Wandering Soul

Planet of the Apes is about a futuristic planet which is earth-like in all aspects except the fact that humans are enslaved by apes. The film uses the depiction of ape society to attack notions of human superiority. It’s based on a novel by the same name written by Pierre Boulle (author of The Bridge on the River Kwai). It stars one of my all time favourite actors Charlton Heston as Taylor and is directed by Franklin J. Schaffner.

The movie starts with Taylor and company in hibernation (they are astronauts) and their spaceship travelling through space and time. It develops some problems and crash lands in a lake on an unknown planet in 3978 A.D. One of the astronauts dies, and the others escape to the shore. The land is a desert, and the astronauts come to a human-inhabited oasis while wandering through the desert.Here’s where they find that apes have taken over the planet and hunt humans for sport. One of the astronauts is killed by the apes and Taylor is shot in the throat, an injury that prevents him from talking. They are all captured and taken back to the city of the apes, where it emerges that the apes can talk and are divided into 3 categories - police/military, administrative/politicians and intellectuals/workers. Humans cannot talk.

What follows is Taylor’s attempt to escape from captivity, helped by two scientist apes who realise that he can actually talk, and the political leader Dr. Zaius, who wants to put him on trial. But finally Zaius decides that it’s best for everyone if Taylor just disappeared, and so lends him a horse to escape.

The scene towards the end of this movie, is probably one of the most acclaimed scenes in cinema history. I won’t tell you what it is, but the scene turns the viewer’s whole concept of the film completely on its head (it is only retrospectively that the many clues throughout the film as to how it shall end, become apparent). Suddenly Dr Zaius’ motives for keeping the population ignorant of his knowledge and findings turn out to be benign and not malignant. Taylor is shown overwhelmed, his human arrogance and self-assurance shattered. I am getting goose bumps just thinking about the scene.

Get a DVD and watch this movie, and you’ll figure out why I am in love with the scene, the movie and science fiction movies in general. They compel me to think…!!
Beware: There was a sad remake of the movie in 2001. I hated it.

The Matrix needs no introduction, really. I wouldn’t be exaggerating when I say that each one of us has seen the movie. The movie has been directed by the Wachowski brothers and stars Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving. The visual effects of the movie are mind-blowing. It was the pioneer for the bullet time effect, which is also seen in games like Max Payne.

The film describes a world in which the Matrix is an artificial reality created by sentient machines in order to pacify, subdue and make use of the human population as an energy source by growing them and connecting them to the Matrix with cybernetic implants.

Keanu Reeves portrays the protagonist Neo, who is living in the Matrix trying to find the secret of the Matrix, and Morpheus, who is in the real world, and shows Neo the way. The movie has very close connect to Hindu concept of Maya. Morpheus extracts Neo from the Matrix, and together they decide to invade the Matrix and fight the machines through their own program. The world is just an illusion of reality created in the mind by the sentient machines. The most important concept here is that since the Matrix is a computer program, it has to run according to set rules. And rules can be bent. This is what Morpheus tries to explain to Neo when he shows him the reality. “You think that’s air you’re breathing right now?” is a famous quote by Morpheus.

The Matrix is the first part of a trilogy. The second and third parts are named The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions.

This movie is based on the The Time Machine, the 1895 novel by H.G. Wells. It is about Man’s fascination with the fourth dimension - Time.The movie has been directed by George Pal, and stars Rod Taylor as the protagonist George.

George is a scientist who builds a time machine, but his friends refuse to believe him. Finally, on New Year’s eve of 1900, he decides to leave behind the present and wander into the future.

As George passes through time, he witnesses two great wars, and finally a nuclear war, which wipes away most of human civilization. His machine gets trapped under lava, only to re-emerge in the year 802701. The depiction of passing years and centuries through time-lapse photography is beautiful to watch and won the movie an academy award.
In the distant future, mankind has evolved into two species, the beastly Morlock and the mild Eloi. George is caught in their world, and realizes that his intervention is the only way the Eloi can have a future and a civilization.

It’s a must-watch movie. The movie was remade in 2002, but failed to register well with the audience. The remake has a slightly different plot. I would suggest you watch the original, even though it’s a bit difficult to find.

It would be an excuse if I said that I was tied down with work, although it’s true. But an excuse is an excuse. So today I decided to post, come what may.

I have decided to dedicate my next few posts to the genre of sci-fi movies. My dear friend, Kartik Karanth, is going to love this (I am expecting a few comments from him). I remember the day when he went on a prize winning spree in the open-house sci-fi movie quiz in IIT Mumbai Techfest in 2002. The poor quiz masters were left with no choice but to ban him from answering any more questions… hehehe.

For many people science fiction is synonymous with futuristic technology and aliens trying to anihilate human civilization. While the former is true, the latter is not always so. There are many movies that have friendly aliens, the best example being the 1982 movie E.T.
Though the genre is called science fiction, it’s not entirely fiction. Most of the movies have a firm rooting in theoretical science, something that’s fundamentally possible, but is not achievable with today’s technology. And for those of you who believe that Sci-fi is a new genre in movies, here’s a shocker: One of the first sci-fi movies, A Trip to the Moon, was produced in 1902 (Pic above).

So keep coming back to find out what sci-fi movies I’ve liked best.