Primer

The methods used in the film Primer could be seen as either frustrating, or stimulating to its audience.  I found the beginning of the film as well as several parts in the middle to be confusing because many things in the plot seemed to occur without explaination or prompting.  It is true that this movie should be viewed multiple times to really understand the story line.  I don't particularly enjoy being confused through the bulk of a movie because it makes it hard to concentrate on the timeline and can be distracting while watching.  From the recordings we heard in class, it seems like the creator wants his audience to ponder and contemplate the meanings of his films.  I appreciated the brain-teaser style of the movie but I also like when the creator rounds it all off in the end.  This allows the viewer to go back to the film and look for forshadowing elements.  This, however is not the case with Primer and it is expected that the audience view the film repeatedly to accomplish the "rounding off" themselves.

Primer

I must admit that for the first 20 to 30 minutes of watching Primer I had no idea what the characters were talking about. As an animal science major physics is like a foreign language to me so I had trouble paying attention to the movie. As the film progressed it became clear that they were building a time machine and travelling to the future and past. However, I didn't think that the movie got any more interesting. The film made time travel seem almost mundane, the opposite of what I think of when I imagine that kind of technology. I thought that this was an interesting way of presenting the idea of time travel, rather than focusing on the advanced technology that would be required or the logic of time travelling, ethics seemed to be the central theme. This I also found interesting because the characters themselves don’t address the ethics or potential consequences of their endeavors. Primer met the director’s objective of being the kind of film that you don’t fully comprehend after the first viewing. In hindsight I enjoyed the film more than I initially thought. I left class kind of bored and frustrated with the film, but after some reflection I came to appreciate it. As I found answers to the initial questions I had about Primer I developed new queries about the plot. I appreciated that although Primer seemed boring and confusing at glance, it has many layers of complexity that allow the film to be revisited over and over with a new result. Sean Carruth and his film are a testament to the fact that you don’t need to spend millions of dollars to thrill audiences if you begin with a well thought out story. 

Limbo

When we play games, the visual effects and the music are the things that stand out to players. In Limbo, both of these things showed up to make the player feel very anxious to play. In the beginning of the game, the setting is in a very dark and gloomy forest and there is only one guy that you are guiding. The fact that the game was in black and white also added to my anxiety because I felt like something was going to pop up at me at anytime. The music also added to my anxiety because the music sounded very ominous like something was going to happen. As we play on with the game we realize that nothing pops up at us but that we are just naturally scared that something is going to happen. Another aspect of this game that makes it so addicting and also a little related to the supernatural is the fact that there are unlimited lives. In most other games there are a limited number of lives that you have but in this game there are unlimited number of lives but yet we are still drawn to it because the game is like a puzzle that we want to figure out. This game is not like any other game that I have played before because there were no directions and no background or storyline. The game just starts off with the boy in the dark forest and doesn't even tell you that the game started because I stared at my screen for 5 minutes expecting something to pop up but nothing ended up showing up. Another thing about game is that they don't tell you the directions and what keys to press. I was constantly pressing every key on my keyboard trying to figure out if they had any effects on the game. Finding out that the Ctrl button was the pull option took some time. Overall I think this game was very good because it was addicting, fun and makes the players use their minds and think outside the box but also having a little creepiness to it.

-Alice Lee

Limbo

As a game, Lymbo falls somewhat flat. Two dimensional platforming with basic puzzle solving is an archaic style of gameplay that has been done hundreds of times before. However, what makes Lymbo special is everything outside of the gameplay; a mysterious and dark atmosphere looms like an especially dense cloud, enveloping everything from the setting to the character and enemies in a fog of eerie tension. With no instructions, the player intuitively wanders through the black and gray woods avoiding the occasional spike pit with essentially no motive, only a sense that danger silently lurks. This lack of information is where Lymbo ironically shines, for the dark ambiguity of the entire experience is what drives the player to continue. While the search for answers or at least a hint of reason is not entertained by the short demo, it does give a taste of the somewhat supernatural elements the game has to offer.

Primer

There's a point in this film where it loses all coherence. When the narrator takes hold of being the driving force in the telling of the narrative, it begins to become hard to follow. I also felt like the two men went about this technology they had developed in a totally unprofessional and foolish way. Why on earth would you intentionally deceive your partner in work when working with something as fragile and uncertain as time travel? The main characters brought upon themselves all the problems they encountered. Had they not decided to go and punch some guy in face, none of their problems would have happened and they would've been able to create real and important social change. They initially talked about mass transit and space travel and settled for conning the stock market and March Madness brackets.

The Rules of Limbo

As someone who has never been a hard-core gamer I was very lost and confused when the actual game part of Limbo began. I didn’t know which controls to use or how to do anything and I definitely spent a decent five minutes sitting in front of my computer waiting for some fairy or elf character to show up and tell me what to do and at least 3 of those 5 minutes were spent wincing at the prospect of something spooky leaping out from behind a tree with the immediate effect of scaring the living daylights out of me. However, after those first five minutes were over I started pressing random buttons on my computer and eventually realized that I could make the character move. As the first episode continued I figured out how to grab stuff and move things and I was very happy to discover that Limbo is actually a very enjoyable game. Two thumbs up.

But more then that Limbo’s lack of directions for the player kind of has the effect of making the player identify with the character that goes beyond the bond created by being put in charge of the characters actions. Without directions or help of any kind, I am not only in charge of the well being of the character but also have to really think and apply real world logic in the character’s virtual world to keep the character from dying. In the few video games I’ve played there are invisible barriers and rules within the game that prevent the player from making the character do certain things. For instance in a Harry Potter game you can’t run into a pit of fire and in any game it doesn’t matter how fast you jump off of a tall building, as long as you land on “solid” ground you get to live. However, in this game I ran off the log and hit the ground at a weird angle, fell over, and died. It was tragic. The most tragic thing about it was that in real life I would know better then to take a running leap from a high place when trying to land on an angled surface, obviously that would not work and I would fall and break my ankles, and it is this knowledge about the outcome of such an action in my real world that made me feel so awful when I made the character go through with the act anyway in the virtual world of Limbo. In Limbo the player knows the rules of the game in the sense that the natural laws of our own world exist within this virtual world, it just takes a few deaths to figure this out.

Also, does Limbo have to do with the Limbo in Dante’s Inferno? From what I remember Limbo in Dante’s Inferno is a forest and this game, or at least the first episode, seems to take place in a forest.

Limbo

When I first downloaded this game, I was at unease by the fact that there were no directions or story lines.  I was on edge of the thought that something scary might appear based on the creepy, quiet background noises.  I was frustrated in the beginning, but I began to press random keys to get the boy to start moving.  This game is unique in that there is no prior storyline when you first enter the game.  It forces you to think on your own, and even though the graphics are not realistic, it still gives you a scare because it keeps you on your toes.  The game process forces you to fear the unknown, because in most points, you really do not understand what is going on.  The colors are simply grey, yet it creates so much anxiety.  It's creative in that it does such little work in the game, but the outcome is enormous.