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March 28, 2024, 09:53:10 AM

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Devs (2020) - new Alex Garland show

Started by surreal, March 11, 2020, 09:15:01 AM

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NoSleep

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on May 30, 2020, 11:16:06 PM
I don't think the idea is that they were "dropped in" at a specific point. We're just seeing their consciousness (at least the one we see throughout the main timeline of the show) reintegrated into the simulation, which includes essentially infinite different layers and "versions" of themselves. So the Lily we see in the ending sequence wasn't just dropped in at that point - that version of her was also born, grew up, got her job etc. - but something about those final two days triggered a memory or some kind of recollection from the consciousness that experienced everything we saw throughout the show.

Same with Forest - it's not that he was dropped any further back than Lily and suddenly woke up to find his wife and daughter were still there, it's that each version of them in each layer of the simulation now has awareness of the "main timeline" of events - triggered, in Lily's case at least, by the point where things started to diverge. In the show, for narrative reasons, it's the beginning of the show, but realistically it could have been triggered by any number of things. Like deja vu, I'd imagine.

Lily reappears at the point where we first met her and her boyfriend. She appears to have been "dropped in" because she, only at that moment, questions who her boyfriend really is and what he has hidden from her prior to that. If she hasn't just been dropped in then surely she would have "deja vu" sense enough to avoided this dodgy character, or even working at Devs.

When she meets Forest he appears to have saved his child and wife which means he was "dropped in" far earlier than Lily.

There seems to have been a purpose in where both were separately dropped in, which includes the creation of Devs and their involvement with it.

Alberon

He only built the Devs machine because his daughter died. In simulations where she lived there would be no drive to build a Devs.

NoSleep

Presumably the Forest we meet at the end was a simulation of one who had built Devs and has been "sent back" with that foreknowledge to prevent his daughter's death (and build Devs anyway?) On the day (or was it the day after?) that Lily gets sent back to, Forest is due to interview her boyfriend and offer him a job in Devs. Will have to rewatch to check what we actually see and know about that world at the end. I'm going from impressions of a single watch-through.

Alberon

I think the simulations just drop them in at the point they died in the 'real' world. The differences in the past had already happened.

Why they couldn't have set the start point earlier in time and therefore given Forest a great chance of stopping his daughter's death in all universes I don't know.

NoSleep

Watch the 2nd half of the last episode:

Immediately after their deaths we see Forest snapped back into sim mode by his girlfriend (Katie) and they have a conversation in the viewing room which ends with her sending him back to whenever to save his family (Katie visibly upset about this, but she does as he wants).

We see sim Lily vacantly looking out of her apartment window, then suddenly "future Lily" snaps into her consciousness. As she orients herself she looks around and is taken aback to see her boyfriend is alive again... obviously keeping quiet about what's happened to her (she doesn't know she's a sim) they end up on the bus to to the Amaya facility where they work. Before they part ways at work Lily asks to see his phone and finds the sudoku app and he takes the phone away from her. She goes off in the direction of Devs, which doesn't appear to be there (or at least we don't see it), although the artificial lights, etc leading to the site are all in place. Lily meets Forest who tells her they're in a sim and that it's based on multiple universe principle ("Lyndon's principle") and that they have been provided with foreknowledge as not all possible worlds are as fortunate for them as the particular one they currently occupy. While he explains this the lighting changes as if to show us that this is actually happening in multiple universes all slightly different.

Lily looks for Jamie and embraces him. The end.

Oh yeah... at some point (just after the conversation between Lily and Forest) they show us Katie (presumably post-deaths) and the lady politician are watching this in the viewing room and she is trying to get the funding to keep the project going (presumably Forest's obsession now becomes hers to keep some kind of contact with him), which means their universe did not come to an end... perhaps...

When Stewart is asked why he wrecked the "lift" by Katie (just after it happened) he says Devs has to be destroyed and then walks off.

We never get to know if it can see into the future now (which would definitely be of interest to politicians) as all Katie shows the politician is a glimpse of the two people that died, now alive in the sim, but in the recent, but alternative, past.

Dex Sawash


As a child I always enjoyed thinking about the infinite images of lady with tray holding a ketchup bottle unseen on these restaurant bottles, smaller and smaller forever.. Until the food arrived, anyway.



Zetetic

Quote from: Alberon on May 30, 2020, 04:52:22 PMWhen you go to sleep your conscious level changes, but your mind is always on.
Nah. I'm sure stuff's happening in the meat and that's important for various reasons, but I am definitely asleep and unconscious some of the time. As far as I can tell, when I wake up, anyway.

