blog 8

Mellencamp challenges the arguments regarding Bukatman’s ideas on virtual technologies and immersive experiences in numerous different ways throughout his text. He uses The Matrix as in example of how his ideas are different from Bukatman. Bukatman discusses how science fiction films are incorporating more and intense special effects which eliminates and creates a simple narrative. Whereas Mellencamp refers to the narrative in The Matrix as “central” and “fashioning new forms…and narratives in which conventions of cause-effect logic, like reality itself” (90, 91). Disagreeing with Mellencamp Bukatman refers to narratives in movies like The Matrix as playful. In the article it states that special effects in the digital age are helping enhance the narrative which disagrees with Buktaman that narratives are being dulled down due the special effects. The Matrix seems to be more of a game then a tradition film, because the audiences are put into the virtual computer world of Neo and we are absorbed into his world. The reason it is not a video game because we are unable to control the outcomes of the movie and the actions Neo partakes in.
According to Baudrillard a hyperreal is “the product of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace without atmosphere” (170). In similar terms it is the imaginary real. In The Matrix humans are unable to actually send their bodies into a computer world, but we can hack into computers and use computers by knowing the proper knowledge to use computers. The Matrix is using hyperreal by instead of having a movie with people sitting at their computers it sends them inside a computer world, creating an imaginary real.