We want a free soul - the real name and soul from "Colonial Invasion"

Geoffrey 2022-03-17 08:01:01

The Impostor I'm talking about here is a movie based on a novel by the famous science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.
The film was released in 2002 and was directed by Gary Fleder and starred Gary Sinise. Apart from the famous Philip K. Dick, everyone must be familiar with Gary Sinise, right? This uncle is prolific, and he has participated in countless shows, but the most impressive is Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump, right? (Gary Sinise almost won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role) Uncle's consistent and delicate acting skills are also perfectly reflected in this film, as if there is still the shadow of Dan Taylor's unyielding and unruly.
Seeing this, everyone must be interested in this little-known movie, right? So I hurried to Google and Baidu, but unfortunately, in the quite authoritative film review website Imdb, the score of this movie is only 5.9 points! Therefore, many people must have suddenly realized and shouted that they have greatly shaken their aesthetic concepts, but don't worry, as the so-called perfect movie does not exist, everyone has different criteria for judging, but objectively speaking, the performance of this drama is An orthodox sci-fi movie that is well worth watching.
The plot of the movie is very simple. In AD 2079, the earth has been suffering from interstellar war since 2050, so that the entire earth civilization had to go underground. The father of Spencer Olham (Gary Sinise), as a famous fighter, also died in the war. Since then, Olham has been furious, devoted himself to the development of new weapons, and actively participated in the cause of the struggle against the alien hostile civilization (Sintali). Finally, Olham made a major breakthrough in the research and development of new nuclear weapons, and saw the elimination of all evil. The days of power are just around the corner, but Olham didn't realize that everything around him was quietly undergoing subtle changes...
One day, Olham went to the laboratory with his colleague and friend Nelson (Tony Shalhoub) as usual, but found that the laboratory was heavily guarded. Olham thought it was just because of the needs of the development of the war, and he didn't pay much attention to it. However, only Olham's voice could be discerned. This made Olham suspicious, and then the two came to the new nuclear weapon, but met a stranger - Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio). After injecting psychotropic drugs into Olham's body, Olham fell to the ground immediately, and the surrounding soldiers carried him away immediately.
It turned out that Hathaway was an officer at the European Space Agency, specializing in Cintali espionage. They suspect that Olham is a spy sent by the alien civilization Sintali, and that he is a mobile bomb. But how can Olham believe all this? His memory from birth is clearly in his mind, and there is no empty space. Why do you say he is a spy, why do you say he is a cyborg?
Hathaway then showed him a video of a construction worker strapped to a specially made chair, a fast-turning screw saw tearing his body, and he cried out in pain that he was innocent. He had a wife and daughter, but no one took pity on him. The chainsaw ripped open his chest and took out his heart. At this moment, something strange happened! His heart turned into a bomb under a burst of blue light!
It turns out that Cintali's nanotechnology is far ahead of humans. They kill important human beings and then make an identical cyborg carrying a bomb in the hope of causing huge human casualties. This kind of cyborg has a quality, they don't know their identity and mission, their memories are all of their original owner, so these spies will become real "spies", because they don't know they are being used, Is working for others, so there is no so-called flaws.
Olham was strapped to the recliner and lifted up to see his colleague looking at him through the window. Their eyes are complicated. This of course included Olham's best friend Nelson, who looked at him and yelled that he knew he had an affair with his wife, but he didn't blame him; he also said that after your son died, it was me, it was I sat with you all night... These, don't you remember these? Olham roared piercingly, and even Nelson burst into tears. But no one dared to raise objections. Olham was taken to the dissection table. Under the influence of psychological and psychotropic drugs, he was completely hysterical. He tried his best to scream and babble to admit that he was a spy, and preached that he was going to destroy everything... At this time, he took advantage of everyone's defense and picked up The guard's pistol escaped from the interrogation room.
