## Human Nature in Film
## Today
- Narrative
- An interpretation of 2001: A Space Odyssey -- Dave as the new Adam
- Comparing Wall-E -- The Captain as the New Adam
### An Interpretation of 2001
- First, think about a Meta-Narrative or mythic pattern:
- Creation, fall, redemption (comedy)
- Creation, redemption, fall (tragedy)
### Creation
- God creates the heavens and the earth
- He creates man in his own image
- He creates man and woman, perfect in a Garden
- He creates knowledge, but restricts the timing
### Fall
- Sin and death
- Disobedience leads to severed relationship
- Death and suffering result from moral failure
- "Knowledge" is a mixed blessing, a poisoned apple, a cursed blessing
### Redemption
1. Jesus is promised
2. Jesus is incarnated
3. Jesus is crucified for us
4. Jesus resurrects
5. Jesus will come again
6. We can life the life of Christ while we wait
### This narrative is fundamentally optimistic
- It takes sin _very seriously_
- But it takes redemption is _even more_ serious
- Good, Bad, Good
### What about a pessimistic narrative?
- Inverts elements
- Creation, _redemption_, fall
### Creation
- There is something rather than nothing by chance
- The cosmos is orderly by chance or blind natural law
### Redemption
- Life happens by chance
- Consciousness and knowledge evolve by natural law
- Man becomes a knower, a thinker,
### Fall
- Death happens by necessity
- Consciousness fades
- Man goes extinct
- The Ring, the Norse Myth, Tragedy
### Can you have an optimistic, atheistic narrative?
- Christianity: Good, Gad, Good
- Atheism: Bad, Good, Bad
- Atheism: Bad, Good... Better?
### The monolith
- The Monolith is the Known Unknown, a Kappa Element (kryptic)
- The monolith was present at the evolution of apes to tool-using man, pointing apes toward the moon.
- The monolith was present on the moon, pointing civilized man toward Jupiter.
- The monolith was present at Jupiter and beyond, pointing civilized man to become a Starchild.
- What is the Monolith? Not god, that's the point
### Hal
- Hal is a stepping stone
- He is first a friend, then an enemy, then transcended
- Technology makes us more than ape, but less than gods
- Hal cannot make us gods,
- Tech has a dark side; David, Frank, and the 3 scientists experience difficulties with Hal.
- Transhumanism through the Singularity is not the way
### Dave
- Dave is the new Adam
- Dave overcomes Hal and reaches Jupiter.
- David undergoes a journey through infinite time and space, analogous to the ape's journey to become human
- David meets the monolith (and evolves again?)
- What is a Starchild? Not human, and that's the point
## Wall-E
- Wall-E is E.T. inverted
- Wall-E is Dave inverted
- Wall-E is the new Adam "coming down to the ground" (Peter Gabriel)
### E.T. Inverted
- E.T. is an extraterrestrial being who comes from space to earth and "phones home"
- Wall-E is an earth-bound machine who goes to space and "phones home" with the plant
- E.T. wants to go home, with Eliot's help and technology's help (the spaceship)
- Wall-E wants human beings to come home, with the Captain's help and technology's help (the spaceship)
### Dave Inverted
- Dave is human but transforms to superhuman
- The Captain is sub-human (like a baby) but transforms _back_ to human -- see the Musical Cue
### The Captain is the new Adam
- A new relationship to technology: "Auto" has to be overcome, like Hal
- Technology can _help_ but cannot _replace_
- Also notice the history of art (are machines just a new form of art?)