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Impact of technology in society
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Today life seems unimaginable without technology. We depend on it for things like; keeping in touch with family, getting back and forth to work, protecting our homes from intrusion, and propelling the economy, just to name a few. As marvelous as technology is it can have unintended consequences that can be profound. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a science fiction film released in 1968 directed by Stanley Kubrick. The film examines the human relationship with technology in depth. Arthur C. Clark wrote a short story called The Sentinel on which the film was based. It is an epic story about the evolution of the human species and how technology plays an integral part in that process. 2001 has four major acts and begins with the genesis of human evolution. A mysterious alien intelligence plants a solid black monolith near a group of apes. The apes are initially frightened of it but soon find the courage to move close and touch the strange object. As they do the monolith begins to make a sound that emulates a resonant vibration and the apes begin to evolve. The monolith appears throughout the film whenever human evolution happens serving as a catalyst for it. Before the incident the apes lived in harmony with their environment and their fellow creatures. Soon after the contact they start to exhibit the origins of complex thought by inventing the first technology, primitive tools. Using bones they realize they can intimidate and even kill their rivals, but also kill small mammals for food. Consuming a flesh diet allows their brains to develop rapidly and become the top species on Earth.
The film skips ahead to 2001 and portrays humans at the zenith of evolution and also the speedy pace technology has developed with us. Kubrick presents...
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...inal monolith appears and his unsteady hand reaches to touch it. In his final act he sheds his physical body and begins a next stage of evolution and existence being reborn as a star child. He is then returned to earth and gazes upon it as the film ends. Kubrick was warning us with this film that technology is wonderful, but we can never let it be all-important in our lives and risk becoming a slave to it. We must temper our thirst for “progress” with wisdom and never forget our humble beginnings. Our evolution may have a fantastic future comparable to Kubrick’s vision or it might lead to extinction, but we must use technology sensibly and never loose our admiration for all creation.
Works Cited
Ager, Roger. "An In-depth Analysis of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY." Collectivelearning.com. 2008. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. .
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
In this essay I will discuss the way in which the generic marker ‘The visual surface of Science Fiction presents us with a confrontation between those images to which we respond as “alien” and those we know to be familiar’ can be applied to Blade Runner and to what end.
Prideaux, T. "Take Aim, Fire at the Agonies of War." Life 20 Dec. 1963: 115-118. Rabe, David. "Admiring the Unpredictable Mr. Kubrick." New York Times 21 June 1987: H34+
...vernment that led them into such a crisis. In stating that this movie is a valuable piece of our cultural history, it is not to say that this film should be taken as a historical piece only. There is a danger in relying on material culture for historical knowledge. This danger exists in the fact that during the course of years, creative intentions become lost, and only the product remains. To rely on this film for historical knowledge, rather than cultural information, would be gravely wrong. This is because this film was not made to be historically informative, and centuries from now, society may not know that Kubrick's suggestive names, distortion of actual history, and cultural bias were simply vehicles used to convey an opinion. So these same vehicles that make this film effective as a societal criticism make it inaccurate as a source for historical knowledge.
Kubrick wanted to accomplish a Sci-Fi film with colossal scientific proportions. His ambition was to believe reasons to believe in life outside the planet, and the impact that it would have to the human race. He learned from the books, “Childhood’s End” and “the
Booker, M. K. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. Print.
Kagan, Norman. The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Print.
Dr. Strangelove (1964), an adaptation of Peter Bryant’s novel Red Alert, although still bearing the usual traits of a Kubrick film, is something of a departure for him in terms of editing and spatial strategies. The film’s run-time more or less corresponds with the fictional or represented time in the story. This direct correspondence between fictional and real time adds to the sense of temporal compression induced by the film’s insistent editing patterns. Although Dr. Strangelove employs many long takes, it contains the shortest average-shot-length of any Kubrick film. The film consists of roughly 700 shots and has a run time of 94 minutes for an average-shot-length of 8 seconds. Despite the rather short average-shot-length, Dr. Strangelove still resorts to crucial long takes to slow down the rapid momentum of the story (Falsetto, 35).
