Script & Ideology

As discussed before, religion will be a key factor into my film and putting a post modern view onto it.

The main character, 'Eli', will be in what i'm going to call the Goldilocks zone, if you are not familiar with this I will enlighten you. In science this phrase the Goldilocks zone, is where the perfect place for a planet to grow and succeed with life. It isn't too far away from the sun making it cold, but also it isn't to close to the sun making the planet to hot. This idea I think links very nicely into my film because the character is not dead or alive. This is what the film is going toe be based around.

This zone is where 'God' tests the faithful before accepting them, but this is going to have a twist put on it because 'God' the all seeing actually manipulated you when you where alive and until you are in this zone or dead the decisions are yours to make so never of having met you as yourself, this is actually a very cunning way to test faith. In this zone the 'user', who in this case is 'Eli' doesn't know he is dead and in fact still believes he is alive, but little does he know every action is being observed with great attention very similar to those movie buffs who criticizes and points out the most smallest mistakes.

Whilst in the zone 'Eli' will be forced to make certain decisions which will link back to loyalty, revenge and being sincere. These decisions will decide his fate which will be up to 'God' whether it turns out to be good or bad. Now the portrayal in our Christian dominated society is 'God' forgives if you own up to your sins, but in this film 'God' doesn't want or need to do that in the slightest bit because he doesn't care what you have done in you time when you where alive because he governed your life, he decided your fate and was all to his benefit himself. This is why his character is not known as 'God' but as the 'Governor' of which title was given to him when he was assigned to this planet. This name reinforces another point I want to implement into the film of which is commonly seen as evil, this is of course the fact that because the governor controls everything you do he himself, the almighty one, the true creator is just a Dictator and I want this point to carry through to the real world because whats to say 'our God' is a dictator, if he truly can do what ever he wants, and possibly tricked the majority of the human race into believing he is a good person or forcing them, what is the difference. Of course this is very controversial point so linking these two points together can be easily seen in a different way, which is what I want my film to achieve, that point isn't the preferred meaning that I want to get across but could be seen as a point that someone interprets from the film.

After Eli has finished his test he confronts the Governor where he will say this speech which is directly lifted from Agent Smiths speech in the Matrix, a homage to the brilliancy of the film...

"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus." He will then continue further which will make the speech more relevant to my film.

But what is all this for?

The Governor has been assigned a task by the truly higher people, the Olympians, to decide whether Humanity should exist and he has been gathering evidence to either support or go against this issue.

This of course begs the idea of why he wanted people to have religion, well if you think about it religion has been a major cause of destruction, with great wars like the crusades engulfing several religions to slaughter each other over nothing. A since the Governor doesn't want to 'watch' earth because it was a punishment, he wants humanity to be destroyed and the easiest way to do that is to make Humanity seem like a illogical force of destruction that is out of control. This again is not a preferred meaning but a point that someone could connect if enough is known.

There is one preferred meaning that I do want to have inserted into my film, this of course goes against my ideas of having several meanings but this has great relevance to my beliefs into the 'New World Order'. I believe politics as we see it isn't what the public sees it as, in fact Obama really doesn't control america he is a puppet of a higher power, which of course is the Federal Reserve which the american government owes huge amounts of debt to. This links directly into my film because 'God/Governor' is the puppet of the Olympians, the people of earth see the Governor as the true high power and the creator but in fact it is all just a show.

Once Eli's fate is sealed which turns out to be that he goes to the void because whether you where good or bad you will end up there.

Once in the void you are alone, so very alone emphasizing the point which I want to get across of how alone we are and how little of important we are compared to the grand scale of the universe, which is why I wanted the Olympians to force 'God' this traitor to govern this insignificant place, this accident.

Link to Agent Smith's speech to Morpheus: Click here

Confusions of Time and Space

Post Modern Ideas continued; In order for me to fully respect the idea of a post modern idea I first have to look at some of the great films of which the directors and editors play around with this conventional idea of chronological time events and then to 'Play' with it creating what appears to be a mess but turns out to be much more effective as a film when compared to a chronological version of the film. A theory to look at when talking about time and space is 'Syuzhet & Fabula', The fabula is "the raw material of a story, and syuzhet, the way a story is organized."

One example to look at is 'Memento'...

This film if not familiar to it literally makes no sense in writing to have this film the way it is edited. The film is split into Black & White sections and Coloured sections, the black and white sections apply traditional conventions of story tell which is to show the very start of the story and plays them in logical order. Now the Coloured sections tell the story backwards with the ending of the story first. Then it gets more confusing, both of the sections do in fact meet up in the 'middle' of the film, at the end of the films time. So in other words the ending of the film is actually the middle of the film. Not only that but also these sections are mixed together making the events completely non chronological and whats seems to be a move that will just annoy the viewer with confusion and frustration. Although this doesn't happen because in actual fact it improves the films impact on the viewer and if understood and seen its 'under-skin', there is actually a great meaning to this film into why it is shot in that way.

You see the main character suffers from short term memory loss and because of this his 'world' is scrambled and confused to how it got there, this is very similar to the films structure.

Another film that you can look at is Pulp Fiction;

This films storyline also follows an unconventional story line where chronological order is completely ignored, this film cuts backward and forward in time and even shows the opening credits and the start of the film.

But why does films like this, Pulp Fiction, do this and somehow make it to the top 10 films of all time?

