2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey

The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey a science fiction movie directed by Stanley Kubrick came out in 1968. The movie depicts the evolution of the human race and tries to predict what the future might be like. The movie was based on the book called The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke and it appeared in theatres during the space race between U.S.A. and the USSR (Dirks). This movie received four Academy Awards nominations for Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Original Story, and Screenplay and also won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. In my opinion I thought the film deserved all of the awards because even though this movie hardly had any dialogue, it depicted how things evolved because of technology.

            This movie is broken up into four parts; each depicts a different piece of the evolution process. The parts are called The Dawn of Man, Untitled, Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later, and Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite. The three main characters in which this movie focuses on: Dr. David Bowman (Keir Duella), Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), and Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester). The Dawn of Man is where a pack of apes figure out the first technology in the form of tools. They use animal bones as weapons and fight off the other pack of apes from the water. This shows the development of creative thinking. Also in the Dawn of Man, the first monolithic slab is introduced.

            The Untitled part is when Dr. Floyd travels to the moon to talk to the people on Clavius, which is a crater on the moon where the second monolithic slab is seen. When the sun signed on the slab, there is a piercing sound that was traced to the third slab on Lapetus, a moon of Saturn. The next part of the movie is set 18 months later on a spaceship, which contains five astronauts and the computer HAL. HAL ends up killing all of the astronauts except Dr. Bowman. Bowman eventually shuts down HAL when important information was coming in about the real reason of the mission. The fourth and final part, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, Bowman completes his journey to Jupiter. We are shown what time has done to Bowman as we see him in bed almost lifeless and then we see him being reborn as the space baby.

            Yes, even though only 40 minutes of this movie was dialogue, the visual effects were very high tech for that time period. “Nobody having seen 2001 has ever quite been able to forget it. Even now, some four decades on, when the optimistic buzz of the space race has drifted away and we're awash in films whose special effects dwarf the imaginations of an earlier Hollywood, and our media-saturated selves have been assaulted by more homages and parodies than one can even begin to count, there is still nothing quite like the film's opening, with the sun and crescent moon perfectly aligned and the soundtrack blasting Wagner's Also Sprach Zarathustra” (Barsanti). This is a very true statement; yes one has to think about the point of the movie, but the way Kubrick incorporates things into the movie is just amazing. Not only did he use the apes in the beginning, he used video calling, a livable space shuttle, HAL the computer, and monolithic slabs that are there to watch the rise of the human race. Not to mention the music that was played throughout the movie was very classical and many people know that music because of this movie.

            All in all, this movie was great because even though there was not a lot of dialogue, the visual aspects will bring one into the movie. This movie predicts the future and how the human race evolves based on their use of technology. I think that because people were so dependent on the technology, they portrayed HAL as bad technology to get people to realize that we should not be dependent on technology. Also, the way Kubrick showed the evolution from the apes to humans was very intelligent. How he showed the apes with the tools and then jumped to the space station was a very clever way to show how fast things evolve, especially technology. Even though I am not a science fiction person, this movie made me appreciate the past more because that is when things were discovered and it made me thankful for the present and excited for the future. 

Portfolio's

Have you ever had to make a portfolio? If you have, you know that all a portfolio contains is pieces of work someone has done with and a written reflection. I had to do a portfolio in high school with all of my papers in English class all through out my four years. We had to write a quick reflection on the paper and then when we were writing our next papers our teacher made us look back on the papers in order to learn from mistakes. 

When starting a portfolio just make sure you have items in there that are relevant to the topic or goal in which you want to achieve. Also, make sure you evaluate each piece in your portfolio and not just put the work into the folder. 

Chapter 27 Norton Field Guide

Evaluations

Have you ever read a movie or book review? Was there too much of the plot in the review that you did not need to see the movie or read the book? That is why when writing a review, one has to have a very concise description of the subject. I was on the newspaper staff in high school and I had to write my share of movie reviews. The reviews that ran in the paper had a very brief summary of the plot and a majority of the review was how I liked it and what could be improved.

When writing evaluations one should write for the age group the movie is trying to target. If the target age group is teens, use language and act like you are talking to a teen. Also, more people will read a review is written by someone in the target age group. For example: I wrote a review on the movie "17 Again," and more people read it because it is a teen movie and the review was written by a teen. 

Michael Jackson

We decided to change our project from a short video to a website dedicated to Michael Jackson's Moonwalk. Darryl made a video demonstrating how to do the moonwalk. We have information about Michael Jackson's life, History of the Moonwalk, what else was going on the year the moonwalk was first done. So we just have more information about Michael Jackson in general. 

The website was a lot easier to do that the video. Everyone has contributed to the website and it has gone smoothly. 

Group Report #2

We have decided to a "how to" dance to Michael Jackson's song "Billie Jean." Another group member Darryl is going to teach everyone how to do the dance moves. We are also going to try to get side to side video of Darryl doing the dance and Michael Jackson's original music video.

Darryl is going to teach the video, but at the end everyone in the group is going to come on and say something together remembering Michael Jackson. Our video is coming along and I believe it's going to be fun to film and watch, when we are finished!

Group Project

My group consists of Tessa, Darryl, and Natalie. We had to pick from creating a website or a video. We had to have a "how to" or persuading people to believe something. We are going to do a 60 second video on the music and dancing of Michael Jackson.

