Dark City

Work Title: Dark City
Medium: Film
Episode Title:
Year: 1998
Writer(s): Alex Proyas
"Original" Writer: Yes Own work?: No
Summary:

from imbd.com. John Murdoch awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of beings known as The Strangers who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. Now Murdoch must find a way to stop them before they take control of his mind and destroy him. Summary written by Anonymous

Era/Year of Portrayal: present_day
Distinctive characteristics of the world in portrayal:

The world (and memories) change nightly under the direction of a group of mysterious strangers (who seem to be aliens). Other than that, it's the world of 1998.

Technology

  • Name of portrayed presence-evoking technology: the entire Dark City
  • Description of the technology: The "Dark City" is a city where people seemingly live normal lives. However, they are really being manipulated by "The Strangers", who alter the city nightly and implant memories. The Strangers do so using machines, which are never really explained. The machines give the Strangers power over the city and the people within it. Dark City is totally real to the people within it. So, in a sense the technolgoy is part of the changing of the city.
  • Nature of task or activity: Doing everything in the city that normal life entails.
  • Performance of the Technology: The technology functions well until one man begins to realize that his life isn't real.
  • Description of creator(s): They are a group of otherwordly men. They're bald, pale, able to fly and have telekinses (can lift objects with thier minds). They all appear to be middle aged except for one creepy child.
  • Major goal(s) of creator(s): They create the city in order to learn about human souls. Is a soul the sum total of memories?
  • Description of users of technology: All normal people within a city.
  • Type(s) of presence experience in the portrayal: spatial_presence
  • Description of presence experience: It is like being in a normal city.
  • User awareness of technology during experience: They are unaware. The only one who notices something amiss is the protaganist. And Keifer Sutherland, who is aiding the aliens.
  • Valence of experience: Most of the people seem to find life unpleasent. A murderer is loose, and the city generally seems to be a unpleasent place to live. There is no sunlight.
  • Specific responses: Well, everyone's memories are implanted and are totally false, so in that sense memory is distorted.
Long-term consequences:

In the end the protagonist defeats the Strangers and re-meets his wife for the first time. Sunlight pours into the city and the aliens are banished. The ending is happy.

Other:

Coder name: Amanda Scheiner
Coder email: amandags@temple.edu
Coder affiliation: Temple University