Life without Technology

941 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impact of technology in society

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...

... middle of paper ...

...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. .

Show More
Related

  • Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley and Metropolis, by Fritz Lang

    1922 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Confrontation of Familiar and Alien in Blade Runner Directed by Ridley Scott

    1534 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Impact of the Film, Dr. Strangelove, on American Attitudes Towards the Atomic Bomb and Cold War

    5224 Words  | 11 Pages

    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+

    Read More

  • Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The Great Unknown: Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind

    1895 Words  | 4 Pages

    Booker, M. K. Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. Print.

    Read More

  • Revolutionizing Cinematic Experience: Kubrick's Obsession with Sci-Fi

    1103 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Art vs. Classical Film in the Cinema

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...lm. With the director’s use of special effects, this proves that he had an artistic way of showing the film, as well as his use of ambiguous scenes and sequences that were provided in the film. By making it a classical cinema film, the Kubrick did a good job in proving the realism of space and all, as well as using the film order to make the movie in order. By making the film both art and classical cinema, this just makes the movie even better and the director more smarter for being able to do this in one movie.

    Read More

  • A Clockwork Orange, by Stanley Kubrick

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparrison Donnie Darko, 2001: A Space Odyssey

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Science Fiction Essay

    2010 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The explaination of ‘cinema of attractions’

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    By seeing the cinema pre World War I as primitive the mother of all creation, necessity was utilised and the economic and technological immaturity, did not hold back the creators but the limits freed them. Gunning terms this as a linear evolutionary process. Gunning, T 1993

    Read More

  • Satire and Black Humor in Dr. Strangelove

    1256 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kagan, Norman. The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Print.

    Read More

  • Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Mankind?

    744 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the first imaginative thought to manipulate nature to the development of complex astronomical concepts of space exploration, man continues to this day to innovate and invent products or methods that improve and enhance humankind. Though it has taken 150 million years to reach current day, the intellectual journey was not gradual in a linear sense. If one was to plot significant events occurring throughout human existence, Mankind’s ability to construct new ideas follows a logarithmic path, and is rapidly approaching an asymptote, or technological singularity. This singularity event has scientists both supporting and rejecting the concept of an imaginative plateau; the largest topic discussed is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). When this technological singularity is reached, it is hypothesized that man’s greatest creation, an artificial sapient being, will supersede human brain capacity. According to some, this event will lead to the extermination of mankind as humans are deemed obsolete. Yet others are projecting a mergence between A.I. and Humanity, a gradual conversion of man and machine. Will the projected apex of our technical evolution be a gradual or abrupt end of mankind?

    Read More

  • Are We Too Dependent on Technology?

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    Finally I am able to describe my opinion in the situation, if whether or not society is becoming too dependent on technology. I believe that most of the times technology is helpful in carrying on everyday life, but at times technology isn’t really needed. Technology is used a lot to communicate, but some families don’t even spend time together and later just fall apart. To me medical technology is a very important factor to account for in this situation. Because it can either kill someone or save them. Education has also been brought up into this argument for helping students and affecting students. Family separation, medical advances, and education play a major rule in my decision toward this topic. Technology is a helpful tool for many people while to others it is just a distraction. Technology will never stop being developed but some of the thing being created and how they are used are really not the nessessary

    Read More

  • Overdependence on Technology

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Life without Technology

Open Document