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fandomhigh2015-02-20 06:57 am
stillamthenight.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2015-02-20 06:57 am
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The Living City: Change and the Urban Environment, Friday, Period 3
"It's Friday, there still seems to be something in the air, and you're just about to go on spring break," Bruce announced at the start of class. "If half of you would actually be focused on a lecture today, I would be stunned. So today you'll have another movie day, with the expectation that in two weeks from today, you'll be back here, ready to concentrate."
"The movie today has some strong similarities to our previous movie despite being made seventy-five years later," Bruce noted. "There are robots of a sort, the city itself is large and imposing, and corporations control life. But just like we're not directly controlled by boxy silver robots, 1982's Shank Jogger missed out on a lot of projections, mainly because its target city was too specific."
"The city here is Los Angeles in the year 2019, close enough to call it roughly the present day. Lifelike humanoid robots aren't common, of course. The movie projects LA as a densely populated urban center that expanded upward rather than the sprawling metro area that keeps growing outward. It also sees a society that's less segregated by race than class, whereas most US cities tend toward both. But the element that Shank Jogger gets right, which Megalopolis got right, is the view of the city as a machine. Every person, every building, every animal feeding into the machine and keeping it moving. We'll see this more clearly as this class continues, even if it's not as literal or as pessimistic as these movies would have you believe."
"Now watch the movie. And if anyone tries anything you shouldn't be doing in class, that's a detention," Bruce noted. "It's been a full week, it'll wear off soon if it hasn't yet."
"The movie today has some strong similarities to our previous movie despite being made seventy-five years later," Bruce noted. "There are robots of a sort, the city itself is large and imposing, and corporations control life. But just like we're not directly controlled by boxy silver robots, 1982's Shank Jogger missed out on a lot of projections, mainly because its target city was too specific."
"The city here is Los Angeles in the year 2019, close enough to call it roughly the present day. Lifelike humanoid robots aren't common, of course. The movie projects LA as a densely populated urban center that expanded upward rather than the sprawling metro area that keeps growing outward. It also sees a society that's less segregated by race than class, whereas most US cities tend toward both. But the element that Shank Jogger gets right, which Megalopolis got right, is the view of the city as a machine. Every person, every building, every animal feeding into the machine and keeping it moving. We'll see this more clearly as this class continues, even if it's not as literal or as pessimistic as these movies would have you believe."
"Now watch the movie. And if anyone tries anything you shouldn't be doing in class, that's a detention," Bruce noted. "It's been a full week, it'll wear off soon if it hasn't yet."
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Listen to the Lecture / Watch the Movie
Synopses! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ql_6)
Re: Listen to the Lecture / Watch the Movie
... Usually! He wasn't a huge fan of LA today, after all. But it wasn't a bad movie to zone out to. And Rutger Hauer was hot.
Re: Listen to the Lecture / Watch the Movie
Sorry, Mr. Wayne. But a long night of fighting off weapons dealers in clubs took their toll on a girl.
Talk to Bruce
OOC