Seminar Reflection 5/21/09

Today during seminar, we discussed topics base on the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. I think one of the main topics we discussed was the idea of detente. Detente is a French word meaning the idea of releasing tensions between two sides. This related to our discussion because during the movie, the main character, Klaatu, came to Earth with the plan of warning the whole world of possible obsoletion if countries continued to produce and plan nuclear weapons in a way that could threaten the rest of the universe. It seemed as if the United States were definitely open to the idea of meeting the other nations in order to stop this nuclear production and make Klaatu rest easy. But, the USSR wanted the meeting to be held in Moscow. The US agreed to that idea but then Britain wanted the meeting to take place...in Britain. So this made Klaatu a bit ticked off because he had an important message that he wanted to address to the whole world but was unable to express himself until the very end of the movie because of the disagreements between the nations. He basically left the world two choices. Either cooperate with his demands and stop the nuclear production, or...die along with everybody on the planet and not have Earth anymore :( .

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Pictures

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

When is violence or the threat of violence justified? Does The Day the Earth Stood Still answer this question differently from The Thing?

I believe that fear or the threat of fear is only justified when the enemy seems to have shown that they are planning to use violence or have already demonstrated their own type of violence. There is no point of starting a war against someone who hasn't even attempted to kill anyone or show any kind of violence  towards anybody. For example, near the beginning of The Day the Earth Stood Still, after Klaatu starting walking out of his ship, he was going to present a gift for the "Earthlings" but before he could tell anyone what it was he was shot prematurely by a soldier. I think that the soldier shot Klaatu out of paranoia because there was no evidence that Klaatu was planning on hurting anybody and he had previously said that, "We come in peace; we mean you no harm." You would think that after someone saying that, can you really see them as a threat? 

In The Thing,  I believe that violence was justified only because it was clear that the monster didn't want to "become friends" with the humans. He was attacked by dogs, shot at, lit on fire, and Dr Carrington still expected him to want to communicate. Though the creature showed some interest in what Carrington was explaining to him, he just flung his arm at him anyway, signifying that he was not interested in becoming friends, whatsoever. I believe that after the way the monster acted towards the humans, the violence in this movie was definitely justified.

Seminar Reflection 5/19/09

Today, during our seminar reflection, we talked about how The Thing related to the text that was given to us by Peter. I believe the main topic that we talked about was, "Do you agree with what Dr. Carrington did at the end of the movie?" What we were talking about was how Carrington wanted to communicate with the monster instead of killing it. Unfortunately for him, he was ignored by the monster and was tossed aside by the creature. I personally would not have agreed with Carrington in this situation only because of what had transpired throughout the movie. Like the killing of the dogs, the monster had clearly the intent of causing destruction once he was attacked by the dogs. Had he not been initially attacked by the dogs or had his 'spaceship' blown up near the beginning of the movie, Carrington might have had a better chance of communicating with the monster and could have possibly made scientific progress with the creature. But after communicating with it seemed futile afterwords, the military and the remaining people realized they needed to take care of the monster in order to preserve their own lives as well as the lives of the human race. The last line of the movie says it all, "Watch the Skies!"

The Thing Pictures

The Thing!

Is your interpretation of the movie closer to something that Biskind would say or Jancovich? In other words, is The Thing more about the need to meet the alien (Soviet) Other with violence, or is it more about social tensions or contradictions in American society?

Well I would have to agree with Biskind because when the alien has made contact with the humans, and the alien has attempted to attack the humans, you know that they aren't looking for friends. For example, when the scientist ran over to 'The Thing' to try to reason with it and act as if it were its friend, the monster just flung his hand  and knocked the scientist down without any regret or emotion for him. This shows what kind of creatures that aliens are, and in the near-end of the movie the people have to kill the monster because of the threat it poses upon them and the human race. At the end of movie,  the reporter warns people to look at the skies because we are not alone, which raises the paranoia and possible fear for the citizens. I say this because they don't know what to expect from whatever is 'up there'.

Invasion of Body Snatchers; Red Scare and McCarthyism

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1954)

This was a very interesting movie. It starts out with what seems like a very distraught man in hospital and then he was asked to explain himself. When he does, the movie proceeds to go to a flashback about Miles' story. Overall, the story proves itself to be a very scary movie for its time. During the 50's, the Cold War was still going on but it seems like this movie doesn't reference any nuclear war type fear or paranoia. It seems the direction of the fear is towards McCarthyism because these pod like creatures were out to erase all of mankind in order to have society be equal and have an ideological world. By the end of the movie, you can see that the pods were starting to expand past the city of Santa Mira. This brings it back to the ideas of Communism because the pod people wanted to have everyone act as the same, without emotions, and this would lead to an eventual communism within the govenment and society. 

