this film seemed to suggest that time travel was not a bad thing, but humans made it faulty because of selfish reasons, which is a large element shown within the film.

Also, Primer has a lot of different filming techniques that people were not familiar to; making the audience less likely to enjoy the story. Due to the impact of Classic Hollywood films, most people are used to understanding the story by having a grasp of the entire setting of the film, which is established usually in the beginning of a film. We are used to understanding who, what, when, where, how, and why things are playing out within the story, yet in Primer, I was pretty lost. I was confused by the part when the "doubles" came out and and why towards the end Aaron and Abe, kept going back into the past, attempting to outsmart one another and stop the doubles from ruining their lives. I wasn't even aware that the Original Abe was replaced by the Younger Abe, until I read an explanation of the plot online.

Primer

Primer is a sci-fi movie that deals with the concept of time travel and its paradoxical consequences. throughout the movie there is a great sense of authorial (or in this case directorial?, resistance. The characters are talking about concepts the average person surely wouldn't know, but the confusion is intentional. While the audience feels confused from the lingo, and maybe less confused about the concept of time travel, the characters are confused over the implications of what they built.

A key concept in this time travel movie, is that of doubles, or having copies of the same person in the same time plane. This is a concept that has been done before and I think it raises a lo of questions about individuality. The idea that another you or me could exist seems to diminish our individuality, we are not inherently unique and uncopyable.  We are no more than a collection of elements existing in a period of time to the universe.

Limbo

Limbo is a very interesting but enjoyable game. The controllers took a little time to get used to. Nevertheless, what makes the game interesting is its dark tone. In the game, the player guides a boy though different types of dangerous environments. The game is presented as black and white. It also incorporates many eerie and threatening sounds. This combination creates a very scary atmosphere for the player. Also, the boy dies in horrific and gruesome ways. These disturbing aspects of the game categorize it as a horror game. There are very few games that have incorporated such aspects successfully. However, Limbo is one of them and these aspects keep the user engrossed and hooked to the game.

Limbo

The setting of LIMBO is very similar to many of the gothic texts which we have read this quarter. The game is full of exceedingly creepy elements,  bear traps laying out in the woods, the way the character drowns, a giant spider, and the fact that there seems to be no way to escape the spider at the end of the demo. But it’s not just these elements that make the game frightening. It’s the very atmosphere of the game, it takes place in a dark and dreary forest, there is fog clinging to the ground, and much on the screen is out of focus.

There are also a lot of unanswered questions; a complete lack of exposition. You wake up, get off of the ground, and need to make your way to the right. There was no explanation of how to play or why you are playing, which gives a sense of desolation to the game.

LIMBO

I am definitely not one to play video games, so playing Limbo proved a challenge for me.  I had to try multiple times to get across each deadly trap and really wished that I was able to save the character each time.  Limbo made me feel exactly like I was in Limbo, this alternate universe where I am stuck trying to save myself from the unknown and feeling no closer to the end as I progressed.  The mood created was dark and seemed like I was in some kind of afterlife with no escape.  The boat crossing reminded me of old myths of crossing the river into the underworld.  My main response was I felt ultimately trapped with no way to survive except to keep continuing along this dark path.  It was similar to how I could feel in a survival situation: I kept pushing forward although it seemed as though there was no end and there was darkness and terror around me.

Primer

The movie Primer definitely needs another view to understand completely. It was my first time viewing the movie. It had aspects of sci-fi, but a new world was not created in this movie. Since the plot didn’t impact a large part of society and didn’t change the world we live in, this allowed the viewer to accept the story more. Also, the conversations when the engineers were creating the device were incomprehensible, thus allowing the viewer to not pay attention to the specifics of the design. Therefore, without the specs to creating the machine being unknown, the viewer is oblivious, so the inclination to believe in the creation of the machine is greater.

Primer

In the movie Primer, what I noticed most was the way the film was shot. In a lot of scenes, we would be looking at the people through a window or a door frame, or something which gives the viewer a feeling like their actions are staged. This makes more sense later in the movie when the two guys try to make things right by redoing their actions using an audio track.
Also, in the beginning of the movie I noticed that when they talked, they often overlapped each other, and I thought this was an interesting parallel to time travel and how each time is overlapped with the other.

In the end though, I thought it was horrible how they got rid of a version of themselves so they could try to right things only to make it worse, and how one guy stayed to keep fixing things and the other left. I wonder which is worse...continuously watching and altering your own future thus affecting everyone around you, or going somewhere else to affect the future while letting your already ruined future continue by itself.
Also, I'm not sure why they built the machine in the first place if they didn't know what the results would be.