Darryl is a telecommunications major and knows how to edit videos and can get us a video camera to use. That is great because I am not the best with editing videos, so there is always time to learn something new!

Let's see what we get done this week and another update will be coming soon.

Guiding Your Reader

Chapter 29

Have you ever read something that had no point at all, someone was just rambling on? That is why when writing titles, thesis statements, topic sentences, and transitions are used to create a point to writings.

Titles: If the title is interesting or controversial people will pick it up to read.

Thesis Statements: Helps identify what the writing is about, when there is a question to be answered many people will read just to find out the answer.

Topic Sentences: These are very similar to thesis statements except these announce your topic and position for each paragraph. If the topic sentences are interesting and have something to get the reader to keep reading, then you will have no problem gaining interest.

Transitions: These are key to form flow within a paper. If there are no transitions and the paragraphs move from one thing to another, then most people will put the writing down because it is choppy. 

Comparing and Contrasting

Everyone compares things, like movies, food, athletic teams, and many other everyday objects. People compare and contrast things to persuade people into liking what they like or to figure out what the best deal for your money is. 

There are two main ways to compare and contrast things, one is to just list information about each thing and then compare. That is the block method. I like to use this method because you have all the information in front of you instead of having certain points. The other way to compare and contrast things are to just pick certain things and compare those instead of comparing the item in general. This is called the point-by-point method and it works when you are trying to sell something to someone else. 

What do you use to compare and contrast?

The right way to read

When reading something, I like to skim over the reading. I like to see how long it is and if anything stands out at me when I first look it over. I then read the article or paper. I usually take a pen or highlighter to the important parts because that is what I was taught to do when reading, identify the most important parts. Another thing to do is to read the first paragraph and pick out the thesis of the article; you will know what the story is about. 

If you read something and do not understand it, you can always go back and reread the article or you can just go over what you did when you were reading the article. The thesis and annotations will help you understand.

Analyzing Texts

You have an assignment in a class to analyze a poem or a paper. Most people will pick the paper because poetry is very hard to understand. There are many ways to interpret texts. 

First you have to decide what you want to analyze, then study how the text works. You need to identify patterns and analyze the argument. Another thing to do is to think about the larger context. For example don't think about the text as one little thing, the text could be related to other important things. This makes my life easier when I analyze texts, come up with a thesis. Once you have a main idea it is smooth sailing from there. Once the main idea is out, nothing will stop you from figuring out what you are reading.

The Importance of Proof Reading

If you have ever had to write a paper for class, you know the importance of reading your work before you turn it in. Word has this wonderful thing called Spell Check that helps us out when we don't know how to spell something, but if we use the wrong word it will only hurt us. For example: I went over their. Spell Check will not catch that it is the wrong there. 

When proof reading your work, make sure you read everything and not just skim the paper. You wouldn't want to miss something and make yourself look dumb because you used a wrong word or a sentence did not make sense. 

To Assess or Not to Assess

When writing do you just write or do you write a little then read it and correct every little thing that is wrong? Do you worry about being correct when you write or do you just write?

I believe that when you write you just have to get everything out and then just go back and correct mistakes. Better yet, why don't you just write and then have someone read and correct your work for you? I think you just have to use these questions when writing. From the Norton Field Guide, What works? What still needs work? Where do you need to say more (or less)?  If you use these questions writing should not be a problem. You also have to know who your audience is because if it is your friends you can use simple things to explain because they know who you are. When writing to other students or teachers you have to explain everything in full detail so they understand what you are saying. 

Aspects of a Narrative

The Norton Field Guide to Writing has many ways to enhance the way you write a narrative. You can use reverse chronological order, flashbacks, time markers, transitions, and pertinent detail. They also said that a narrative can be a good way of summing up a paper. 

I think that when writing a paper or narrative that we just have to write and when we are done putting our words on paper we go back and correct what we had just written. I also think that even though there are many ways to write a paper, our point gets across either way. It shouldn't matter how we write or what the paper is about, we are getting our word out there. 

What to write about?

Who has ever had to write a paper and didn't have a clue what to write about? Have you ever tried to just start writing a paper and it took you forever to get to a starting point? I have had these problems. I try to just think of things that relate to me and just base my paper off what I know. There are a bunch of ways to start a paper. 

There is freewriting, cubing, questioning, outlining, letter writing, and discovery drafting. For me, freewritting and outlining are the best things for me to generate ideas for papers. I just start to write and then whatever I write about is what my paper will be about.

Rhetorical Situations

They say that all writing has a purpose and we write because we need to put our thoughts down on paper. They also say, that narratives are written, read and told for many different reasons. I totally agree with this reading because most people write about their life and try to tell their story through these narratives. Each person has a story because something happened to them and they don't want it to happen to you. In my opinion that is the reason people write. 

They say whenever we write, whether it's email to a friend or a toast for a wedding, and an English essay, we face some kind of rhetorical situation. We have a purpose, a certain audience, a particular stance,  genre, and a medium to consider. 

I say that I totally agree with this statement. I believe that when we write anything we have to have a purpose. If I am bored, I will txt my friends. The purpose is that I am bored and I wanted to talk to my friends. When talking to people you have to talk with respect. For example: I will not talk to my grandmother the same way I talk to my friends. Also, when you write you have to take everything else into consideration. You want to get your voice out without over doing your stance. 

People write for a purpose, to get their voice heard.

My First Entry

Hey, here is my first blog entry for English class.