Simply put, the Uses of Gratification theory explains it, but to put it in a more retrospective look it is because of this Post Modernist idea which we get sucked into, the ideology behind it makes us as the viewer seem more important, we somehow have more control. But how?

Post Modernsim takes the idea of the 'author/director' of whom being the one in control of the media and saying its us, the viewer who has control. For example in 'Inception' the ending is left at a massive cliffhanger of where we as a audience are left uncertain whether it was all a dream or it was reality. This idea could possibly come from Blade Runner and supports this idea of the director not being in control because in the film, for example there is balanced reasons to suggest Deker is or isn't a replicant so naturally the viewer turned to the director Ridley Scott who supported the idea that he is a replicant but then Harrison Ford who plays Deker in Blade Runner said that he isn't a replicant. This leaves the viewer to make the decision about the film; the viewer literally can change and justify the whole meaning and purpose of the film without changing it physically but by perspective. This is a very Post Modern idea that encircles these films, I want to grasp this Idea of how time and space could become such a confusing idea that 'us' the viewer has to decide what the true nature of the film is and to have one preferred meaning that can be viewed in many different ways, which by itself then becomes Post Modern because I will be denying the Grand Narratives of the theory of a piece of media having ONE preferred meaning.

Another example to look at is a slightly different media which is a game trailer, Dead Island, where the whole trailer is played backwards in story and time, this becomes very, very effective because of how it ends. The trailer starts with how the story is meant to end with a little girl dead on the floor outside a hotel, then it reverses up through the hotel sweet where she fights her parents along with other zombies, then switching to her just turning. Throughout this section there is 'Time' flashbacks where she was running away from the zombies. The trailer ends how it should of started which is where the dad runs out to risk his life and grab the daughter, but what makes it effective is that the last shot is not of him going forward to garb her, but him attempting to grab her, but with the reversal of time he is backing away from her. This trailer turned a usually pure horrific scene with zombies destroying a family, into seeing the struggle of a family in such a crisis where they would risk anything for each other.

I would love to achieve something on this level, with having disturbing scenes also filled with elegance but I fear that this would be too hard of a job with the little time I had to produce the film.

Post Modern Ideas

I want my film to be post modern, although actually saying this is going against what post modern theorists say, because directors and producers make a film usually not intending for it to be post modern but when looked at it can be seen as post modern, this idea applies to Blade Runner. But I did say not all films apply to this rule, for example I believe the new film Inception made by Christopher Nolan was made and created as a post modern film because the amount of content that directly applies it self to post modernism Christopher Nolan wrote Inception around the time of the Matrix, but didnt produce the film until later on. Possibly because there was too many postmodern films at this current time. An example of this would be the amount of intertextuality the film pays; Whilst in the dream there is someone who creates the dream and shapes it to its will, this is called the 'Architect'. This it self is post modern because whilst in this fake, non reality world they can shape it to their will, they are literally playing God. But why is this intertextuality? This is because of what the Matrix has included in its content. The Matrix is the predecessor to Inception, with very similar ideas of living in a fake, created world that is created and entered upon the use of machines, but in the matrix their is a figure also called the 'Architect' where he makes and shapes the world each time they decide to 'Update'. Another area where it makes the film seem like it is directed into a post modern creation is the quotes they slipped into the film for example 'Reality is not going to be enough for her now'. This literally translates into a super post modern idea including 'Hyperreality', 'Distortions of Time and Space' and 'Rejection of the Grand Narratives'.

Relgion states there is absolute truth in everything, and postmodernism states that nothing is absolute. - Relativism

- Moral Relativism

- Viewpoint

- Subjectivity

Post Modern implemented into my film
The main aspect of the film is going to show religion in a controversial dark side where there is no good aspect of supporting religion, so when you die you will go to the same place, called: 'Void'.
But why is this controversial?
This idea counter acts the majority of human life who believe that when you die you either go to heaven of hell based on what you did as a mortal being. But for my film I am saying that you could either be a murderer or a priest and end up in the same way and treated the same. This idea is because of the 'God' figure who is sick of humanity and grows tired of them, because they where an accident of an experimental idea he made which himself and his highers could not of foreseen to unravel such events, this of course was 'Evolution'. Including this idea not only is controversial to religious people but scientists alike who believe that evolution wasn't an act of God or some higher power, but of biology. Another seeming controversial idea that I want to include in my film is that these books of religion, 'The Bible' & 'The Koran', are completely misleading and were made that of fortune and power, using influence as their weapon of choice. I want to go against the grand narratives of how religion and science are portrayed in the media whilst including intertextuality of other films. An example of this is where the main character figure is being tested by 'God' and once failed, this higher power creature will do a speak which I wish to literally lift of the first Matrix where Agent Smith is doing his speech to Morpheus about humans and how he wants to escape.
I also want the God character to not be the all knowing and all powerful, he was designated by a more powerful set of people in his race called the 'Olympians'.

This allows me to link my film into historical references but with a postmodernism twist of distorting the mythical beings and story of the olympians. I want them to be the creators but with humanity becoming an accident they signed 'God' to us as a punishment for his trickery in previous times. With 'God' feeling he has just been taken advantage over he wants once again trick the Olympians out of his punishment. God then effectively becomes the Devil, this is the origination of trickery by God deceiving he is the good one and the devil is bad, but in actual fact he is both.

In my film I want to somehow compose my film around the confusion of time and space which will be fragmented. How I will achieve this isnt final but I have looked at film like 'Inception', which I have mentioned before, but also I have looked at 'Memento'.