LP0 ON FIRE posted:

I skimmed over a lot of the responses, and I've seen pretty much all that was mentioned, all of which feel like relics of the past that don't touch on any forward thinking subject matters that I'd expect by now. It seems we've hit a wall, at least for now.

Black Mirror had maybe slightly brushed itself onto a few scenarios, like experiencing being virtually trapped in a room without dying for thousands of years. People discuss whether it's moral or not because they were a simulation and not a real person, but this is an invalid argument since human thinking is substrate independent. Though having a subjective experience being tortured basically for thousands, or perhaps trillions of virtual years could be a very real thing in our near future, and reproducing this as a story on film in a convincing way is important for humanity to take a step back and consider how we should go about our decisions in the future.

Without sounding like I demand pure science fiction, why don't movies ever have the main characters be what humans become in the future, like non biological beings in a virtual reality? I'm not talking Matrix style VR, but a completely abstract version of themselves and their world that can be portrayed in a movie? Maybe beings span across multiple existences and can experience several worlds all at the same time. This could make movie scenarios more multidimensional, and seeing something on screen other than your ordinary human.

Why do movies need to have humans or animals in them anyway as their characters? Have we even explored non-character movies much? I really liked the idea of Rubber where a tire gains unexplainable self awareness and blows people's heads off with telekinesis, although it's not worth repeated viewings.