Author: Rebecca Kennedy

For this blog analysis we watched Marjorie Prime and “Measure of a Man” from Star Trek: The Next Generation. While both of these deal with memories they both deal with them in different ways, making them unique compared to one another.

In the movie Marjorie Prime we initially follow Marjorie who’s deteriorating health and mind has caused her daughter and Son-in-law to give her a “Prime” who Marjorie makes into a younger version of her late husband. This “Prime” is an AI who Marjorie has to speak to and teach in order for it to become more like her husband. She tells him stories of their past so that he can become more like her husband and gain these same memories. Later when she passes her daughter obtains a Prime version of Marjorie and does the same thing. Until finally the son-in-law obtains a prime and creates a version of her. Throughout the movie the cycle of creating a prime continues throughout, with the characters creating the prime version of their loved ones and using their versions of the memories to teach them. I say their versions of their memories because even though they may have experienced the same things people always remember events and small details differently. The version of events that these characters are teaching these primes are the versions from their point of view. So they can leave certain details out and accidentally add things in and since these primes have no mental connection to the person that they are supposed to be they will never be able to tell the difference. 

In the episode “Measure of a Man” from Star Trek: The Next Generation; Maddox wants to examine Data and take him apart to do so. He expresses to Data that the memories that he currently has will still be there; however, Data believes that while the memories will still be there, the feeling from those memories will not be. And so Data rejects this idea before being told by Maddox that he is just the property of Starfleet and will be transferred so that Maddox can examine him. And so believing Data to be a person of his own rather than just the property of Starfleet they have a hearing about what it means to be human and whether or not Data qualifies as more than just an “It”.

This week we watched the movie, Inside Out, and the episode “Man of the Future” from Star Trek: The Next Generation. These two both had a focus on emotions and their effects on you, although they both had pretty different takes on that concept.

In the movie, Inside Out, in the beginning of the film we are introduced to the main character Riley and we immediately are introduced to the film’s main concept which is that the emotions that people feel throughout their lives are physical beings within one’s mind. In many scenes we are able to see how quickly emotions can change such as when a younger Riley is sitting down in her highchair with her father attempting to feed her. We see Disgust take over when they see that the food is broccoli, we see Anger take over when her father says that if she doesn’t eat then she wont get dessert, and finally when her father begins to make the food “fly” towards Riley like an airplane we see Joy take over. We also see how the emotions that Riley has can make up her core memories such as her love for hockey and her family etc. We can see how Riley needs all of her emotions to function properly, when Joy and Sadness are trying to get back to headquarters and it is just Disgust, Fear and Anger they are unable to help Riley function which leads to her running away. In the end when Joy and Sadness finally work together, Joy is able to understand Sadness better and they both are able to get back to  headquarters. After a time skip we are able to see that Riley is even better then she was before and she is able to properly express all of her emotions. 

Next in the episode “Man of the Future” from Star Trek: The Next Generation, we see how negative emotions can affect people. In this episode we learn that ambassador Alkar is projecting his emotions onto Deanna Troi causing her to become aggressive and age rapidly, while he becomes level-headed and calm. In the end when Alkar is unable to project his emotions onto someone else and he begins to feel all of his emotions, he quickly ages and dies. 

This week we watched the movie Arrival and the episode “Darmok” From Star Trek: The Next Generation. From watching these two we can see the communication between people/species when you do not speak the same language. It is very easy to connect these two due to the fact that part of the main premise of them is the main characters trying to learn/understand the language of the other species that they are interacting with.

In the movie Arrival the main character, Louise, is trying to understand the language of the heptapods who have appeared around earth to understand why they are there. By seeing the heptapods and trying to learn their language from the writing they show her. She attempts to understand just based on viewing and her interpretation. It’s not until she develops a sort of telepathic connection to them, essentially rewiring her brain, she finally is not only able to understand them when they help her understand time but in turn it helps her learn their language. 

