Misc Media Musings

I do have some pages dedicated to various pieces of media (some are linked to over at My Art Analyses), but a lot of the time, I have a few thoughts on a piece of media, and it doesn't seem like making a whole page dedicated to it would be worth it.

So I'll write a lot of stuff here.

## [misc]

* the "logic puzzles" of twin peaks season 3

## Alien: Covenant

See Alien: Covenant.

also compare all of these:

* gattaca
* the whicker man
* cypher (2002)

and perhaps parts of:

* the changeling
* the mist (2007)
* flight of the navigator

## Connections, Inspirations, and References Between Media

Some of these will be speculative

* Has no one noticed that the Winkie's scene in Mulholland Dr. is referencing a brief scene with the same actor in The Shadow (1994)? Checked for online lists of references in the movie. Neither the IMDB list nor this other place mention it.
* Twin Peaks inspired stuff, with names like:
	+ Wild Palms
	+ Wayward Pines
	+ Thimbleweed Park

Noticeable doubleyous and pees.

## Cyberpunk 2077 "The Hunt"

I was watching someone [xychelsea i think?] play cyberpunk 2077, and the missions and side quests all seemed pretty bland for the most part.

Then, something stood out. Listening to the news, there's something about hormones being found in the blood of the victim. that stood out to me. hormones. odd. [the only association my brain has for people mentioning hormones is various political controversy things, but those didn't seem relevant at the time]

later, one line of dialogue unlocked the mystery for me. let's take a look:

> River says: "Cattle injectors for hormones, antibiotics...People ate meat loaded with the shit."
>
>

seem odd at all?

past tense, so in this future dystopia, is our current world being regarded as even worse than theirs? are we supposed to agree with this? is this line of dialogue not supposed to be entirely baffling and backwards and inexplicable?

It only makes sense if the audience is supposed to be going along with the guy who is saying that.

And if you follow that aspect throughout the story, you get the following arc:

1. hormones and antibiotics are put into cows
2. hormones and antibiotics are then forced into humans, in a horror movie scenario

Clearly seems like a simple propaganda technique for the real life ideology that is opposed to these things that are used in cow farming due to concerns that these will get into or impact humans and it will be bad somehow. See the page about this scare on wikipedia, and the page on rationawliki.

think of the children [and a care-harm house of mirrors?][at all like the disturbing media within this media? meta aspect? eh, i dunno]

### redditors asking [and answering!] "why is the bad guy bad"

why are there so many and this is all they have to talk about this quest, why would you ask why the bad guy is bad? he's the villain of a horror story. his father abused him, he goes on to be a killer. what is there to wonder about? but, if you want to see all the discussion, it's all i could find about this mission. no one seems to be discussing it from the perspective of the meaning of the story to us (the audience in the real world), just the in-universe cause and effect explanation:

* a summary of that aspect of the story [response to "Okay I'll ask: What the hell was he farming from them? The quest never cleared that one up."]
* link "we don't really see why he has them there. He's not harvesting anything. Kinda weird they went for the shock value of the sight, not the gruesomeness of the reason."
* link "what exactly what he extracting from the humans there at the end when you save them?"
* link "I honestly don't even understand what that guy was doing. What was the stuff in the tubes? What was the point of it all?"
	+ someone replies with more info about the killer's ideology in the game: "the "consciousness curse" which holds that people are better off unaware of the horror society has become. And the more time you spend your life unconscious, the better." [they injection machines also sedate the victims][seems mostly self-referential, there's no hint of a reference to any other "horrors of society" besides the cow hormones or whatever][here's the text he's referring to, this page says it appears in a different quest, perhaps it shows up in more than one quest, or this commenter is misremembering][searching on google for "the hunt" and "consciousness curse" doesn't bring up any more relevant results]
* link "he preyed on downtrodden people and then put them in his sick farm hormone machine thing but what I don't get is: what for? What was the end plan, just pump them full of hormones like cattle and then let them die or was there something else that I was missing?"
* link "I don't know if I missed something or not, but the plot seems a little hazy in my head [...] I don't remember if the game ever said why he wanted to do this. Was it ever explained how he got to this point?"

oh and some people [even off of reddit] didn't catch details like what the machines even do. so they weren't paying attention i guess. i mean, who plays video games for the story, i guess. all those hours of scripted voice acting wasted on kids.

## High School

(the Tegan and Sara TV show)

i though it was pretty great. but then, afterwards, i was disturbed when i realized that it secretly re-constructs a kind of traditionalist patriarchal worldview (similar to the way "Hey, Nostradamus!" does in the final section, including the way his perspective is the very last unique perspective to be introduced with a title card or named section). Even the homophobic slur scene is framed from the perspective of the step father, after building the audience's sympathy for him. And the mean old guy who dies (and is the focus of the start of the final episode) is right about everything, if i recall. I'll have to compare to the book it's loosely based on (from what i've read so far, it's somewhat different in numerous ways). Looking back, the personalities of the twins....just doesn't match who they are portraying at all. I kinda wish i hadn't watched it. But it has contributed to my ongoing "crisis of faith/identity" this year, so that's perhaps valuable, in a way, even if it's annoying.

## Inception and Polar Express

Polar Express is ideologically quite weird. Which, I suppose, is to be expected with a "spirit of christmas" movie. Perhaps I'm not familiar with many of them, but this one seems a bit more extreme than usual.

