Alien, Terminator, and Blade Runner: Programming Synthetic Life

Ash, the synthetic extension of Mother, comes to represent the things we worry about with regard to synthetic life - that while being superior in some ways (memory, longevity, strength, etc.) it can lack the human element for compassion and morality. Ash not only helps introduce the entire crew to the Alien creatures, but brutally attempts to kill Ripley (in a scene reminiscent of a rape). Yet, in the next three installments to the franchise, the two androids that are introduced (Bishop and Annalee Call) both turn out to be more human in terms of morality and compassion than most of the human characters. Bishop not only saves Newt but as he lacks fear (though not the desire to exist as he points out) takes on the dangerous assignment of setting up the antenna link to retrieve the transport ship. Annalee Call's mission is to kill the hybrid Ripley-Alien abomination and to bring down the military apparatus that is trying to use the Aliens as a new weapon. An ironic twist in the third installment shows the human that Bishop was modeled after appearing first to offer to help Ripley, but unlike his synthetic creation, but in reality only lying to her to get her to lower her guard so he can use her and capture the Alien Queen that she carries; the Synthetic copy is more trustworthy than the human original.

In the Terminator series, we are first shown a soulless machine played by Arnold, then in each film that follows, Arnold's machine becomes more and more human (he protects John Conner and his mother in the second film and somehow manages to override his bad reprogramming by the T-X in the third to again save humanity's last hope. It is also interesting in this series that all of the Terminators are played by attractive actors (the T-X by a very beautiful and sexy Kristanna Loken - even though these machines are designed to kill humans and snuff out mankind, there is still an attractiveness to their power and beauty).

In Blade Runner, the renegade "skin jobs" show no remorse in killing, yet Rachel (and Decker, though he doesn't really what he really is) comes across as more human than any of the other humans in the film. The programming appears to be more important than whether the shell was constructed organically or synthetically. When Bukatman asks, "Who Programs You?" and outlines his argument that the subject has "no halo of private protection, not even his own body, to protect him anymore" it make one take pause and reflect on how much affect the images that are invading our bodies (like viruses) everyday via the media have on our society and what type of machines will exist in the future. Will they be programmed to make moral and compassionate decisions, or merely be an extension of some corporate controlled mother ship that maximizes profits without regard to the quality of human life? These films seem to posit the belief that whatever existence humans and machines share in the future will be less determined by the composition of the amazing hardware that will continue to evolve, but by the software that is loaded into it.

Schrodinger’s “What is Life”

Schrodinger begins this piece with the question, “How can the events in space and time which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be account for by physics and chemistry?” He goes on to show how the working of an organism requires exact physical laws and how statistical laws begin to operate as the number of atoms involved increases (so that an organism would need a comparatively gross structure in order to benefit from fairly accurate laws).

Much of this article was I admit, a little over my head, but I was fascinated by how he described how organisms feed on negative energy/entropy. His argument, if I understand it, is that entropy (or chaos) is produced by living things (zero entropy is found at -273 degrees Celsius) and that death results when living things reach maximum entropy. Due to this constant generation of entropy by the organism, there is a need to pull negative entropy (or organization) from its environment so that it doesn't continue towards maximum entropy and die. The Greek word metabolism means change or exchange, and so if you look at a living things as beings that pull order from food in the form of complicated organic compounds as they generate positive entropy from their very existence, you can almost envision some primordial ocean where life begins, reaches maximum entropy, then dies…..over and over again, until over millions of year perhaps, one of these organisms manages to pull enough negative entropy from its environment and hold on for a time….and then sometime eons later perhaps, the first life form forms that is able to maintain the delicate balance between chaos and structure, and continue existing for a long period. The picture is very different that a anthropomorphic being creating something already perfect and self-sustaining, yet, given what we know of evolution, it is a thought provoking explanation that somewhere in the distant past, some structure (perhaps crystalline in composition) provided the backbone for the right chemicals to attach and that the substance they produced over countless years could have formed a structure that was able to produce not only chaos, but over time began to pull enough order from its environment to begin a process of metabolization. Once this metabolism took hold, given enough time and substances to pull from in its environment, the possibilities would have been marvelous.

Quatermass and the Pit – Five Million Years to Earth

The movie is really a mind bender on so many levels. It starts off with workers discovering strange skeletons (missing links?) while digging a new subway line, then what is thought to be an old German “missile” turns out to be a spaceship with fossilized Martians that look like giant locusts, and sightings of these creatures in spirit form….then the film really gets weird. The street above ground is named Hobbs End, but not for the philosopher, but for Hob as in devil or goblin due to the strange occurrences that have transpired there since at least the time of the Romans. The film manages to marry science fiction with the supernatural as we learn millions of years ago the Martians experimented on primates to increase their brain abilities, that the ship is still functional and sending out telepathic instructions for the humans that are still genetically "part of their hive" to kill and drive out those that are seen as outsiders.

