StudyGrowKnow

Is It All Part of a Conspiracy…

October 21, 2012 at 2:30 PM 2 comments

Or is it simply the natural result of technology speeding up?

My wife and I were recently talking about movies and their too-often frenetic pacing.  We happened to be watching an old James Bond movie starring Sean Connery in “From Russia With Love.”  While special effects were certainly part of the cinematic presentation, they were used sparingly and to simply further the plot and excitement.

“From Russia With Love” was released theatrically in 1963, yet in my opinion, it still plays well today for a number of reasons.  First, the characters are developed over the course of the movie, yet because they are interwoven throughout, the viewer doesn’t really focus on that fact.  Second, the pacing is slower, yet there is plenty of action and mystery that keeps the viewer thinking about what is unfolding on the screen before them.  Third, the special effects do not overtake the movie experience and in and of themselves become the experience.  Fourth, while most movies are predictable to an extent, this one had numerous realistic twists and turns.

If we travel back in time even further with movies, there will be of course, far less in the way of special effects.  Moreover, the camera angles are normally longer.  There are medium two-shots, but not as many close-ups as there are in today’s movies.  It was easier to film a movie in many ways in the days of old because of these things.  Today’s films, with all of its close-up shooting – especially during fight scenes – and the additional of very complex special effects shots tends to delay the movie-making process quite a bit.

Years ago people had to actually act because cameras spent more time on a person’s shoulders and face.  Today, action movies in particular are so filled with frenetic action that it is the action itself (or rather the editing of that action) that does the acting, not the actor(s).

As someone who has done some acting (both on stage and in independent movies), it is interesting to study the changes that have come to into play during the process of creating a movie.  I’ve also done my share of film shorts and trailers, so I know my way around a camera and sound and filming the right angle.  I’ve given all of this a good deal of thought and come to the conclusion that today’s movie plays like most video games.  I’m sure I’m not the first or only person who has thought this about movies either.

Movies do what they do based on the attention span of the average person and for the movie industry, the average person is young and male, just the type that also plays video games.  Who wants to play a slow video game?  BORING…

The action of a video game today is very fast-paced.  They didn’t start that way though.  In fact, the first video games were actually text-based games.  Text would be seen on the screen describing the situation and environment.  The player was given a couple of choices to either “open the door,” “go down the hall to the left,” or something else entirely.  It forced us to use our imaginations something that is not required in order to play video games today.  Movies have followed suit.

So where did all this come into play for me?  Well, I just sat through a few boring hours of a fairly new movie called “Battleship.”  It starred Liam Neeson and a number of other actors I’ve never seen nor heard of…oh, and Rihanna, you know, the singer.  She should stick to singing.  Of course, they gave her the obligatory “I’m tough as nails, but still from the hood” character, but none of it was believable.  In fact, there was precious little about this movie that was believable.  Moreover, it was extremely predictable and ridiculous.  Unlike a movie like Transformers where the movie is done well enough to actually draw the viewer in, “Battleship” lacked that so waiting until the movie was over became very tedious.

However, I did notice that after the movie spent what seemed like an interminable time “developing characters” and “waiting for the action to start,” once things got going, it also came fairly fast-paced.  This is the way it is and I think it’s deliberate.

Movie studios know that action movies are by far, the biggest sellers and since the average movie-goer to those types of movies is male and enchanted with video games, they feel the need to create movies that replicate the games.  They want people to come out of the theater having experienced something like a thrill ride.

All of this – in my opinion – has gone a long way in dumbing people down.  No one can hold a decent conversation these days.  No one can use verbiage without also including four-letter words.  Many people can’t complete a sentence without interjecting words or phrases such as, “like,” “you know,” “right?” “um,” “uh,” “ya feel me?” etc., etc.  In short, the art (and it is an art) of communication has lost quite a bit.