In the episode “Darmok” From Star Trek, we see the Enterprise trying to communicate with the Tamarians. Both the Tamarians and the Enterprise to not understand what the other is saying and so that all attempt to communicate until the Captain of the Tamarians transports himself and Captain Picard to the surface of El-Adrel, Picard and The captain of the Tamarians have to be patient in order to communicate and understand one another better and face the unknown enemy. The two ended up bonding and even though in the end the Tamarian captain was killed Picard understood the Tamarians language and was able to communicate with the Tamarian crew and let them know what happened and avoid conflict.

This week we watched the movie Possessor and the episode “I Second that Emotion” from Futurama. From watching these two we are able to see how they deal with the topic of empathy in their own ways 

In the episode “I Second that Emotion” from Futurama,  we were able to see directly how empathy was addressed. When Bender shows a lack of emotion towards his action of flushing Gibbler down the toilet Leela is upset and wants Bender to understand how she feels. Because of this they choose to implant a chip into Bender’s head to make him feel Leelas emotions. When Leela would feel angry Bender would feel angry; when Leela felt scared Bender would feel scared etc. It helped him to dial into her emotions so that he would develop an empathy for her. And while in the end it seems as though he didn’t fully develop an understanding even after the experience Leela mentions that she understands him better so in the end it worked out for both of them.

The movie Possessor was very different and not as direct in its approach on the topic. The feel starts off with a woman (very graphically) injecting something into her head. And soon after she is out and about and kills a man before getting killed by the police. We quickly learn that this was the main character of this movie; Tasya Vos, whose job is to learn about a person so that she is able to mimic that person when she takes control of their body. Vos seems to be unable to feel emotion very well based on how she holds herself after she comes back from that first mission as well as how she interacts with her family. When she is going home she has to say the same sentences over and over again to be able to say them in a certain way so that her son doesn’t notice something off. When her mind is in Colins body we can see his mind fight for dominance but in the end after feeling disconnected from reality, her family was dead and she seemed to feel nothing over it.

The first episode that I watched this week was “Out of the Past”

Altered Carbon. In this episode we meet the main character Takeshi Kovacs, In the beginning we see Kovacs in the past and then we are brought to the show’s present where Kovacs is essentially being resurrected with a new body; referred to as a sleeve. We soon learn that this was done with a small disk device called a ““Cortical Stack” that is implanted in people’s heads when they are one, inside the stack is the human mind.” (11:42-12:15) Because of this stack we learn that as long as it is not destroyed when one dies their consciousness can be downloaded into any sleeve. Because of these stacks one’s consciousness is something that can be moved and transferred many times.

The next episode that I watched was “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid.”                              Futurama. In this episode the characters had a fight against the human brain itself. The brains have begun to work without a human body and so the characters must use their own minds in order to defeat them. When the brains begin to attack and the characters in the show begin to lose intelligence, except for Fry who is unaffected by the brains and has to use his own to defeat the mother brain.  

The final episode that I watched was “Return to Tomorrow.” Star Trek: The Original Series. In this episode the characters are contacted by a consciousness named Sargon, who says that the energy of his thoughts took control of their devices and brought them to him, (1:22-1:28). Although Sargon was able to do things such as this without being constricted by a body, when he entered Kirk’s body he notes the different sensations that he experiences returning into the human form. He can feel the air in his lungs and his heart pumping, and after having been just a consciousness for 1000 years he misses those things.

       Hi! My name is Rebecca Kennedy; people usually call me Rebecca, Becky, or Becca so any of them are fine, and my pronouns are She/Her). I am a Senior studying English here at Stony brook and I Transferred from Farmingdale about three? Semesters ago. I like to read; though specifically books that have supernatural elements. I love listening to music. Some of my current favorite songs are “Glimpse of us” by Joji, “One More Hour” by Tame Impala, “Sober” by Tool, and “Hey” by Pixies. Currently like most other people I am also obsessively watching Stranger Things. 

I recently got a puppy, Maxine (totallynotnamedafterMaxfromStrangerThings) and so besides work and school she has been taking up a lot of my sister and my time. 

I decided to take this class because it fulfills one of the requirements but also because I am a huge fan of media related classes when we get to look into films, shows etc. So it seemed like a good choice.