Marjorie Prime is a hauntingly beautiful depiction of the grief that comes along with losing a loved one. This movie felt super real; between the characters stumbling over their words and their subtle facial expressions, it felt as if I were watching real people. The story follows a Marjorie, and older woman with Alzheimer’s disease who talks to a hologram of her late husband to learn about her life. Later on, after Marjorie dies, her daughter, Tess, gets a hologram of Marjorie in order to relieve memories with her. Tess ends up committing suicide after being unable to deal with the death of her mother, and her husband, Jon, purchases a hologram of her. The movie ends with Marjorie Prime, Walter Prime, and Tess Prime reminiscing about memories together.
In every instance of a Prime being created, memories become a little mixed up. This is because memories change with time and vary from person to person because of their emotions and experiences associated with the memory. An example of this can be seen with the opening scene compared to the ending scene. In the opening scene, Marjorie asks Walter Prime to invent a beautiful rendition of their proposal so she could remember it that way. Since Marjorie has Alzheimer’s, she truly believes in this story. Walter Prime is a program taking orders from the people who own him, so because of Marjorie’s intervening, he also remembers the proposal that way. In the last scene, Walter Prime recounts this made-up proposal to Marjorie Prime – as that is how they both remember the memory now. The final scene also includes Damien, who was erased from earlier stories, as they have finally accepted the terrible truth of his suicide. The storytelling with these memories shifting and growing makes the viewing experience chilling. Though the thought of memories changing in my head overtime makes me uneasy – to say the least – it’s a natural process that doesn’t undermine the existence of those memories, but, in a way, enhances them by making them new again.
“The Measure of a Man”, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and, once again, I am absolutely enamored by this show. Every character has so much detail and the plot is always so interesting. This time, Data, a highly advanced and sentient android, is debated being taken apart by a scientist to learn about his inner workings. When Bruce Maddox, the scientist, confronts Data about why he doesn’t want to be taken apart, Data responds that he believes that the emotion connected to his memories might not survive the transplant. He admits that these memories could be transplanted successfully, but that the experience of these memories would not survive. This reminded me of the memories in Inside Out. Riley’s memories are all stored with emotions that accompany them, signifying that the experiences aren’t complete without these emotions. Even if Data’s experiences can be stored, there is no way to know if they will be as whole as they were when they were formed.
3 thoughts on “Module 6 – “How nice that we could love somebody””
Hi Maddy,
I love the way that you track the proposal memory throughout this story and the way that it is revised and rewritten. It think it is also worth noting how different the version of the proposal that the characters remember, and the version we see in a flashback. The flashback suggests that Marjorie and Walter had not gone to the movie theater at all. They’d been having sex with My Best Friend’s Wedding playing in the background before Walter proposed. Great point, too, about how different people remember the same event differently. This is, in part, because we all perceive and attend to different things.
Great connections between Star Trek and Inside Out. As Inside Out suggests, our emotions about memory might change—and they can certainly be different from what we were feeling during the moment or even that we are remembering, but emotions are an integral part of how we remember, think about our memories, and make sense of them.
So glad to read that you enjoyed both of the texts from this week. They are two of my favorites as well.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Madeline,
Great post! I definitely agree with your point on how memories can be mixed up when told from person to person. The film did a great job demonstrating this by having different characters tell a story to each Prime, and the story being remembered by the Prime in a different setting and with different emotions. It’s also shown when Marjorie remembered Walter proposing while they were watching My Best Friend’s Wedding, and decided to change it to Casablanca. The memory of it wasn’t as glamorous, and so changing it to Casablanca would make the memory of it more beautiful and alluring.
Alessa Bustillo
Hi Maddy,
What did you think about the holograms sitting down and reminiscing together? I found it a little creepy (lol) even though I know they’re controlled by a live person. It still felt slightly unsettling. I love the way you view memories changing as enhancing the memory. I like that perspective. I always thought of memories changing in a negative way, probably because I have an aversion to change. In addition, I usually associate memories changing with forgetfulness. I guess my perspective could change if I word it differently and say that we don’t forget; we just remember differently.
toyoung