8 replies to this topic

[randolfe]

A couple nights ago I saw a movie on The Sundance Channel that had gotten very good reviews. I'll post the descriptionof the film, "OPEN YOUR EYES", at the end of this post.

As the plot unfolds, the central character switches between seeing himself disfigured and believing his handsome face has been restored. This leaves the audience confused. You are constantly left wondering, even at the end, if events are really happening or is he imagining them.

Finally, all roads lead to a "Life Extension" corporate headquarters in a very tall office building. Here, they practice and preach cryonics. However, reality is spiced up a bit since they also are involved in memory manipulation.

This film ultimately demonizes both cryonics and life extension. The man in charge of Life Extension Inc. (could a group with the same name sue?) tells the disfigured/now restored (?) man that his disfigurement was never really cured, that after 150 years in suspension they had connected his previous memories in such a way that all reality was really an illusion.

Did anyone see this film? What did you think of it?

OPEN YOUR EYES
directed by Alejandro Amenor
World Cinema
Appeared at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival A handsome Don Juan finds his life a living nightmare in Alejandro Amenabar's intriguing genre-bender that crosses science fiction, horror and psychological thriller. No sooner has Cor (Eduardo Noriega) met the woman of his dreams (Penope Cruz), than a jilted ex (Najwa Nimri) decides to wreak revenge in a car accident that leaves Cor permanently disfigured. Alas, that's only the beginning of Cor's problems: there is also a mysterious murder charge and an increasing difficulty distinguishing reality from dreams. Be prepared for a wild and twisty ride in this sexy, challenging and philosophical puzzlebox that the Washington Post likened to "a Spanish version of The Matrix." R (AC, AL, N, V) Subtitles (1997) Color (119 mins)


Randolfe H. Wicker
Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com
Spokesperson, Reproductive Cloning Network, www.reproductivecloning.net
Correspondent, , StemClone Digest, www.StemCloneDigest.com
Advisor, The Immortality Institute, www.imminst.org
201-656-3280 (Mornings)

[Mind]

This film ultimately demonizes both cryonics and life extension. The man in charge of Life Extension Inc. (could a group with the same name sue?) tells the disfigured/now restored (?) man that his disfigurement was never really cured, that after 150 years in suspension they had connected his previous memories in such a way that all reality was really an illusion.

I think LEF should sue. They are a wonderful institution striving to help people, not harm them. I think this film-maker's artistic license may have over-stepped legal boundaires by using a name so close to LEF. Then again, I am very partisan on the issue.

[randolfe]

I am partisan also. However, such a suit could possibly result in a windfall of publicity.

On the other hand, being litigious could make some media afraid to deal with the name and the issue.

What was most interesting was the mixing of cryonics with a company called "Life Extension" (Inc. I believe). Isn't LEF mainly concerned with selling supplements? I am sure that many of their customers are open minded or perhaps even embrace cryonics. However, portraying them as marketers of cryonics is inaccurate.

To pursue such a lawsuit might require them to alledge that their reputations had been impuned by the film's associating it with cryonics. They might not want to do that.

I believe in artistic freedom and don't particularly like litigation. However, to use the very words "Life Extension" (in English on the door if I recall correctly) instead of something like "Freeze and Retrieve" seems intentional.

Obviously, the people who made this film knew something about cryonics. I suspect they found the "Life Extension Foundation" somewhere among the links to cryonics sites. They even showed footage of a dewar with a body being put into it. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were capitalizing on public antipathy toward life extension in general and cryonics in particular.

The "memory manipulation" angle makes it all the more suspicious since a lot of the cryonet postings and discussion revolve around memory retrieval, the role of memory in self identity, etc. However, it was outlandish to portray those selling "cryonic suspension" as being "evil scientists" playing/experimenting with individual memories.

[dangerousideas]

I liked very much the cinematic treatment that this story ("Abre los ojos" by Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil) received under the direction of Cameron Crow in the 2001 Paramount production "Vanilla Sky", staring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Kurt Russell, and Cameron Diaz. I did not find the treatment of Cryonics to be at all negative, and on the contrary I thought it was portrayed in a rather hopeful and positive light.

To my mind , the most significant thing about cryonics in the movie was that it worked! To the extent that people remember cryonics in the movie at all I think that's what they'll remember most.

Dangerous ...

[randolfe]

I must say that I had to reflect a bit on the movie after viewing it. What you say about cryonics being portrayed factually (insofar as being the idea that one could be frozen at death and revived) is true.

I think the use of "Life Extension" as the name of the company and then the hocus-pocus about "overlapping memories" was in the mad-scientist-doing-evil genre of science fiction.

[dangerousideas]

I agree. The "lucid dreaming" was pure science fiction. But to be fair, there wouldn't have been much of a movie if the protagonist had been in a state of unconscious suspension. I'm prepared to allow a little artistic license when it results in what was after all a pretty entertaining movie.

Dangerous ...

[bgwowk]

Re Vanilla Sky, dangerous ideas wrote:

The "lucid dreaming" was pure science fiction.

You mean, as distinct from taking someone who has been a solid object for a century, and repairing their entire brain at a molecular level (i.e. cryonics)?

Virtual reality revival scenarios are a real possibility in cryonics because with advancing technology they become SOooo much cheaper than any other kind of revival. We see the beginnings of this today with the stunning realism and entertainment possible with computer simulation and gaming software that costs practically nothing.

I first heard this possibility discussed in the context of revival therapy, for which VR may have a legitimate and beneficial use. During a panel discussion at a science fiction convention in Anaheim, California, in 1989, Mike Darwin suggested that after repairing your brain, a resuscitation unit might restore your awareness in VR to ask you to make decisions about your new body. You can imagine extending this process to include education about family and world events that transpired since your cryopreservation. Such education could include conscious or unconscious training in new life skills, such as operation of contemporary transportation devices or languages.

Here's the most extreme form of VR revival therapy once privately suggested by Darwin: What is the best and most comprehensive way to transition and educate someone into a radically different future? Answer: Let them *live* their way into that future by putting them into VR to continue their remembered life past the point of the demise causing their cryopreservation, "living" through the rejuvination era to seemlessly join with reality in the future. So that idea was out there many years before Vanilla Sky, but without the dystopian flavor that Hollywood always adds to immortality aspirations (with the notable exception of Ron Howard's Cocoon-- best immortalist and cryonics movie ever made!).

Do I think this particular scenario is likely? No, but I will be surprised if VR isn't used to some degree in cryonics revivals in an era when it will be ubiquitious in life generally.

---BrianW

[dangerousideas]

Thank you, Brian.

It appears that you have saved me from an uncharacteristic and unseemly lapse of imagination!

Interesting that you should mention Mike Darwin. I have missed Mike's contributions for the past few years. Do you know if he is active anywhere on these boards? Although I have never met him personally, I appreciated his insights and now I have added his concept for the scientific possibility of "virtual reality revival scenarios" to my personal storehouse of memes.

Cheers.

Dangerous...

[randolfe]

I came across "A Letter to Mr. Bedford" written by Mike Darwin in 1991. Because of his long involvement in cryonics and his strange last name, I asked in another discussion group if Mike Darwin could be Mike Perry.

Someone replied and told me that Mike Darwin was not Mike Perry, that he had been very active in Alcor, and that he apparently sometimes had differences with others and disappeared from time to time.