Yes, the effects are cheesy at times (the Martian cleansing of the hive scene is comical as well as the military men taking orders from Quatermass) but the movie is so intelligent, original and disorienting that you can’t help but love it. It also has the feel of 1967 London that is authentic and nostalgic. Quatermass is actually a character from British TV and you can see how it influenced the later television series Dr. Who. The idea that intelligent life from another world instigated the leap from simian to Man (echoes of the monolith of 2001) is relevant to our course as the new Martian-simian (i.e. Man) is created by the Martian technology and therefore can be seen as a Cyborg. Man is not the center of the universe, but merely bits and pieces left over on a laboratory floor. All of our beliefs of God, man's uniqueness, and our place in the universe are completely turned upside down. We were not created by a divine anthropomorphic god, we are not the natural evolution of life on our planet, we are Cyborgs that, like the android Rock in Star Trek, have for a countless time been missing important information about our origins.

Also of interest is that the Martians use the primates from Earth to transmit their genetic code. The Martians are less interested it seems in just the survival of their own locust appearing species, but in keeping their genetic code or a piece of their make-up alive. They experiment on primates and give them greater mental capasity to insure that at least of part of who they are survives. This is reminiscent of the ideas we have kicked around that maybe humans are just one step on the evolutionary ladder - that someday, when we are perhaps extinct, the parts of ourselves we are implanting in our machines may live on.

The moving is disorienting and yes, uncanny, as it brings up supernatural beliefs that most people have moved beyond (ghosts and devils) and gives them a scientific explanations. Also, the idea that we were merely monkey-like creatures that were experimented with and are still under the control of the locust-like creatures is horrifying and humbling. Man comes off in this movie as a very small creature and all of our accomplishments, including our governments, science and military institutions appear childlike compared to the Martians. The final scene with the two main characters just staring in shock at this realization is also experienced by the audience. We have gone on a wild ride. The movie had some faults, but the images and disorientation of the film stays with you long after the lights have gone up.

The Fly (1958)

While the movie did have elements of horror, it seemed more akin to a Greek tragedy than a "monster movie". The parallels to Antigone as mentioned in class are justified, as Helene Delambre tells her story to Francois Delambre and Insp. Charas and finally pleads with them to kill the fly as it is an abomination. Insp. Charas' killing of The Fly at the end of the movie, shows that like the play Antigone supports, there are some things that exist above the laws of man. All of the references to table manners throughout the movie (including the champagne that Andre sends through the teleporter to celebrate) and the fact that the creature is a fly (with all the images of decay, death and rotting food) make me believe this was a conscious effort by the writer and director to add another layer to the story. But what is the significance that Andre becomes a Fly, misses meals with his family most of the time, hides in his laboratory and drinks (beneath a cover) through his fly proboscis and Helene is shown so consciously serving tea in her perfect little tea set? I think these images were used to heighten the awareness that the rules of society (with all the etiquette it requires for the table) were being subverted by Andrea in his pursuit of knowledge. Not only did this pursuit take him away from his family and the rest of society when he locked himself up for weeks on his experiment (and also resulted in his son Phillippe always searching for his father like a modern day Telemachus - literally with a net at times) but took him down a path that perverted nature. Andre even takes the family's pet cat (some people feel their animals are a part of their family) and winds up killing it in the name of one of his experiments.

If you were to argue that society starts with the beginning of soap and cleanliness (Freud) then the image of the unclean fly seems perfect as one to oppose the clean table manners of society.

This is why the film seemed less like a horror film and more like a Greek tragedy. The family that was not whole at the beginning of the film due to the father's absence (and hubris) is restored only once the mother kills her husband. The last scene of the film has Francois take the role of his dead brother (he had admitted feelings for his brother's wife earlier in the film but had seemed to shut himself off from society's need for a family while pinning for his brother's wife) and the three: mother, new father and child walk off together as the screen fades to black. Society's norms have been restored by the death of the individual that didn't follow its rules. This is were the power of the film comes from; the other layers (including the guy with the Fly mask on) make for powerful images (what better creature to represent decay and uncleanliness than a fly?) and perhaps is what most people remember, but the film would have been just a "B" horror film without all the other wonderful layers the writer and director added to the story.