Middle Age: the absence of Technological Development

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira , Monday, December 10, 2012

The Dark Ages
            Just like Japan hadn’t the opportunity to develop in the Feudal period, the Middle Age in Europe brought a climate of terror and darkness to people minds, due to the formation of certain dogmas.
            The dogmas of society, religion or any institution don’t allow the increase of our ideals, of our economy, of our society in general. The feudalism is against the evolution of the human communities.
            In the Middle Age, between the 5th and the 15th centuries, people feared the apparitions and, so, feared the evolution. The Technology in this period was essentially related to Mechanics, and not really scientifically elaborated assumptions. The period next to the Middle Age were so productive that we call it the Renaissance, allowing us to understand that, if the dogmas in Middle Age hadn’t proliferated, society would be more technologically developed.

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The Technological Development of Japan

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira , Sunday, December 9, 2012

Greater Tokyo Area
            Between the years of 1868 and 1945, the Oriental Empire known as Japan experienced a large economical and cultural transformation, refraining from the feudal ideals which ruled along centuries.
            Today, Japan is a country with a large social development, perhaps the most developed nation in terms of technology. This considerable development enabled Japan to exercise its influence around the rest of the world. Nowadays, the anime and the manga became popular between children and even adults, even more than American and European cartoons. Also, the videogames produced in Japan gain fans in the whole world. Most of the fiction created in Japan reflects its technological development, which influences the ideas of a creative artist like Akira Toriyama.

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Jekyll and Hyde: The Complex of Personality

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira , Thursday, October 25, 2012

Poster of the 1931 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
            Beyond being a typical fantastic story about the duality of man and beast, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide is a quite written science fiction novella by Robert Louis Stevenson. The work is considered a pioneer in the theme regarding the complexes of an alter-ego.
            In terms of symbolism, this work reflects well the distinction between the dark and bright sides of the Victorian Age, in which Jekyll represents simply the good and Hyde the evil. However, the symbols of this work are not so simple and the message passed is much more complex.

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Social Duality and Scientific Reflection

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira ,

The Victorian Age co-existed in the first thirteen years with the Industrial Revolution, so it is set in a time of great scientific and technological development. These increases of scientific mentality lead to the emergence of science fiction, with influent writers like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Thereby, like some of the progresses in science are though considered hellish, just observing the machinery in factories, Edward Hyde is also considered and experiment of the devil, a product born simply from the dark side of the Victorian era.
Just like Fredric March portraying Hyde exclaimed in the 1931 film, «Free at last! », rambling in his own home and observing himself in the mirror. This authentically mirrors the consistent need of relieving of the libertine sense regarding scientific and technological improvements.

Transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde in the 1931 film version of the book

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The Absurd of the Rational of Life

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira , Thursday, October 18, 2012

            All the world is a ridiculous band of sarcastic people when encountered with a reflection regarding the course of life. The only metaphoric interpretation of life is simply the following: one’s rationality increases to a certain point and decreases from that point.
            The first stage: the origins. Our personality in youth and adulthood is influenced by the traumas of our childhood. From shouting to writing, in our early days we learn the simple action of how to be a person.
            The second stage: the rebellion. Youth is the time when we start to learn how to be an adult man or woman, and also to underrate what we did in childhood. Because of this revolt against the values learnt before, youth is the period which controversial attitudes allow to conclude that growing up is difficult (ask Gary Busey).
            The third stage: the awareness. In adulthood, we reach the summit of our consciousness, and we also start to prepare to the rationality plummet. But the best of everything is that adulthood is a time of great achievements, bearing in the mind the person we became after the rebellion.
            The fourth stage: the demise. Although it may appear the more depressing age in my consideration, it is certainly the time of the reach of our utmost knowledge. Despite this fact, the senescence is the age which is underrated by the others, and greatly melancholic because of the fact that we start to think that we are going to run along of the world, like we run along of our home.

