(no subject)
Does anyone know any good sci-fi mystery flicks like Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor? Something slightly escapist with a good puzzle element. Bonus points if they're kind of Noir.
Dark City is about a man who wakes up in a bathtub with only fragments of his memory, and then discovers that he has apparently been a serial killer on the run. It's soon revealed, however, that the entire city is being controlled by strange psychics who shift people's identities around every day -- although, for some reason, the sun never rises. As the man tries to piece together who he really is and where his memories come from, he comes further into conflict with the psychics. Eventually, it's revealed that his old identity has been completely lost, his memories are merely the most recent fabrication of the psychics, and that the city itself is on a giant space station of sorts, the inhabitants having been abducted an unknowable time prior. In the end, he develops his own psychic powers, defeats the aliens and gives the city a new, and permanent, shape, letting people begin to truly live for the first time.
The Thirteenth Floor is a murder mystery about a bunch of computer scientists who invent a virtual world set in 1930s America. Before the head designer is killed, he leaves his assistant a note inside the virtual world telling him that the world is a fabrication: the assistant is initially confused, as he believes the designer was talking about the world they built together; but then he discovers that their own world is a computer simulation, so that there are, in fact, three tiers, with theirs being the second and with himself being a computer program. The murderer turns out to be from the top tier: he's the person on whom the protagonist's design was based, and he can "log in" to himself whenever he wants. This is all complicated by the fact that a program from the third tier discovers the world above (itself a simulation, remember) and gets transported to that world when a technician is killed while logged into him. In the end, the same thing happens with the killer from the top world, transporting the protagonist there, where it's revealed to be the future.
There's something about these themes that I find really intriguing lately: a revelation that the world is a sham, the seemingly hopeless fight against that revelation, and then a redeeming promise of a new, genuine beginning. The sci-fi elements are fun, too.
Dark City is about a man who wakes up in a bathtub with only fragments of his memory, and then discovers that he has apparently been a serial killer on the run. It's soon revealed, however, that the entire city is being controlled by strange psychics who shift people's identities around every day -- although, for some reason, the sun never rises. As the man tries to piece together who he really is and where his memories come from, he comes further into conflict with the psychics. Eventually, it's revealed that his old identity has been completely lost, his memories are merely the most recent fabrication of the psychics, and that the city itself is on a giant space station of sorts, the inhabitants having been abducted an unknowable time prior. In the end, he develops his own psychic powers, defeats the aliens and gives the city a new, and permanent, shape, letting people begin to truly live for the first time.
The Thirteenth Floor is a murder mystery about a bunch of computer scientists who invent a virtual world set in 1930s America. Before the head designer is killed, he leaves his assistant a note inside the virtual world telling him that the world is a fabrication: the assistant is initially confused, as he believes the designer was talking about the world they built together; but then he discovers that their own world is a computer simulation, so that there are, in fact, three tiers, with theirs being the second and with himself being a computer program. The murderer turns out to be from the top tier: he's the person on whom the protagonist's design was based, and he can "log in" to himself whenever he wants. This is all complicated by the fact that a program from the third tier discovers the world above (itself a simulation, remember) and gets transported to that world when a technician is killed while logged into him. In the end, the same thing happens with the killer from the top world, transporting the protagonist there, where it's revealed to be the future.
There's something about these themes that I find really intriguing lately: a revelation that the world is a sham, the seemingly hopeless fight against that revelation, and then a redeeming promise of a new, genuine beginning. The sci-fi elements are fun, too.