Strangelove Pictures

http://grumpasaurus.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_dr_strangelove.01.jpg
http://brianholmes.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/dr-strangelove.jpg
http://blog.calgarypubliclibrary.com/blogs/movie_maniacs/dr_strangelove_large_06.jpg
http://www.channel4.com/film/media/images/Channel4/film/D/dr_strangelove_xl_01--film-B.jpg
http://www.1ts.org/%7Ekcr/pix/dr_strangelove_war_room_generals.jpg

Seminar Reflection 05/12/09

During our seminar today in Peter's class, my seminar group discussed the comparisons between the "Fat Man" reading, Failsafe, and Dr Strangelove. In the end, we actually described more about the reading than the actual movies because Herman Kahn had so many ideas that each of us had questions about. We spent some time talking about a quote from Kahn, "War is a terrible thing, but so is peace." This was related to the fact about birth defects in the USA and how if a nuclear war occurred, that there would be a slight increase in the percentage of birth defects due to radiation of a nuclear explosion. We each had a similar to this quote, thinking that Kahn meant that we already have birth defects in the USA and a slight increase in percentage would not matter and thus proving that our country already isn't necessarily 'pretty' as it is right now.

I personally did not have any questions during the seminar and it seemed any questions that we had, were at least somewhat answered by the end.

Dr. Strangelove Review - 05/12/09

After watching Dr. Strangelove, I actually understood the problems that could happen if a nuclear war had occurred during this time. Dr. Strangelove provided a comedic version to the movie, Fail-Safe, which I enjoyed more because of this. In the beginning of this movie, I was a bit thrown off by the approach of the director when trying to compare to Fail-Safe because the characters had different emotions than Failsafe and it seemed this movie had a funnier approach than a serious one. My favorite part of this movie would probably be when the President was talking with 'Dmitri' and how it seemed like Dmitri didn't really understand what the President was saying and as it went on, it got funnier because of the way the President needed to repeat himself over and over again.

When comparing this movie to Herman Kahn, Strangelove is definitely a more comedic approach to the problem of nuclear war as to where Kahn has a more serious tone but is also willing to lose American lives to win the possibility of a war. Strangelove has the same ideas as Failsafe, just in a different tone.

One thing I would like to learn more is how the Doctor in this movie helped in the planning with the President because it seemed like he would just give random ideas and solutions to whatever could happen with the Soviets when the bomb eventually dropped.

05/11/09 HW (Nuclear War Photos)

http://msrb.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/mushroom-cloud-hb.jpg

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/images/mk6.jpg

http://mlleomphale.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/failsafe.jpg

http://www.fraggerock.com/admin2008/uploads/fallout3_logo.jpg

http://www.historylink101.com/ww2photo/atomic-bomb-fat-boy.jpg

http://www.treehugger.com/nuclear-war-co2-emit.jpg

http://www.clusterflock.org/fallout_shelter.jpg

05/06/09 HW

In the film Fail-Safe do you think the president approached the crisis in the right way or do you think he should have followed the advice of the Mr. Groeteschele (the civilian Professor who wanted to attack).

I am not sure if the president approched this problem very well. When you know that something is wrong, you don't just continue doing it. If I were in the President's shoes, I might have just sent out all of the bombers towards the Soviets. I say this because; What makes you think that the Soviets will believe its an accident anyway? They knew you had the technology to do it so they would probably retaliate regardless of the fact if its an 'accident' or not. The President in this movie, after Moscow was bombed, showed to be vulnerable at the end of the movie because of him ordering his bombers to bomb New York to show the Soviets that it was a 'mistake'. Why would you want to bomb your own city just to show that "We're Sorry!"? You might as well continue with an all-out attack on Soviet Russia and at least have a chance that none of your cities will be bombed. If you have been 'at war' with these people for some time now, why are you waiting to negotiate a result out of it? Just do what Americans do, invade and bomb (i.e. WW2).

One thing I want to know more about was exactly why the President in Fail-Safe did not want to do anything? What was he waiting for? How come he didn't bomb the Soviets yet? Why didn't he take a "Kahn" approach to this war?

05/05/09 HW

1) Who was Herman Kahn and what were some of the main ideas in his book, On Thermonuclear War?

Herman Kahn was a man who wrote a book describing his ideas on a Nuclear War, if ocurred, and what he believes the U.S. should do if and when a nuclear bomb drops on the United States. One main idea that Kahn had, according to his book, was that nuclear war was definitely possible. His second idea was that the war was winnable. Throughout the first chapter of his book, it describes possible scenarios of what could happen after the bomb dropped.

2) What is your reaction to his ideas so far?

I don't like the idea of a nuclear war but I at least commend Kahn for thinking about possible ways of working with the idea of a nuclear war. This whole story reminds me of the game, Fallout 3, in which you are a person who had been living in an underground vault your whole life while a nuclear war had been going on outside on the surface. Eventually, you leave the vault and realize that the Earth has now become a desolate wasteland where the amount of radiation you take in can affect how long you have to live as much as being chased down by mutants that survived the bomb. An underground vault might be a better idea than just waiting for it to happen like what Kahn suggests because you still would have your body unaffected and birth defects would not occur from radiation as well.