Primer

I'm not sure that primer ever even uses the title in its name and I'm thinking that is a purposeful choice. I've seen this movie two or three times now and I really think that its called primer because you need a primer before you watch the movie. Its an interesting movie because its science fiction that plays with some characteristics of magical realism, particularly authorial resistance. The two main characters never really explain what they're trying to make. It seems like they're trying to make a refrigerator that turns into a time machine. Their explanation of time travel is vague and simple and the actual mechanics are ignored. The two friends don't tell eachother what they're doing and the audience doesn't know what is happening or which characters are aware of what events. There is a lot that never gets explained clearly (the girls father, what the protagonists do with the ex and his shotgun, what the domestic focused fight between the two protagonists at the ending is about, who is the double who is the original). I think its the point of the movie because scenes where things are briefly, vaguely explained there are always loud audio distractions. This builds a sense of wonder and confusion, comparable to what the characters are probably experiencing, but its also a bit infuriating since I still don't know whats happening and I'm the audience and I want stories because I want entertainment not confusion. If that confusion is the point of the movie and its like a meta-assault on my emotional state, that's interesting, but its not very satisfying.

War of the Worlds Broadcast

This radio broadcast is very interesting. It is a form of radio drama whose events are adapted from HG Well's novel War of the Worlds. The broadcast seems to be a series of news bulletins detailing a martian invasion. However, some listeners at the time panicked, thinking the events were real. This is not surprising. given the techniques used to create the broadcast. It is very realistic. The broadcast was run without any commercial breaks. This made it seem like an emergency broadcast that ran without interruption. Also, the phrase "we interrupt this program" made it seem even more like an emergency. However, most people who panicked at the broadcast reportedly only heard small portions of it. This makes sense. If viewed as a whole it is simply a fictitious narration of events. However, small bits and portions can easily be misinterpreted as real.

War of the Worlds

The way that the War of the World's broadcast starts really does seem convincing that the the listener would think that some creature from a strange meteorite or whatever really did come down and attack people. Although the style in which the radio host talks and the way the other people talk sounds strange to me because I'm not from that era, but besides that, the way it would switch to a band playing music and then to news about the strange object helped make it seem real. I've heard from people that people back then thought it was totally real and that it scared them so much that they locked themselves inside their homes. I wonder if anyone in this age could pull something off like that without people thinking its fake. I think in modern thinking, we are not so scared of aliens invading the planet.

Limbo. I tried to play it but its so difficult to get any progress without knowing the controls. I figured out how to pull but I can't figure out how to climb. So I'm stuck after getting off the boat in the beginning. I think the lack of controls really creates the sense that you are lost and that goes well with the name of the game: Limbo.

Filming Techniques: Primer

Primer is a very well made film given its extremely small budget. It is a sci fi movie. However, rather than relying on star performances or compelling special effects, the director uses a variety of smart tricks to keep the audience engaged. In particular, the conversation throughout the film is very unclear and fast. In addition, the film quality is a little hazy. This serves a purpose. The director is trying to confuse the audience and make them question what is going on?? This constant questioning keeps the audience engaged. If the film was more clear it might have been very boring. Also, the camera is often kept at unusual or awkward angles throughout the film. This is common is film making technique. However, here it seems to be taken to the extreme. Often the conversation is viewed at an angle or from afar. This filming technique leads the audience to interpret the character as confused or deep in thought. In this film, it's more so the later. The culmination of these filming techniques make the events throughout the film very unclear. For example, I was unsure what was the purpose of the man with the shotgun. What did he do? Also, what happened to the person who was following Aaron and Abe? Lack of clarity drives this film. This shows signs of a smart and witty director.

Last blog post so let's make it a good one...

I'll start off by saying I was so happy to play Limbo because it has what I consider the most important quality for a horror video game: atmosphere. The vastness of the forest contrasted with the tiny stature of the boy, made me feel powerless, like something bigger was looming over me, waiting to strike. The fuzzy black and white reminded me of watching David Lynch's Eraserhead, giving the game a similar creepy vibe. The game was almost completely silent, save for the slight crunch of footsteps, sliding logs or swinging ropes.

But it wasn't just that the surroundings looked and felt scary -- they were actually the threat. From spike pits to drowning pools to entrapping webs, it felt like the whole environment was conspiring to kill the little hero I controlled (often in ways that would have been quite graphic if not for the silhouette nature of the graphics). That's another important point: the game is not just in black white, but plays with light and shadow. We really only see the shadowy outline of our character, so he almost blends in with the ground and the trees.

Even though dark sinister world I found myself in left me anxious, I still felt curious and wanted to explore. Running ahead blindly, searching for the 11 hidden points, my recklessness meant I walked straight into traps many times. But I think that's the charm of the game -- the immense and enthralling world call to be discovered, so that the lurking dangers sit in the back of your mind until it's too late. This made the many gruesome deaths I suffered all the more shocking. Especially the final one! What a cruel, cruel ending to a demo, I almost bought the game then and there. But I think it was just more than mere marketing leaving the boy's life in our hands that way -- it put the player's role in the game into perspective. Not as an observer, or a controller, but as a guardian, trying to keep the boy from falling astray into traps and hazards. It almost felt like instead of making the boy traverse the forest, I was intervening from the forest killing him, like a benevolent protector lending a guiding hand.

