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Post by woojongpark on Oct 7, 2012 4:28:38 GMT -5
While I was watching the movie, I thought that it had many similarities with other novels.
The concept of erasing emotions reminded me of "Soma" from Brave New World. The person showing up on a big screen reminded me of "The Big Brother" from 1984. The whole society that was depicted in Equilibrium also reminded me of society of 1984.
Personally, I thought that Equilibrium had nice idea (Although not very original considering all the books that had similar ideas), but wasn't effective in "showing" that idea. Sure, I understand that the movie is trying to say that erasing emotions to stop war is bad. But the attempts to show that 'de-emotionalizing' is bad were just... not very appealing. At least for me. I think they should have put some more scenes showing how John Preston changes throughout the movie.
Also, I see tiny plot holes. When Brandt was having a conversation with John, I saw a glimpse of smile on his face. Isn't he not supposed to smile? I thought he erased his emotions.
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Post by esther on Oct 7, 2012 8:33:08 GMT -5
To me, I think this is a great movie. This was kind of a new world because Ive never saw a movie like this; people with no emotion. So I am watching it with great fun.
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Post by ExtremelyExtremeExtremist on Oct 9, 2012 9:02:47 GMT -5
While watching this movie, I thought that it was partly identical to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It is a book sets in future where firefighters start a fire in house to eradicate books (these futuristic houses don't burn, and the author was emphasizing what will happen if we read books poorly).
Plus, the process of eradicating emotions is similar to what is going in China. Their one-child policy uses inhumane surgery and drug prescription towards pregnant women to kill a second unborn child.
Your description of plot hole makes sense, but I feel that the government can't control people's facial expression by using drugs, and I think they are satisfied of the result.
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Post by |Ruchira| on Oct 11, 2012 6:15:07 GMT -5
I am reading 1984 at the moment for my Sociology class. And I have seen many similarities in the culture of that book and the culture is Equilibrium. In both, people are not allowed to show or have any sort of emotions and there are serious consequences for breaking that rule(Public Death). Also there are kids called the Junior Spies, in 1984 who basically watch over the adults making sure that they do as they are told. Both the book and this movie seem to have a lot in common. I wonder if the movie was based on this book.
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Post by lukejoo1092 on Oct 11, 2012 8:12:25 GMT -5
To start off, there is a reason why Brandt is smiling. It may be just a simple thing that the director forgot to put out or he just thought that it doesn't prove he feels emotions, but you can imply a reason once you see the whole movie. (I won't tell anymore in case of spoilers...)
In showing that de-emotionalizing is bad, I think the director done a good job actually. Instead of seeing the issue as "having no emotions is bad", I think we should focus on "why having emotions is so good". The movie mostly shows how Preston dramatically change thanks to how he can now feel. It doesn't focus on how corrupted and ruined the emotionally equal society is. Yes, in terms of seeking that the movie poorly expressed the downside of de-emotionalizing I agree. But I think we need to focus on how important emotions are, not why would it be so bad without them.
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Post by brandonina on Oct 11, 2012 16:49:39 GMT -5
Well, I don't know either why Brandt is really smiling. But as Luke said, we might find it out after watching the whole movie. Maybe, he just smiles but doesn't really feel anything, which smiling might be considered as simply an instinct of human kinds. I agree with how you connected this movie with 1984 and the Brave New World. They are both dealing with suppressing people's emotions and limiting their actions in order to maintain supposedly "equal" society. Harrison Bergeron is also another example that is related with this theme.
I think the movie wasn't trying to point out that having no emotion is bad. When the main character, John Preston, begins to feel, he begins to learn how feeling something is actually pretty good and appreciates it as the movie goes on. Therefore, the movie itself demonstrates us how emotion is a necessary thing in this society and no matter how good or bad it is, life is useless without it.
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james
Full Member
Posts: 129
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Post by james on Oct 13, 2012 22:53:16 GMT -5
What I found weird about this movie is that, to me, it doesn't look like they don't have any emotions. It looked like they have an emotion. Having a loyalty or respect to the leader is an emotion, asking questions which is a curiosity(it depends but still..), and did you know that having a calm attitude or being calm is also an emotion?
Anyway, what I think is that instead of saying that the movie is trying to show that erasing emotion is bad, we should think that having an emotion is good. The movie is trying to say that having an emotion is important&it is absolutely necessary
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Post by sergeyfen on Oct 14, 2012 0:05:12 GMT -5
I think Brandt smiles the movie just wants to show that even in best clerks like him with no emotion, emotion still remain no matter how much they erase it. And he is good guy in the movie and he resist taking medicine to finally regain emotions. Also i thought that movie tries to show that no matter what you do make people equal or whatever, nothing in the world is going to be perfect.
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Post by sazad100 on Oct 14, 2012 0:54:08 GMT -5
While watching the movie, it reminded me of the story we read "Harrison Bergeron" because in the movie they make everybody equal by clearing their memory and the story has the same concept, that is to make everybody equal but in a different way.
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Post by junilee26 on Oct 14, 2012 5:03:29 GMT -5
When Ms. Boyd said that we were going to watch this movie, I was really excited to watch it!! Because, I enjoyed the book "Giver", and I heard from my friend that the movie equilibrium is like the book giver. And so far, I'm enjoying the movie equilibrium and i think it's great that we're watching it!
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irin
Full Member
Posts: 101
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Post by irin on Oct 14, 2012 7:01:01 GMT -5
I think it is very interesting movie I can learn from this movie it is important to have fear if they don't have feeling I think they will have many murder and many poor things will died.
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Post by yeajinchoi on Oct 14, 2012 9:17:15 GMT -5
The movie had a good theme that it clearly wanted to show the audience. Unfortunately, they didn't deliver it very clearly. As I was watching the movie, I realized that they removed emotions to stop wars. But the fact that the men are searching for those who can feel and killing them a war itself? Anyways, the movie was okay. There were many plot holes too. Or maybe the actor was bad at acting. When the man was supposed to be emotionless, he would smile or look serious or confused. Aren't those emotions?
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Post by linnie on Oct 15, 2012 5:15:52 GMT -5
This will be really helpful to start our essay with. Because lots of you have various connections with this movie.
At first, when I watched the movie, I didn't understand what was happening but soon I could understand even though I still don't know the name of the protagonist. Anyway, obviously we can link this theme with Harrison Bergeron. Whole movie is very similar to Harrison Bergeron, which mostly focuses on equality. Watching this movie, I found it is an interesting theme to make a movie on. I could clearly see how the protagonist changed after stop injecting the medicine. After he could feel, and pretending he isn't a sense offender, I could still see the few differences. Like how he tried to save dog, Mary and many other people.
I think I have to finish watching this movie at home. I don't think we will have more time watching this movie.
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gb1708
Junior Member
Posts: 85
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Post by gb1708 on Oct 15, 2012 8:40:20 GMT -5
I agree with James, that they still have emotion.
Ex1: When John Preston killed Partridge. He had altruism
that he said "I do what i can to see they go easily on you" and he hesitated when killing him.
Ex2: The leader did his speech and got the agreement and applause.
Ex3: When John was taking to his leader in the beginning that the leader seemed emotional because his question was so profound and he seemed understand the situation of John like he knew that emotion.
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Post by mirim002 on Oct 17, 2012 9:04:46 GMT -5
When i saw equilibrium...i thought it was sort of sad. People cant have any emotions. Children telling off people when their parents didnt inject themselves with the no emotions injection. Also it was sad when they murder people with feelings and people who has color things. Like a red lamp or a yellow shirt. Equilibrium is fun but i just didnt think it was fair.
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