One particularly odd quote from the end of Polar Express is "One thing about trains: It doesn't matter where they're goin'. What matters is deciding to get on.". This idea seemed a bit out-of-nowhere to me. Was the movie about that at all? Did it demonstrate that? Wasn't the destination of the train kind of important in this movie? Well, it seems to be a kind of doubting Thomas meme.

Anyways, this reminded me quite a bit of the line from Inception: "You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter. How can it not matter to you where that train will take you? Because you'll be together."

Kind of similar theme. Also both have "dreams" as part of the theme.

## Polar Express

There's a kind of "reverse" trolley-problem scene: they agree on which outcome they want [stop the train so it doesn't hit the deer] but they question which "lever" will cause the train to stop. [and it's a kind of "lean not unto your own understanding" kind of lesson being taught to the audience]

The puzzling line from the end of the movie is also kind of opposing the premise of the trolley problem: "One thing about trains: It doesn't matter where they're goin'", but, of course, where the train is going is the most important thing in all trolley problems.

Also, the character of santa feels odd. usually movies depict santa as being defined be generosity. but in this movie, his personality seems to be defined by his judgmental attitude towards the worthiness of other people [which fits with the ominous christmas song they play about "better not do this, better not do that" and whole naughty or nice list thing]

I guess I'm a little bit concerned about the way the climax in the movie involves a child having an emotional breakdown, and it seemed to imply that this emotional breakdown had to happen. Like it's a good thing.  And, of course, the weird way beliefs are involved.

In that scene he's surrounded by people who believe or whatever, and he's the only one who doesn't. And this emotional breakdown makes him conform to that group that he's surrounded by, forces him to believe what they believe (or at least he claims to, perhaps he’s just playing along). That kind of sounds [and feels] a bit like a cult brainwashing social event.

Inverse of "the emporer's new clothes". just give in to the gaslighting. deny your own direct sensory experience.

can also compare ending [narrator says bell can be heard by all who truly believe] to end of star trek episode "chain of command" episode, where Picard says that he believed he could see five lights [he was tortured to deny his own direct sensory experience that there were only 4 lights]. [see also garden of eden on this page, and where i mention "Exodus: Gods and Kings" below]

## Spongebob

yes, fine, i'll finally spell out the philosophical meaning of a few spongebob episodes

* bubble buddy
	+ the absurdity of believing a god exists, given the evidence
* Club SpongeBob (the "magic conch club" episode)
	+ the burden of living in a superstitious world. similar to that old adage: "being an atheist feels like being the only sober person in a car full of drunk people, and no one will let you drive"
* Sandy's Rocket (the "alien hunting" episode)
	+ how false/unfalsifiable beliefs [and incompetent epistemology] can lead to atrocities [the "robots are taking over the world" episode is similar]

## The Garden of Eden

Thinking of the whole "hiding nakedness with a fig leaf" thing, supposedly from having knowledge of good and evil. But if we compare it to somewhat similar real-world situations, perhaps a more accurate statement would be "people hide the parts of themselves [or behaviors] that they have learned the powerful violent control freak disapproves of" [or like being threatened by your boss, which happens in The Matrix and Blade Runner...the hollowness of obeying a threat is also apparent in a scene in Ridley Scott's movie "Exodus: Gods and Kings" which has a lot of other atheist or critical points in it too].

## The Land Before Time

Obviously it's an allegory for traditionalist [christian?] religion. Just accept what parent tells you, it's very important, we're going to paradise [even though you can't see it].

But recently [in past year?], it occurred to me: is the fight between Littlefoot and Sara...an allegory for ...domestic violence? And family break-up?

The other three dinosaurs are kind of like the children. They are smaller and less leader-like. Spike is big, but also can't talk, and just hatched, he's literally a baby.

And...things are sort of set up to...make the audience believe that Littlefoot is sort of correct about the reality and all that (and we're led to despise Cera in a lot of ways too). Also set up to make us more emotionally supportive of Littlefoot as well: the writers made Cera insult Littlefoot's *Mother*, and we all know what the writers made the audience feel about *that*.

Should we view this scene more like we view the scene in Blade Runner? And of course both take place in rather desperate survival-type situations.

## Visionary games

some games had some kinds of ambitions, and they often didn't turn out so well. but these days i find even the failures more stimulating than polished works. artworks with vision can live in your imagination, which is in some ways less limited than real games.

some i've seen:

* Alone in the Dark
* DisneyQuest arcade counts in terms of medium, not content (it's remarkable to see arcade/remote-control hybrid games that resemble my own fantasies from when i was like 10 or whatever)
* Trespasser
* various point-and-click games (i think) have a kind of "game vision's reach exceeding technology's grasp" ethos/status
* various sim games, here's a write-up on sim refinery, sim health, and more

See also: Simulation games.

## xXx (2002)

of all the weird places to find...thematic shenanigans...

this movie plays with truth an lies in extremely weird ways.

their hoax training scenarios, of course (and then, believing the real mission is just another hoax)

xander gets to have it both ways by "just being straightforward and honest" telling the villain about the cop, and pursuing his own interest in cool cars. but this radical honesty is still being used to deceive. to make the villain believe that he can trust xander (who actually has ulterior motives).

xander's boss lies to him again, saying there is a strike team going in to kill everyone, even the innocent. later when xander confronts him about this lie, his excuse is that the lie "worked", a leader's job is to motivate, and it motivated (the movie's hero) xander to ...do what he did.

so, the movie is basically the anti-conspiracy movie. it's trying to convince you that, actually, it's *good* when the government lies to its people with propaganda to make them wage war and whatever. [and i was watching this while, in real life, russia was doing the same thing with its soldiers in ukraine].