During the intense chase, Olham accidentally killed Nelson, which left him in agony and remorse.
Olham stumbles all the way to the ground, constantly under the influence of hallucinations caused by psychoactive drugs, and he always thinks of his beloved wife Maya (Madeleine Stowe). And Hathaway led the army to follow closely behind. In the end, Olham met the leader of the resistance, Cale (Mekhi Phifer), and made an agreement with him. Olham helped Cale get the medicine that the resistance desperately needed, and Cale wanted to help Olham get back to the city.
At the resistance base, Olham's identification chip was taken out, and he can traverse the city without being identified. When the two bypassed Hathaway's containment and came to the hospital where Maya works, they established a deep friendship, but on the way to the hospital, even Cale began to doubt Olham's identity, and even Olham himself began to shake his beliefs. Olham helps Cale get the medicine he needs, and Olham decides to look for proof on his own. He forces Dr. Carone (Tim Guinee) to do the identification for him. But when the identification machine identified the heart, it suddenly got stuck, and Hathaway led the army to the hospital. Cale rushed in and rescued Olham, but Cale was unfortunately shot. So Olham once again embarks on a journey to find the truth alone.
He finally remembered that he and his wife had been on vacation in the forest with his wife a few weeks ago, and they had been miraculously safe from the forest fire. But Hathaway had interrogated him before where the ship crashed, so...their ship crashed?
It seems that only by finding the spaceship can the truth be revealed. At this moment, Hathaway stood in front of Olham's identification documents, his eyes glowing with surprise.
Olham asked Maya to go to the forest. In fact, Olham was already determined to die at this time. He just wanted to see his beloved wife for the last time. Suddenly Hathaway led someone to chase, and Olham had to pull Maya and run deep into the forest. The two came to the remains of the spacecraft. Olham figured he could tell the truth by just opening the fuselage to see who the pilot was, so he struggled to get the fuselage off. Hathaway also brought people around, Olham shouted at Hathaway: You are wrong! You are mistaken! At this point, Hathaway ordered a ban on shooting, reassuring Olham that he was wrong, and told him to come over.
At this time, the spaceship hatch was opened, and what lay inside... was Maya! Olham couldn't believe his eyes, he looked at his wife beside him, then at his wife's body in the cabin. Suddenly the gun went off, a burst of fire, and the bullet pierced Maya's body. Olham was stunned. He lowered his body and hugged his wife's body, feeling great sadness and helplessness. At this time, Hathaway also came to his side to comfort him. At this time, a soldier suddenly reported to Hathaway. Hathaway turned around and found that there was a corpse in the cabin of the spacecraft. It turned out to be Olham!
Olham was shocked, he stammered: "Wait...like...if he's Olham, then..." Before he could finish, the bomb exploded, the bomb hidden in Olham's body exploded...
finally A scene where Cale saw the bad news of the explosion on TV, the news reported that a thousand people were killed in the huge explosion, Hathaway and Maya were killed. As soon as the camera turned, the reporters were actually interviewing - Olham! Cale's sister (Golden Brooks) asks Cale: Do you know him? Cale said nonchalantly: I don't know.
It can be said that the most outstanding part of this play is the ending, which is unexpected. In the beginning, the plot leads us to believe that Olham is not a spy. But with the development of the plot, even the protagonist himself can't be sure of his beliefs, so we naturally feel that Olham must really be a spy. But at the moment when the capsule of the spacecraft was opened, Maya was lying quietly, and we suddenly felt a huge shock and helplessness, especially seeing Maya being shot suddenly and Olham's sad tears. But it wasn't over yet, when Olham's body appeared, just when the protagonist didn't react, and we didn't react either, the bomb exploded... Everything was wiped out, as if none of this had ever existed. We are left with thinking, thinking about