The many debates about art cinema versus classical cinema have been going around for a while. The mainstream Hollywood classical film and the art cinema are frequently presented as opposites. In one, the style of the film is bland, while the other seeks to center its focus on the visual becoming central as narrative unity. Throughout the movie directed by Stanley Kubrick called 2001: A Space Odyssey, we see that this film can be classified as an art film. On the other hand, it can also be seen as classical film. Even though these two are the complete opposite and they contradict themselves, they are both apparent in the film.
2001 was released in the tumultuous spring of 1968, at the same time that Americans were reeling from President Lyndon Johnson’s announcement that he would not seek reelection and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. It might seem odd that so many people would get so excited about a science fiction movie in the midst of urban race riots and campus protests against the Vietnam War, but to many, 2001 had far greater importance than its sci-fi trappings. Baffling early audiences with its non-traditional structure, theme, and presentation, the film was soon embraced by many members of a younger generation entranced by its consciousness-raising message and its psychedelic special effects. Over the next 30 years, the film would not only become a part of American culture, but would eventually be hailed as a masterpiece of modern cinema.
defined what makes a film fit the science fiction niche. This paper seeks to explore
It is my personal belief that extreme punishments for the actions of violent criminals have not been a decent deterrent for their continued actions. If society can find a way to learn from the lessons of our history and the visions presented by Kubrick, there may actually be an intelligent solution to the problem of crime. The assertions of Vincent Canby were dead on in their description of this film, and I agree wholeheartedly with him. The next step in this process is identifying the overall messages and learning from them, only then will there be any resolution to the problems of law and punishment.
Donnie Darko and 2001: A Space Odyssey has central meanings that focus on science and religion. Richard Kelly's, Donnie Darko, introduces the protagonist as a teenage boy who is given the chance to live for twenty-eight more days after the mysterious jet engine crash that was intended to kill him. Donnie is plagued by visions of a giant sized evil-looking rabbit named Frank. Frank orders Donnie to commit acts of violence, warns of the impending end of the world, and is his guide throughout the movie. Donnie is portrayed as a Christ-like figure that will ultimately travel back in time not only to redeem his actions, but the actions of those he has affected. When Donnie dies he becomes a martyr and saves the world, like Christ. Stanley Kubrick's, 2001: A Space Odyssey portrays human evolution while being guided by a higher intelligence. Although this higher intelligence is anonymous throughout the movie, it has placed mysterious stone structures known as "monoliths" on the moon, Saturn, and Earth. These monoliths have purposively been around for over 4,000 years and are a symbol of evolution. At each new level of human achievement, the monolith is present. The scene in A Space Odyssey, where astronaut David Bowman lands on the enigmatic monolith, focuses on an evolutionary theme, whereas the montage scene in Donnie Darko shows the reverse of time followed by Donnie laughing in bed awaiting death, thus unraveling an underlying Christian theme in which Donnie is Christ-like for sacrificing himself to save the world.
...ese improvements may actually cause destruction. The moral of these science fiction models is that there is no such thing as perfect. Without the application of science in the film and the two stories, the same message may not have been portrayed. “Flowers for Algernon” shows how the idea of artificial intelligence may seem perfect to an overzealous scientist, but is actually a fatal mistake. “The End of the Whole Mess” demonstrates how a mad scientist may think he knows how to create a peaceful society, but is terribly misguided when he ends up with mental problems. “Gravity” displays a technologically advanced spacecraft, which ends up being of no use when astronauts need it the most. These three models of science fiction all teach a lesson about the inadequacies of future science and technological advancements and the harmful results they can cause to society.
Technology is making our life easier than before, but are we getting too much dependent on it? Technology is getting improved by past decades. It has become a part and parcel in everyday life. Without it, people would have a lot of trouble to keep pace with the whole world. At the same time, todays new generations incredibly dependent on it. They do not want to use their brain as there are lots of search engines they can easily access and can find out what they want. Technology creates problems about pollution and global warming and at the same time people are using technology to reduce these problems. Overdependence on technology is harmful for humans’ existence because it creates addiction that makes people inactive, decrease job opportunities and causes physical or mental disorders that is a great threat for mans’ life.