Digitopia – page 14
On this page and the next, I wanted to explore two movies that really influenced my writing behind Digitopia.
I say two as both these stories have driven different parts of the narrative, but while I started off thinking they related to distinct parts of the script, it was around the third or fourth draft that I realised these two threads were intertwined and essentially a synergy happened when merging the distinct parts of the script.
It’s actually in these specific pages where I think the synergy kicked into the script which is why I wanted to save these two blog posts for these two pages.
The first movie that influenced me the most was the 1999 science fiction action film The Matrix starring Keanu Reeves.
There’s a lot of themes in here that resonated with me when I first saw it and it changed my perception of the art of storytelling. I’m not going to go into a review of it, there’s many excellent reviews. I wanted to just delve into the two ideas that helped me on this page and from the pages going forwards.
As a slight update to this page, I was interviewed on the Comics2Movies YouTube Live Stream on June 28th 2020, we spoke in a lot of detail about this movie specifically. I’ve embedded that video in here for you to enjoy too.
Be sure to check out their excellent channel directly on YouTube, the content is really well thought out and there’s lots of interviews with comic book writers and creators where they dive into some excellent topics, there’s a strong sense of community and a live stream on Sundays to get involved in – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_qFZeJQpLMDMAVIYg17DQQ
Open eyes see the truth – or is it an active choice?
What the matrix did really well was to tell the idea of an alternate ‘truth‘ that is hidden away from the world at large. I wanted to work with that idea, that the ‘truth’ in Digitopia is being hidden from the public realm, that Yale is able to manipulate whatever circumstances are happening around him to control the populace’s perception of the truth.
Yale doesn’t need to be in the limelight, he can control things better from the shadows
It actually happened to me on a micro and macro level, all the time I’ve felt and still do that the truth of what is actually happening is drip-fed to us in convenient doses – what Morpheus does in The Matrix when he liberates Neo is to offer him the choice between the red pill and the blue pill.
Here it’s a conscious choice that Neo makes, but in the world of Digitopia, I wanted to set up an unconscious choice that people take not to search or accept the truth that Yale is perpetuating via Laika
Given the choice, many people choose to take the safe route and conform to what society expects of them, not to rise up and challenge the status quo. By creating the perfect capitalist society much in the same way the machines created a simulation that most people aren’t able to wake from.
This is how The Confederate regime was able to march back into Digitopia, Yale was able to create the conditions where the any action his puppet government took would look like it was reasonable to the masses.
Enter STAR
The second big idea that I loved about the Matrix is that the system can be turned off – in the next couple of pages you’ll learn more about how/if this was done (hard to explain without giving away any spoilers – but it’s only a couple of pages away).
When we initially worked together as a team we explored many aspects of how the Digitopians lived in harmony with digital technology and with nature, instead of depleting the natural environment similar to how the Confederates did.
The Digitopians actually augmented their environment through the use of Augmented Reality – Real time, without headsets, they were able to create different Utopian structures without having to destroy the land.
This is where STAR comes in and why Jay is trying to get back in and turn on STAR – Server Tiered Augmented Reality.
I won’t give any spoilers about STAR and the mission for bringing it back online – it only two pages away from here on page 16
I will delve more into the story of STAR and why it’s so important to get it back online on page 16, for now I wanted to share some of the influences.
On the next page, is a blog post on the other movie that really influenced my need to want to become a storyteller.
If you’re reading as this page went live then, the next page will go up on the following Sunday, if you’re reading after all these pages are live then just hit the ‘next’ link above, either way the best way to stay in touch is to join the mailing list by filling out the short form below.
As well as joining the mailing list you’ll also get a free digital preview of Digitopia 1.0.
Thanks for reading and I hope to see you on the next page.
Farhan
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