the essence of human existence, but the screenwriter or Philip K. Dick is not willing to let us go, so he saw Olham on TV again. No wonder Cale didn't know if he knew Olham in the end, and it was like a bottomless pit with an infinite loop, which would go on forever. In fact, in my opinion, whether we really know ourselves is also a mystery. This is precisely the writing feature of science fiction master Philip K. Dick. In his writings, everything has no basis for real existence, and everything is non-objective, which is somewhat similar to the realm of Zhuangzi. This is in such a helpless environment, making people think again and again, what is the essence of human beings? Or why does it exist?
Why do people exist? This is a philosophical question, and it is also a question discussed in many science fiction novels. It is also what many film masters like to express. This is the reason why we say that we have risen to the height of philosophy. The idea that "Colonial Invasion" wants to express is obvious. Is our memory the meaning of our existence? There are many movies of the same type, such as Oshii Mamoru's "Ghost In The Shell" which is one of the classics.
If existence is what we call the soul, this involves the concept of the soul. What is the soul? As far as "Invasion of Colonialism" is concerned, it seems that human memory should be human soul, but soul should be the freest embodiment of human nature. When even memory can be unreal, what else are we essentially real? What else can we call a soul?
In fact, whether the soul exists or not is a question that philosophy has long discussed. Does a soul independent of matter really exist? In what form does it exist? Where does consciousness come from and why does it exist? These are long and unsolved mysteries. The reason I think, in fact, may be because we can't separate the material and the spirit to exist independently, right? When we can't jump out of this circle, how can we see the essence? So we can only let the most mysterious, possibly the greatest creation of mankind, the soul, explain everything.
We can only keep guessing, keep guessing. Some people say that this is the ultimate purpose of life. Many art forms were born from this. In my opinion, all art exists to express existence. That is, it has risen to the height of philosophy.
Similar to the soul is the concept of a real name, but a real name is a very idealistic concept. The concept of real name comes from Hebrew mythology, which believes that everything in this world was given a name when it was created, and this name is its "true name". Note that the "true name" mentioned here is not the name we call it, but a quality of its own existence. It is also the embodiment of its divinity. From a certain point of view, the real name is the soul of all things, or, it is the key to unlock the soul. When everything is close to its true name, it is also close to the soul, and it is also close to God. Books on this subject include Ted Chiang's Seventy-Two Letters and Vernor Vinge's Real Names.
Whether soul or real name, it seems that all artists see a question: what is freedom and what is self? If the soul or real name is the truest freedom and self, why do we still lose self and freedom? Can a soul or real name exist without freedom and ego? In other words, will freedom and self without soul or real name exist? What is freedom? What is the ego? What is soul? What is a real name?
This may sound very mysterious, but it is only the most basic thinking of philosophy. No wonder some people feel that philosophy still exists in modern society! However, when the leading role of living in life becomes more and more obvious, and people's sociality gradually replaces individuality, the remaining independence will make people's brains miserable... Many people choose to be depressed, transfer, avoid... Finally, the self closed. There is another type of person who makes an effort to accept the change, and when the change is finally complete, the pain disappears.
But we must not forget that the pain of standing at the crossroads is the pain of growing up, and it may very well be the most memorable moment in life. Formal thinking at this crossroads makes us have to return to philosophical thinking, and return to essential thinking. Only this kind of thinking can maintain the most independent breath in our body, our desire to understand the essence.
So, whether it's the soul or the real name, these are the topics that these artists like to discuss, because what they show, or what they try to show, is their soul.

