Looker (1981): Manufactured reality

[Compugasm]

Originally posted by Scribbler1, This is right along the lines of "cleansing history" and I brought up a little daydream where they were SO successful in "protecting" our sensitivities that the next generation was completely unaware that the attack happened at ALL! Picture a similar attack 60 years from now and all the now middle aged folks are shocked at how such a thing could have happened. Imagine their shock and disbelief when a 90 year-old geezer comes up and casually tells them it had ALREADY happened!I know...overactive imagination at work!

Not at all. If history can be cleansed, it can also be created. How long will it be, before events which never happen, are created as if they've occured? And I'm not talking about movies, but use one to illustrate the point.

There is a B movie called Looker written by Michael Crichton. If you look it up, the plot summary has something to do with a murder mystery. However, the setting was in a virtual environment. People watched TV shows like "Friends", except the people were digital. No-one knew the difference of course, except the TV executives.

In the film climax, there is a shootout on one of the TV sets that has green screens like weatherman use today. But the public watching a "Leave it to Beaver" type show. The bad guy is shot, and bleeds all over the kitchen table, while kids are eating pankcakes and stuff. Since they aren't real people, they can't react to what's happening on the set. Anyway, it sounds silly, but that movie is one of the reasons I don't watch TV anymore.

The updated Manchurian Candidate movie ends with digital manipulation of the truth as well. Here's something interesting, while looking up Looker on the movie database, Michael Crichton wrote the "Jurassic Park" movies. Well known for using CGI effects to create the dinosaurs. If history can be cleansed, it can also be created.

[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by Compugasm, In the film climax, there is a shootout on one of the TV sets that has green screens like weatherman use today. But the public watching a "Leave it to Beaver" type show. The bad guy is shot, and bleeds all over the kitchen table, while kids are eating pankcakes and stuff. Since they aren't real people, they can't react to what's happening on the set. Anyway, it sounds silly, but that movie is one of the reasons I don't watch TV anymore.

Yes, but a good reason to watch MOVIES. Science fiction in particular (my favorite type of fiction) is entertaining but it also sparks the imagination as well, a lot more than comedies, romances and cowboy films do. I find science fistion books and movies give the reader/viewer the ability to go "what if" a lot more than anything else, and that keeps the old gray matter sharp. Take the 70's James Caan flick "Rollerball", which I thought was a lousy movie but with a frightening premise. If you haven't seen it, it was about the whole world run by huge corporations which had total control of all our lives. Rollerball was a violent amalgam of Roller Derby and Football where they made use of motorcycles with spiked tires and tag-teaming to kill or maim any opposing player who stood between them and the ball's target. This kept the futuristic version of our beloved sheep entertained and mesmerized so they went about their controlled lives as blissfully as back in the 50's. This is something which is becoming evident even as we speak. Not the same as Rollerball or Max Headroom but the seeds are there.

The updated Manchurian Candidate movie ends with digital manipulation of the truth as well. Here's something interesting, while looking up Looker on the movie database, Michael Crichton wrote the "Jurassic Park" movies. Well known for using CGI effects to create the dinosaurs. If history can be cleansed, it can also be created.

The problem there is, how do we tell it isn't already being done? They have already licked the face problem with digital creations. If you saw Spider Man 2 several shots of the actors' faces in action were CG (computer generated) along with the animated bodies in some of the impossible action scenes and they looked EXACTLY like the actors themselves. Up until now, faces which were generated in the computer would look like Lara Croft. Close, but not close enough. That's all changed now.
Remember the John Kerry/Jane Fonda photo that a lot of people were completely fooled by? Just a cheesy Photoshop job but realistic enough to fool a lot of people with untrained eyes. TV commercials and a lot of magazine ads are also fake but look totally real. And Photoshop can do even better than that. Years ago, when I got my first copy of PS, my kid got a hold of it and within a half-hour had a photo of him and a friend in a school bus with Hitler, Einstein and some other notables. Pretty good job too!
It used to be that a photograph was rock solid evidence in a court of law. However, with digital technology so refined I doubt it will be allowed in court any more, unless it already isn't. If you think about it, what you suggest as a future problem may well be already integrated into our lives, especially since we get most of our news from the TV.

[Technosoul]

I do not know if anyone noticed how some fantasy movies somethimes come to life in reality, I am not talking about someone copycatting a murder or whatever, but event wise. Like they came out with Jaws and now we are getting all kinds of news stories about shark attacks which were not common before the movie came out, at least not along the coastline of California. The alien flick Independance Day where they blew up New York and it was shocking very close to what we saw on the news (later) when the WTC crumbled down, it was almost like watching special effects on the news but it was for real. Movies (or book) like 1984 would be another example.

Is the future feeding off movies to repeat history (that never happened before)? Or do those guys who write science fiction unknowingly channel in future events like a phychic with a crystal ball?

The old Frankenstien movie, now it is common medical pratice to use parts from people who died (body organs) and people have cloned dead pets for people.

Some people believe if you seed the collective consciousness of a lot of people with some idea like those that it somehow can make such things happen. (or something close to it). Back in the 1970s someone wrote a book called "Think and grow rich", and the idea was that if you think all the time about getting a lot of money that such an obsession will subconsiously direct you towards becoming richer then you might have otherwise.

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