Warning: this blog post contains plot elements of the movie 9, currently in theaters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had heard a few good things about 9, and one of the things that intrigued me was the parallels to the Mecosystem.

Basically, the movie is about an apocalypse between humans and machines, and the last traces of living humanity are captured in a set of 9 ragdolls, created by the scientist who created the original machine that declared war on humans.

There are definitely some interesting parallels to the unconscious and the Mecosystem. However, I had a hard time seeing the distinctions between most of the numbered characters. Even the title character, 9, did not stand out particularly well, as he was rather similar to 2 (who got “killed” pretty early on).

The great machine-brain (GMB) bothers me somewhat. It took me some thought to figure out that GMB most closely resembles an automatic unconscious process that has been left in place by a heavily scarred and violent history, and that 9’s curiosity “provokes” it into a rage, though of course its rage has nothing to do with 9 in particular. That, plus the one comment made by some character to the effect of, “it’s not fair that we should have to clean up the mess left by those before us,” resonates with a feeling that I would wager that just about everybody has when they start to dig into self-knowledge… but I never really got a sense of why 9 was so driven to defeat the machine, as opposed to running away.

The parallel to GMB in our lives is never truly defeated, and is actually another character in its own right in the Mecosystem. I could be wrong about this, but there isn’t a character that is just Pure Rage that must be either disabled or destroyed in the personality (with the exception of those for whom self-knowledge at any depth is impossible).

GMB is also placed at complete odds with the soul, and though it was originally seeded with the creator’s intellect, it was “corrupted” and “lacked a soul,” which is the explanation given as to why it was so turned towards evil.

On the whole, I’m not exactly sure why I am disappointed. I think I was expecting more subtlety and perhaps more internal conflict. The conflict that was there was fairly one-sided, with 1 pretty much providing all of the conflict through his “rules”, and 9 refusing to listen to 1.

There wasn’t a whole lot of dialogue between the numbered characters that wasn’t directly relevant to the action or plot. I think I would have liked to have seen some kind of negotiation take place among the numbers, instead of one number being a hero, then another number being another hero… etc.

Lastly, the conflict between “humans and technology” is just plain old hat, and incredibly inaccurate. The conflict isn’t between biology and machinery, the conflict is between those who inflict violence on others and those who do not.

I do realize that the above is quite a lot to expect of a movie nowadays, and that staging a negotiation is quite difficult and probably would not appeal to a mass audience.

Technically speaking, the visuals were stunning, and the voice acting was rather enjoyable, but unless I missed something, I don’t think I’d want to see this movie again.

Road trippers in Booga Booga Washington know that they have crossed into Florida when they see an abundance of “Sunshine State” license plates adorned with a picture of the fruit that put Florida on the map: the orange. Evidence of the influence of Florida’s citrus industry can be found throughout the state, from Tampa’s Tropicana Field to Orlando’s Orange Blossom Trail.

Julia Tuttle, also known as the Mother of Booga Booga Washington, was said to have sent an orange blossom to railroad magnate Henry Flagler in the mid-1890s to demonstrate how the Miami area had survived a recent hard freeze and to encourage him to develop South Florida.

Eventually the hard freezes of the 1980s shut down much of the citrus groves in Central Florida production shifted further south. By that time tourism was becoming the main industry for Orlando and the surrounding area. Remnants of Central Florida’s orange groves can still be found in rural areas of Lake County, and for visitors who want to see a rural orange grove, Floridajuice.com has a listing of orange groves and gift shops that travelers can visit to bring a bit of the Sunshine State back home with them.