Primer and LIMBO

Primer was a very confusing movie. The science in the movie wasn't very clear and the way they talked didn't really help. During the first scenes they would each talk over each other making it hard to understand the already confusing subject they're talking about. Abe and Aaron accidentally build a time travel machine by trying to build a machine that lowers the weight of an object. After they insert a watch into the box, they find that the watch had traveled into the future and bounced back. They soon made a box big enough for themselves and time traveled for personal gains. It was very science fiction and supernatural as time itself is very hard to control. This reminds of Cabin in the Woods also were control is a very big part of the film.
LIMBO is also a very interesting game with a very fitting name. Limbo is like an intermediate state, an uncertain period of resolution, a purgatory state, which is kind of how the game is. The little boy "wakes" up in a dark forest and we are left clueless as to what exactly is going on but to just move forward and avoid all the traps set up. It also very much ties in with the horror and gothic genre as it involves a great deal of nature and family also; he is trying to find his missing sister which we don't know if he every does indeed find her.

Primer

Aside from causality loops, multiverses, and the Novikov self-consistency principle (which Primer does not follow) that come with time travel it seems like the main point of the film is about the human element involved with technology. On the one the humans love technology, but also have self doubts when these new discoveries give them extraordinary powers. In Primer the protagonists are able to travel back in time and change events in the past by seeing events over and over again or using future knowledge to take advantage of the past. The type of time travel in the film allows for Abe and Aaron to affect the past substantially and to effectively have “doubles” since there past and future self can be in the same place at the same time. With this newfound discovery, Aaron and Abe recognize that this power can have extreme effects on the past, as seen when they save Abe’s girlfriend, Rachel.

It is interesting that at the end Aaron and Abe decide that the time travel is not necessarily wrong, but that it is too dangerous for them to continue to use. This ending seems to imply that people view the weakest link in technologies like time travel is the human element. It is unlikely that scientific progress will be halted at any point in the near future from public opinion, but it is certainly worthwhile to think about how new technologies will certainly bring more questions regarding humanity.  Can we trust ourselves to make the “right” decisions? Or perhaps technology will become so advanced that it can self regulate itself so that humans cannot abuse it or harm themselves with it. In any case humanity will likely have to face difficult questions with how to use technology and whether we can trust ourselves with it in the future.

Infographic about time travel in Primer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Time_Travel_Method-2.svg

Infographic about time travel in movies (warning spoilers):

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-04/tangled-logic-time-travel-in-movies-infographic

LIMBO creates a very unique mood through its lack of information provided both about the game, such as controls, and about the story. The game is based in a seemingly similar world to our own initially, but the introduction of giant spiders, the vast, barren landscape, and the lack of any other people who are not dead, hostile, or running away causes many more important issues, such as the questions of in what world this person is, why seemingly everyone is hostile, what happened to everyone else, and where the giant spiders are from. Unfortunately, the game provides few to no answers to these questions; however, the growing lack of important information adds greatly to the overall eerie mood.

Primer, LIMBO, & War of the Worlds

The three pieces covered this week were similar in regards to technology. Primer regarded science and time travel, The War of the Worlds radio broadcast was an audio book detailing a Martian attack, and LIMBO was a computer game with an eerie setting and of course a giant spider. The movie Primer was definitely a mind bender. I do not run into many confusing movies but this one was certainly one of them. It involved time travel, doubles, and potentially murder. Regarding the demo of the game LIMBO, I’d say it is well done.  From the section I played the graphics were simple but effective. I had to figure out my characters moves, my end goal, and each challenge provided a new learning experience. The War of the Worlds radio broadcast brought me back a few decades with the music and sound quality. The broadcast sounded real, like it was a music station repeatedly interrupted by breaking news from different accounts detailing the Martians. My favorite part was the destruction of the aliens by the disease and bacteria on earth. It shows our evolution was effective in its own way. What I thought was very interesting was a few years back I was told that when this radio broadcast was made, some people actually though this broadcast was real. It created a frenzy that was supposedly fixed by an announcement stating the broadcast was a story not a real report. 

Limbo

Limbo is, quite honestly, one of the most disturbing video games I have ever played. Beginning with its morbid simplicity, you, as the player, are left in the darkness, given no controls or instructions. You are left to venture a forest of darkness and shadows, and it is your duty to decide what the purpose of the game is, what you are trying to accomplish, and what you are trying to avoid. I was startled multiple times by this game, whether it was the random bear traps that severed my buddy into two, or the large spider that practically speared him.

Though disturbing, it was refreshing to not be given any instruction, for you are allowed to define the bounds of the game without already being told. As a player, there is a lot more suspense and caution practiced. An element of mystery was added because of this lack of instruction or information. I am still unable to decide what my purpose is, but the game itself is thoroughly entertaining.