Evaluation First Draft

Evaluation First Draft
12/02/09
Zhang, Xuan
2001: A Space Odyssey is a very classical and great science fiction film and also be considered as the ancestors of science fiction film. But it is also seen as the most difficult film and the most boring film. As to me, I really appreciate his imagination about space, human evolution and technology used in his film, but the long and difficult film really makes hard to focus.
This 1968 film was directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Arthur C. Clarke. The film today is recognized by many critics and audiences as “one of the greatest films ever made”. This film got four nominations and finally won one for visual effects. This film has three main characters: Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman, Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole, William Sylyester as Dr. Heywood R. Floyd. It was consisted of four plots: the dawn of man; the lunar journey in 2000(untitled); Jupiter mission, 18 months later; Jupiter and beyond the infinite. As to his imagination and design and music in this film, I really appreciate it.
The first plot brought us to the African desert and a tribe of herbivorous apes. They were finding food and did not know how to use tool. They found a black monolith; and one monkey was fascinated by this and finally knew how to use a bone as a tool and weapon. In the second plot, a similar monolith was found in lunar and it sent signals to Jupiter. In the third plot, a spaceship named Discovery One was bound for Jupiter. It contained 2 astronauts, Dr. David Bowmanand Dr. Frank Poole, and 3 other astronauts in hibernation and also a super intelligent computer HAL 9000. Finally, they conflicted with HAL and HAL killed everyone except Dave. He at last disconnected his power and HAL stopped. During the fourth plot, Dave arrived at Jupiter, but he became old and being a fetus again.
This film was released in 1968 but provided us a visual feast and a lot of surprise. This film was long and hard to understand, but it gave us so much space to think. In the film, Kubrick used a very solemn genre to show it and talked a serious topic about the human development and future. He wanted to tell people more, but different people had different views towards it. So this film seems more like a multiple choice to people and is worth seeing again and again. In this film, he also made some imagination, such as the super intelligent computer would overcome and conflict with human beings, human would land on lunar and Jupiter, the shape and functions of spaceship and so on. All of these could be seen as a miracle in science fiction.
Kubrick wanted to show us many things and let people to think more. The mysterious black monolith appeared three times during the film. And every time it appeared, people’s situation would improve. First time it taught herbivorous apes how to use tools, second time it hinted that people should explored outer space, third time it made Dave to become a fetus. Kubrick seemed to want to show that people’s wisdom also needed the help of outside. Also, the super computer, it was clever than human. It brought up a very severe question, what was the degree of human’s dependence on tools and how we controlled to not exceed that degree. If we exceeded, maybe we would be destroyed by the tools.
Though the short dialogue and tough meanings makes me hard to focus, the visual feast and thinking outweighs that. In general, this film is worth seeing and thinking again and again. The director wants to show us more than we get. The serious questions about human development should be considered seriously.
Works Cited:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_(film)
2. http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html

evaluation 3

This chapter introduces me a new thing: portfolio. I am not familiar with that before. This chapter introduces both writing portfolio and literacy portfolio. It gives me a general idea what include in both portfolio and what are they used for. Also, it gives an example about how the portfolio works which makes it much easier for me to understand. I appreciate this chapter that let me know much things I do not know before. I do not know before what portfolio is and how it be used and how important it is, but now I get much useful information.

evaluation2

After reading some articles about evaluation, I understand better now. As all of these are new to me, I do not quite understand at first. But now I learn more, narrative, rhetorical analysis, individual reflection and evaluation. Developing your criteria and purpose is fundamental to evaluation essay. The evaluation essay may vary from person to person because of the criteria. I have already watched the film we need to watch, but I do not understand it well. There are still some things that confuse me. I will look for some background about the film and set up my own criteria as soon as possible.

A new start

The group work has already done, a new assignment is coming. This assignment is new again and different with other we did before. This time is a evaluation essay. We are required to see a film first and then write a evaluation essay based on it. The evaluation is different with analysis, since evaluation needs our own criteria. So we should find some information about the film from the web site first, then look it carefully. Next find something interesting to you and set criteria, and then begin evaluating. This sounds interesting to me and I hope I can enjoy it.

Group work3

Till now we have already done our group work. This is the first group work I attend in America and I really like it. I experience the joy from team work and learn much from it. We, as a group, work together to create the web site and collaborate with each other. We try our best to make it appealing and attractive, and also make it concise enough which will not bother the readers. We also put some pictures and videos on it which will be more interesting for readers to look. Needless to say, I like our group and appreciate our group work.

Group work 2

Our topic is about facebook and we choose to do a web site. As we spill up the categories and each of us do one part, we do not have much callaboration till now. I have not created a website before, so I hope I can do it better. I hope I can make it attractive, and at the same time, contaning much useful information.

Group work

This week we begin our group work. We can choose whether website or video to do something about technology. Our group chooses the topic about facebook. We focus on the privacy issues of facebook and how to use it safely. We prefer to do the website. We spill up the categories and each of us does one part. It sounds very great. But I still have some problems especially the language obstacle thus making me not be so involved. I will try my best to overcome this problem.