■ Appendix:
1. Philip K. Dick:
American science fiction writer who, in addition to the 38 still in circulation, has written a few short stories and a handful of works published in cheap pulp magazines, of which at least seven The novel was adapted into a movie. Although he was admired by well-known science fiction writers such as Stanisław Lem, Robert A. Heinlein and Robert Silverberg during his lifetime, he was rarely recognized by the general public until he was gradually recognized after his death. Dick's writing became a precursor to the cyberpunk genre, which described a morally depraved California society, with early novels exploring social and political issues and later works on drugs And theology, these depictions are actually based on his own life experiences, such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS. Alternate universes and simulacra share a common conspiracy setting, which is about a virtual world inhabited by common people, not galactic elites. “There are no heroes in Dick’s books,” says Ursula K. Le Guin. “But there are many heroes, and among those mentioned by Charles Dickens are ordinary people who are honest, loving, stoic.” One of the novels, The Man in the High Castle, created a new genre of science fiction—alternative history—for which it won the 1963 Hugo Award Best Novel. The policeman said: let's go! My Tears (Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said) This story is about a world famous man who wakes up in another parallel world where he is no longer a celebrity or even anyone know him. The novel won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1975. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel. In these stories, Dick puts the people he loves into an imaginary world, a world whose ideas and institutions he questioned. "I even questioned the universe, I wondered if it was real, I wondered if we were all real!" Dick wrote. Dick's stories often degenerate into seemingly absurd fantasies, with characters discovering that the world they live in every day is an illusion, arising from the physical world outside or from the vicissitudes of an unreliable narrator. "All his writing begins with the fundamental assumption that there is no single, objective reality," wrote Charles Platt. "Everything feels wrong, the floor underfoot may very likely move suddenly, and the protagonist may discover that he has lived In someone's dream, or he may enter some drug-induced state and feel better than in the real world, or into a completely different universe." Charles Platt|Platt, Charles. (1980). Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction. Berkley Publishing. ISBN 0425046680 When someone also writes about this characteristic argument and paranoid atmosphere, we sometimes describe it as "Dickian" or "Phildickian")"
Main works:
"The Man in the High Castle"
"The Man in the High Castle (1962)" takes place in a staggered American world, the difference is that the Axis powers won the Second World War in this world. The novel is credited with defining a new genre of literature, "alternate history," and is the only Dick novel to win a Hugo. Aside from Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik, it's one of those primers worth recommending to Philip Dick fans.
"Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?"
"Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)" is a novel about a bounty hunter who goes after an android (android) fugitive and experiences a moral turning point. This inspiration influenced a famous movie in 1982: Blade Runner. It merges and reinforces an important question of Dick: what is true and what is false? Humanoid robot fakes or real people? Should we see them as machines or humans? The bounty hunter must compromise between these two dilemmas. Its film version, the famous "Blade Runner," and
"Ubik"
in 2005 Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.
"Flow! "My Tears"
"Let it flow! My Tears (1974) is about a TV star in a futuristic police state who wakes up one morning to find that he has turned into a nobody and even lost his survival identification. While not considered one of his best novels, it was the first to be published after many years of his hiatus, a period in which his reputation began to grow, and he received John Camber The Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction and the only Dick novel to be nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula.
"Mind Scan"
Scan of the Mind (1977) is a science fiction novel from the perspective of police investigation cases. The story describes an undercover agent investigating drug crimes who consumes a large amount of deadly drugs in order to maintain his undercover identity. This work has been adapted into a film, directed by Richard Linklater, and will be released on July 7, 2006. This is Philip Dick's most recent best-selling novel.
VALIS
VALIS (1980) is perhaps Dick's most postmodern and autobiographical novel, detailing his own hypothetical encounter with a holy spirit. This work is also considered to be the most planned work in academics, and was also adapted into an opera by the well-known American composer Todd Machover. Dick's later works, especially like the VALIS trilogy, focus on autobiographical content. "VALIS" is short for "Great Automated Living Intelligence System", which Dick used as the title of one of his novels (and continued the theme in at least three of his novels) and went on to develop a theory- --VALIS is a generator of actual existence and a tool for contact with alien planets.

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Extended Reading
  • Blaze 2022-03-20 09:03:08

    There's also a 102-minute director's cut, I'll watch it again if I get a chance.

  • Joaquin 2022-03-27 09:01:21

    The sci-fi setting of bio-replicant identity is very creative. It is disappointing that the male protagonist's process of fleeing to seek the truth is cliché. The ending is a highlight. Aliens did not appear quite pit

Impostor quotes

  • Major D.H. Hathaway: ...and when I'm not happy, no one's happy.

  • Major D.H. Hathaway: Oh, I see you've learned to patronize, as well.