I even get it here.  People accuse me of being arrogant because of the way I write.  This is also the way I talk.  That doesn’t matter, because they don’t talk like that and when they come across someone who does, well it’s obviously arrogant on their part, isn’t it?

Texting is another thing that has helped people to appear stupid.  Abbreviations, slang, and everything else is all part of the process of today’s way of communicating.  It’s the norm.

Years ago, swear words were extremely rare to hear on TV.  Now, that has become the norm as well.  I just read that Tom Hanks while being interviewed on one of the morning network shows actually dropped the F-bomb, to his (and the interviewer’s complete chagrin and embarrassment.  In all seriousness for some people, if they couldn’t use the F-bomb, they would have nothing to say at all.

Again, I honestly believe that this is a complete reflection of how out of touch the average person is in society today.  They cannot explain themselves adequately and they don’t care to be able to do so.  They open their mouth and tripe comes out and they are satisfied.  It truly is tragic, yet I also think it plays right into the hands of the global elite.

The global elite does not want a society that thinks.  They simply want a society that receives with no questions.  It just doesn’t do to have a society filled with thinking people.  If you do, then that society can see through the lies that the global elite doles out in huge quantities on a daily basis.

Recently, a journalist went to a number of college campus to talk to the students about the recent 9/11 attacks in Benghazi.  Most students interviewed were not even aware of the situation at all.  In another example, after the first debate, some college students believed and stated that Mr. Obama should have been allowed to use a teleprompter because he appeared so out of touch and didn’t have adequate responses to the questions.  He hemmed and hawed and in some cases, there was simply silence as he appeared to be searching for words.

Rather than come to the conclusion that maybe Mr. Obama simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about, some students believed that it was his nervousness that caused the problem and he should be allowed to use a teleprompter.  What stupidity.  If someone cannot speak about situations, policies, and events that he should know backwards and forwards off the cuff, then using a teleprompter simply confirms that he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to read his answer.  A debate is not like a State of the Union address, where all the words need to be carefully chosen.  A debate is done to allow the viewer to understand just how much a candidate knows about a subject and how easily he can express his opinion.

But if you consider the fact that society has changed drastically as evidenced by the proliferation of video games and movies that reflect the same type of fast-paced frenetic pacing, it becomes easy to see how all of this has affected the way people communicate.

I watch a lot of pundits arguing for one position or another.  Most of what I watch sickens me simply because there is so little depth to anything presented.  I’m not saying I’m a genius.  Far from it, but what is being presented is offensive to me for the lack of mental stimulation.  The same is true in the print medium.  People write articles all the time that are so easily debunked.  But most people – or at least a large portion of them – seem not at all interested in doing their own research about a given position.

For instance, recently under Mr. Obama, the credit rating for the United States was again downgraded.  It is essentially because we are spending far more than we have and we are borrowing from other countries to pay for the things this administration believes is important to have.  On top of that, new taxes are being introduced and further burdening people who cannot afford to live with what they now make.  This does not even include those who are not working because they have no job.

One liberal wrote a response to this problem of a declining credit rating and she came to the conclusion that though the president wanted to fix it, it was the GOP that kept him from doing that, so to her, the falling credit rating was the fault of the GOP.  This is simply not true.

Yes, Mr. Obama wanted to “fix” the problem but he wanted to do so by raising the credit limit…again.  The GOP (and even some fiscally conservative Democrats) sided against that prospect, so the debt ceiling was not raised.  Did this create the lower credit rating?  Not really.  The credit rating would have gone lower even if the debt ceiling had been raised because we would have continued to spend more than we take in.

Look, it’s no different from the average person.  That person may have an excellent credit rating.  Then one day, they need a new car.  No problem.  Their credit rating allows them to purchase one within their means at a great interest rate.  Now, they are paying off their car and their mortgage, but their credit rating is fine.  They make more money than they pay out for bills by a good percentage, so they are good.

