Digital Media Final Project

My group created two facebooks to tell the story of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. One facebook page was made for Victor Frankenstein while the other was made for his creature.

Victor Frankenstein:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000767984500

Creature:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000781184226

Light of They Countenance

I thought the graphic novel, Light of They Countenance was very entertaining yet disturbing as well. Disturbing because it is extremely true, for someone to compare a television to God and for it to make sense. The comparison’s between TV and God, as it is watching over us essentially, though we think we are watching it. It is informative, gives us hope, and comforts us in our times of need, all things God in religion is used for. We as a society have accepted television in our everyday lives, if someone has an hour to kill they watch TV, families watch TV as they eat dinner, instead of conversing. It is sad, but there is nothing we can do about it, it is so customary and part of our culture, there is no going back.

I think that this graphic novel is literature, even though it has pictures and is considered a comic. I think the pictures play a huge role in the points the words are trying to prove, it gives the reader imagery, and unlike from visions in peoples heads when they read, these pictures are clear and tell a story all in themselves. What is literature exactly? What separates a novel from a graphic novel? When I read a novel, it is essentially telling a story, there are characters, conflicts, and resolutions, all told by words. Comics are very similar; the only difference is that there are fewer words, and more pictures. Not necessarily a bad thing however, I feel like it has all the key elements of a novel, which is considered literature, therefore Light of They Countenance is a literary work.

This work is very similar to what we have been going over all quarter in class. The issue, or lack there of, of technology and how it has shaped and formed our society in recent years. This graphic novel is eye opening; it explains our dependence on television and how many people’s lives are grown to be reliant on it. Although it may not be the downfall of our civilization, like the robots of R.U.R. and Frankenstein’s monster, it is still a technology, our creation that is in our lives and changing how we live.

Blade Runner

I thought Blade Runner was a great film and tied in very well to the texts Frankenstein and R.U.R. In Blade Runner, much like R.U.R., robots are created to do jobs that humans would not have wanted to do. So these replicas become slaves of humans, and with their human like qualities, revolt against humans. The main character, Decker, is a blade runner, which means he hunts down and kills replicas that have revolted and killed humans. This ties into my essay topic much like it does with R.U.R. and Frankenstein, if the humans had treated the replicas with more respect instead of treating them like slaves, they wouldn’t have needed to revolt and conform to killing their creators.

There were many other similarities I saw that tie these three works together. For example, the relationship Batty and Pris had reminded me a lot of the relationship between Primus and Helena at the end of R.U.R. Two robots so much in love with each other, they seem very human in their interactions. In R.U.R. the very threat of having one of the lovers killed triggered a reaction that humans didn’t expect, both lovers would rather they die instead of their mate. And in Blade Runner, when Pris dies, you can see the emotions fill up in Batty, and it really makes him seem human.

I think Batty spares Decker at the end of the film because he thought that Decker was a replica, just like him and Pris. Decker put up a really good fight against Batty, a replica whom is known for having strength superior to humans. Also at end of their fight scene, Decker manages to pull himself up and exert a lot of strength despite how damaged and hurt he is from fighting Batty. I think when Batty sees this he realizes that a human being wouldn’t be able to do that, so he talks to Decker about living in fear, being a slave, and how his lifespan would too be only 4 years. I think Batty’s observation could be true in this movie; Decker could have been a replica for all we know. A replica designed to hunt and find other replicas, not a bad idea considering Decker didn’t know he was a replica, much like Rachel. If Decker were a replica, the love scenes between him and Rachel would make a lot more sense as well.