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The Renaissance and the Reenactment

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira , Thursday, October 4, 2012

            While realizing a film review, a person has certain criterions, like the plot and the entertainment it provides. However, this historical film, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, reveals its excellence not because of the story but because of the presentation.
            Elizabeth: The Golden Age is certainly one of the most interest historical reenactment movies. The image and the soundtrack give to the stance of each character a large realism, enabling the viewer to recognize each one personality, as it may be observed with Sir Walter Raleigh, a man who deals with the co-existence of his characteristics of being philanderer and noble.

Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh

            Behind a plot of personal intrigues and declared war between the two great empires of Great Britain and Spain, it cannot be forgotten that this film takes place in a period of technological, social and cultural novelty, in the ends of the Renaissance. Thus, the technological and cultural innovations have a large influence in the society of that time. As it may be observed, the introduction of tobacco and the potato in Great Britain brought consequent social changes in the posture and knowledge of people. Another point important to refer related to these advances is the distinction between the people inserted in the closed old world and the people who gain knowledge while visiting the New World. This distinction is observed in the relation between Queen Elizabeth and Walter Raleigh: while the Virgin Queen leads with the love feelings of the irresistible aristocrat, while the experienced and travelled explorer uses that to get the confidence of the Queen.
            Above all, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a film whose purpose is mainly impress the viewers by the image and reenactment of historical facts, and not the plot of inter-relational jobbery and exacerbated emotionalism.



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Review to one of the most relevant movies of my life

Posted by Miguel Castro Oliveira , Wednesday, October 3, 2012

            Being inserted in the style of filming of the decade of 1980’s and in the comedic science fiction genre, Back to the Future is not only one of the most relevant movies which characterize that decade but also one of my favorite movies. Written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and produced by Stephen Spielberg, beyond the excellent techniques of filming, Back to the Future plot has a large consistence, having influence in today’s idea of time travelling and in the ideas of plots of other movies and television series’ chapters.
            Back to the Future revolves around Marty McFly (portrayed by Michael J. Fox), a seventh-year-old teenager who lives alongside his parents in the fictional town of Hill Valley, California. One day, Marty goes to the meet with his friend, Dr. Emmett Brown (portrayed by Christopher Lloyd) who Marty treats as “Doc”, and is obliged to enter in the time machine DeLorean “Doc” built, after the scientist have been shoot by Libyan terrorists who sought for plutonium.
Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly
and Christopher Lloyd as
Emmett “Doc” Brown
            In the year of 1955, Marty meets his mother and father as teenagers, and tries to provoke his father, George McFly (portrayed by Crispin Glover), to be courageous and to face Biff Tannen (portrayed by Thomas F. Wilson), a thug and a pretender to his mother, Lorraine (portrayed by Lea Thompson), and so to provoke the affair between their parents, after unwittingly having separate them and having induced her mother to have love feelings by himself. In the movie’s final, Marty succeeds in inducing their parents to an affair, and so to avoid his own disappearance and his siblings’, and goes to the meet of a relatively youth Emmett Brown to warn him about the future and go back to his time, the year 1985.

DeLorean time machine at
Back to the Future ride, now removed.
            The movie explores an interesting view about time travelling, in which the future may be changed if one changes the timeline in a past time, as it may be observed in the epilogue, in which the McFly family becomes well succeeded due to the gain of courage by George McFly in the year of 1955, allowing him to become a brilliant science fiction writer and to have Biff as his employee. The character Emmett Brown, the secondary protagonist of the movies series, represents the stereotype of an off-minded but knowledgeable and intelligent scientist, having invented the first time machine in the shape of a DeLorean DMC-12 car, which needs plutonium in a nuclear reactor, as well as reach 88 miles per hour, to time travel. Beyond this aspect, the movie also establishes the contrast between the technology of the decade of 1950’s, in which the cars are represented still with an antiquated aspect and televisors still have a monochrome screen, and the technology of the 1980’s, in which cars are more modern and television sets have polychrome screens.
            Back to the Future is not only an enjoyable movie to be watched, but also a story to be subjected to reflection, despite being a commercial film, either because of the science fiction theme inherent to it or the differences between society in two different times.

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