However, as things progress, they learn that the air-conditioner unit for their home goes kaput.  That’s $3,500 they don’t have.  They need a unit so they borrow the money or they use a credit card to purchase it.

Time continues to move on and other household purchases need to be made.  Eventually, they have a car and mortgage they are paying off.  On top of that, they have several credit cards that have been maxed out, leaving them no room for any additional purchases and they still have nothing in the savings account.

When other things crop up, they will need to open up another credit account or do what most people have done over the past 15 to 20 years and take out a line of credit based on the equity of their home.  They take out a loan of $60 or $80 thousand, pay some of the credit cards down and then pay for a nice vacation as well.

If this continues, obviously that person’s credit score is going to take a huge hit.  All they’ve done is what Mr. Obama has done; spent money they didn’t have so they had to borrow.  For an individual, the bank usually says – at some point – no more credit cards.  They refuse to loan out anymore money because that person’s debt-to-income ratio is so out of whack.

With the government, the only thing that can happen is a reduction in the credit rating, which is what has happened under Obama’s watch.  He blames Bush and the GOP.  The GOP blames Obama’s tremendous and nearly unlimited spending.  People will make their own decisions on this of course, but it is not as clear-cut as “the GOP is at fault because they did not want to raise the debt ceiling.”

All of this is to say that in my mind, this is why people continue to vote for someone they like as opposed to what he has accomplished (or not).  More than ever, today’s presidential election has become a popularity contest with the media leading the charge.  It’s Hollywood all over with the way a candidate is presented, to what they say, to how they schmooze, to what they wear.

It’s really a shame today that people do not have the capacity to really think things through, but that appears to be the way it is in society today.  If Obama accuses Romney of wanting to destroy Medicare, the people who want Obama to win will believe that simply because it seems reasonable to them.

It all reminds me of the commercial I saw recently about the two people talking about some product and the gal disagreeing with the guy because she saw it on the ‘Net and if you see it on the ‘Net, it must be true.  By the same token, pundits are believed simply because people believe that they don’t lie.

When Mr. Obama accused Mr. Romney of lying about the drop in oil drilling permits issued by the Federal government under Obama, people simply agreed that Romney had lied.  Never mind that the actual facts reject and rebuke Mr. Obama’s claim.

So the real tragedy here is what frantically paced movies and video games have done to our society.  I truly think they have played a large part in creating mindless droids of a sort who are not only not interested in finding out the truth, but wouldn’t be able to do it if their lives depended on it.  They prefer to be spoon-fed their information, in bite-sized amounts that are easily digestible.

I note that this is even the case with many TV sitcoms.  While they are not necessarily fast-paced in and of themselves, the more successful ones have quick, individual scenes that take place for a few minutes and then they are onto the next scene.  Even one of our favorite shows – The Big Bang Theory – does this.  There will be one very short scene in Sheldon’s and Leonard’s apartment.  After that’s done, the scene switches to another case of characters in Penny’s apartment or the next day in the lunch room, or another quick scene in the Cheesecake Factory restaurant.

Years ago, movies were created where characters were actually developed over the course of the movie through somewhat longish scenes.  People cannot handle that today.  I’m not sure I can handle that today, because every once in a while, I will put in a DVD of a movie I watched years ago and enjoyed.  More often that not, I find it a trifle boring to watch and I now know why.  Things simply don’t move fast enough, but in those days, they were not meant to move quickly.  It allowed the viewer to take the time to actually view and absorb the scene.  Today, you have to watch the same movie two or even three times in order to catch the things you missed the first time, all because the pacing was so fast and there is so much happening in the scene.

I wonder what will happen if movies, TV, and video games get even faster?  How will that affect individuals and society as a whole?  We expect a lot today.  Viewers want to not only be entertained, but we want to experience what we see.  We desperately want to be drawn into the movie experience because with the onset of tremendously realistic special effects, the line between reality and fake has been entirely blurred.