QuoteIf a copy of your mind is taken and played into a clone, or simulated, in a large floating computer, there's a distinct break. The new you is not directly connected to the old you.
It is from your point of view.

And anyone else has to put up with "distinct breaks" all the time, unless both of you are constantly awake and with each other, and yet still manages to cope with the idea of personhood.

Quote from: Alberon on May 30, 2020, 05:21:41 PM
I've been trying to find a link to an idea that suggests a way continuity can be maintained.
If we insist of physical continuity - big old bucket of meat that you get to keep if you're the real you. I'd rather we didn't though, because that sounds horrible.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

You wouldn't get me in one of those Star Trek teleporters, I'll tell you that.

I just finished watching this. I liked it overall but, sadly (and, perhaps, predictably) it got less interesting as it went on. I'm not sure the series ever topped the moment in the first episode when Sergei is reading the code, then suddenly freaks out. The actual revelation of what they were up to felt almost mundane after that.

Maybe I'm just a big thicko, but I really cannot imagine being told "You're going to do this" and then actually doing it, especially if it would kill you. Also, what with the many worlds theory, why was everyone so convinced that the projections were of their own timeline? I wrote an essay about determinism for an elective course at university, although I don't think I got great marks for it.

It was interesting seeing various motifs and whatnot crop up from Garland's other work - mostly Sunshine: The DEVS interior recalled design elements from the Icarus 2; Forrest obsessively watching the projections reminded me of the psychiatrist character in the solar viewing room; The security bloke going all kill happy was similar to the last minute introduction of the other captain. A bit less hacky here, perhaps, but it gives the feeling that Garland doesn't trust in his big ideas to push the drama along; Also, I assumed Katie would be trapped at the end, like Domhnall Gleeson in Ex Machina. The old geezer obviously wasn't all that bothered about terminating the project, which makes his cold blooded murder of Lily and Forrest all the more baffling (assuming that the Katie we saw talking to the senator was the same one).

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 30, 2020, 02:13:23 AM
Maybe I'm just a big thicko, but I really cannot imagine being told "You're going to do this" and then actually doing it, especially if it would kill you. Also, what with the many worlds theory, why was everyone so convinced that the projections were of their own timeline? I wrote an essay about determinism for an elective course at university, although I don't think I got great marks for it.

It's where determinism gets tricky. Some theories suggest that the very act of knowing your destiny would completely alter it, and it certainly makes sense that you would be able to deliberately not do something if you knew exactly what that thing was. The show seems to stick to a very strict concept of determinism, as demonstrated in a scene in one of the final episodes where Forrest shows a group of people a simulation of that very room about 10 seconds into the future, where you see them act out exactly what they just saw on the screen. But then you have the ending, which suggests that it is possible to go against it, to some degree or another.

There's a decent short story about the concept of determinism which I quite like: http://www.concatenation.org/futures/whatsexpected.pdf

Zetetic

I don't think the strictness of otherwise or your determinism gets anyone off the hook from "these causal relationships make no sense".


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on June 30, 2020, 04:33:00 AM
The show seems to stick to a very strict concept of determinism, as demonstrated in a scene in one of the final episodes where Forrest shows a group of people a simulation of that very room about 10 seconds into the future, where you see them act out exactly what they just saw on the screen.
That was the most confounding scene. As you and others have noted, the mere act of watching the projection would surely have changed how they reacted. Even if they carried on freaking out, it seems impossible that they would repeat the words and actions verbatim, with the same inflections and everything - especially when their freakout was based around the concept of free will.

phantom_power

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 30, 2020, 02:43:21 PM
That was the most confounding scene. As you and others have noted, the mere act of watching the projection would surely have changed how they reacted. Even if they carried on freaking out, it seems impossible that they would repeat the words and actions verbatim, with the same inflections and everything - especially when their freakout was based around the concept of free will.

There is no time travel though. Their reactions are always based on the fact that they have seen their reactions. There is no "origin" timeline where they behave that way without seeing the future

NoSleep

They could be humouring Forest, especially after Lyndon's expulsion. Just playing the determinism game.

phantom_power

I think it is fair to assume that as they don't know what is going on they haven't had time to digest what is happening and second-guess the future that has been set for them by the system

AV Club reckons that Stewart crashes the lift to kill Forest as revenge for Lyndon's death and because he doesn't think he should control something so powerful. Which makes a kind of sense, especially given the "I can't help it, it's pre-determined" kiss-off he gives to Katie