One day, a man will waltz onto the scene.  He will be a great-looking man, with a ton of charisma.  The world will quickly learn just how intelligent this coming man will be.  But what is most interesting to me is that this same guy – with all of his innate intelligence, worldly wisdom, charm and depth has something else that will literally “wow” the world at large.  He will have “signs and wonders” at his disposal.  This coming man who Paul calls the “man of sin”  in his second letter to the  Thessalonians, chapter two, will literally be a special effect of his own making.  He will be empowered by Satan and will do things like calling fire down from heaven and other unimaginable miraculous events.  Of course, he will also solve the Middle East problem as well.

Is it any wonder that this coming Antichrist will have to have the power to enthrall and gain our attention and worship with supernatural tricks up his sleeve?  Without them, he won’t even be able to hold half of the world’s attention.  With them, most will gladly follow him as if he is the Pied Piper.  His miraculous power will be to the world the natural extension of movies and video games, except of course he will be in our world, not on some two-dimensional screen.  He will be real and his miracles will be seen in real-time.

I believe that this is where this world is heading and when this guy comes onto the scene, people will not take the time to think critically about who this guy might or could be.  He will simply be accepted because of the miracles that he performs in live 3-D!

I believe Satan has been hard at work developing these things in society so that when the Antichrist arrives, any reticence that people might have had toward him will evaporate when they see what he can do.  The world has been and continues to be conditioned to accept these types of things as real.  This is not to say that video games or movies in and of themselves are bad (though there are plenty of bad ones among them).  I’m really talking about the method that game and movie producers use to create very realistic images, environments, and scenes.  In the background is the fast-paced, frenetic movement that catapults gamers and movie viewers along like a rocket.  That becomes part of the process though rarely is it focused on.  What it produces though are people who want more and want it to happen faster, with greater special effects and far more realism.

I find that for me, even when I wait in a doctor’s office, I need to be playing solitaire on my phone.  It makes the time go faster.  Just recently I’ve thought, “why don’t I read my Bible which is also on my phone?” and the answer – sadly enough – is that I have to slow way down internally to actually want to read.  It’s far easier to simply play a game to move time along.

I think Christians need to slow down.  We need to move with deliberate pacing in a world that is doing everything possible to speed up.  The faster we go, the less inclined we are to want to read His Word.  The less willing we are to sit through an hour-long worship service.  It’s all in the pacing and as I look at Scripture, it is very clear to me that Jesus had His own timetable.  He took His time going from one place to the next.  After Lazarus died, Jesus arrived four days later.  Jesus was able to sit down on the inside and be at peace with whatever He was doing at that moment.

I’m not.  I spend too much time racing from one thing to the next and not enjoying the road to get there.  This has to stop.

The world in general is going along at a breakneck pace and things are simply speeding up.  Those in the world seem unaware, but are truly being negatively impacted by it.

I believe that Jesus wants His children to slow down and learn to spend time enjoying His company reading His Word, studying His Word, memorizing His Word and praying.  It’s certainly not all we do, because we have to live life too.  However, this is far better than doing things the way the world is doing them – at a pace that is meant to not only keep us from enjoying His Presence, but is meant to create within us a desperation to keep up with the pace of the world.

I’d rather not.

Entry filed under: 9/11, alienology, Atheism and religion, Communism, Demonic, dispensationalism, Eastern Mysticism, emergent church, Gun Control, Islam, Islamofascism, israel, Judaism, Life in America, Maitreya, new age movement, Posttribulational Rapture, Pretribulational Rapture, Radical Islam, rapture, Religious - Christian - End Times, Religious - Christian - Prophecy, Religious - Christian - Theology, Romney, salvation, Satanism, second coming, Sharia Law, Socialism, temple mount, Transhumanism, ufology. Tags: christians need to slow down, fast-paced movie and games create a frenetic society, old movies compared to today's, people do not think for themselves anymore, society has become more hectic, technology has created a fast-paced society, the fast pace of society has created dumbed down people.